Eleven fictional viewpoints
These descriptions are fictional satire, not quotations or evidence of political beliefs or affiliations.
01 Wall Street Big Money Financier
Desk Marvels At Collateral That Could Actually Fly Away
Appraisal of one asset: a federal court ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to seize and sell a helicopter the company owned to pay an $8 million judgment. Collateral with rotors, enforced in kind. Our secured notes pledge 'brand equity' and 'workforce enthusiasm,' neither of which has ever been towed. Credit committee recommends finding one lien that could be physically sold, and a Marshal willing to try.
02 Silicon Valley / San Francisco Ivy League AI Founder
Education Field Autocompletes To Princeton, Founder Hesitates
A founder's onboarding form asks for a high school. He types 'Woodrow Wilson,' and autocomplete offers Princeton. Then he reads that the senator graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1969, with no alumni Slack and no feeder network, and the form wavers between 'unverified' and 'unscalable.' It files the entry under presidential namesake only, and asks him to retry with a better president.
03 Venture Capital
Partners Ask When Bluestone Farms Adds Dot-AI
Associate: 'Nearly five decades old.' Partner: 'He founded Bluestone Farms in 1977? Then where's the pivot?' Associate: 'Same name.' Partner: 'A rebrand, surely, a dot-AI?' Associate: 'No.' The room goes quiet, the way it does when a company outlives the fund that never met it. The partner writes '.ai' on the whiteboard, stares, and erases it, unable to improve a name that survived without an agency.
04 Institutional Investors
Instructions For Trustees Who Kept Only The Whistle
Step 1: Note that he said he would put his business interests in a blind trust but he would still coach basketball. Step 2: Observe that the one role he kept was the one with a visible scoreboard. Step 3: Ask which of our holdings has a scoreboard. Step 4: Discover the only position trustees attend in person is the buffet.
05 Data Center Operators
Where Does A Substation Sleep? Asking For A Campus
When a lawsuit said Justice did not live in the West Virginia Governor's Mansion in Charleston, a court had to define 'reside.' So why does my county accept a mailbox as the home of a forty-megawatt campus? Who sleeps in a substation? And when the inspector asks where the building truly lives, may the transformer demand a mansion?
06 Frontier Lab
Four Words Persuaded A State; Our Eval Needs Forty Pages
West Virginia was urged to vaccinate with the slogan "Do It for Babydog", four words and one bulldog. Our persuasion evaluation runs forty pages and has never moved anyone. Ironically, the red team's strongest result came when the model invoked a pet. The committee has therefore reclassified bulldogs as a dual-use capability, pending a mascot review.
07 Chinese Communist Party
Bureau Files Veto Prop Under Fertilizer Output
The governor vetoed a bill while he showed a prop featuring cow manure on a print copy of the bill.¹
¹ A fictional planning bureau asks which organ approved the prop, whether the manure met its fertilizer target, and why its own criticisms of drafts must be delivered in approved adjectives. It rules the prop a visual aid beyond its vocabulary and enters the manure under agricultural output, quota exceeded.
08 American Union Worker
Steward Notes Where The Word Alleged Stands
At the local, a reported safety violation gets a clipboard by Friday. So when the steward reads that his mining companies had alleged safety violations and unpaid taxes, she notes the reversal: here 'alleged' arrives first, in a clean hard hat, and the hazard is asked to wait outside. On our floor, 'alleged' is what management calls a leak until the ceiling tile files a grievance.
09 White Collar Professional in an AI-Threatened Group
Toothbrush Packed For Seat, Which Turns Out To Be A License
A court once had to rule on a constitution's demand that a governor "reside at the seat of government," and the analyst, reading the phrase literally, brings a toothbrush to her desk chair. IT corrects her: a seat is a software license, and hers was reassigned to the new assistant on Monday. Facilities now lists the assistant as the resident and her toothbrush as an unlicensed tenant.
10 American STEM Worker Over 45
Memo: Senior Staff Will Now Dim Two Percent Weekly
TO: Engineering. RE: Sunset Transition Program. Per leadership guidance, veteran staff will "probably fade off into the sunset." Facilities has implemented this literally: each senior engineer's monitor dims two percent weekly. Note that the yard-lighting controller, which triggers at actual sunset, answers only to Walt. His screen is at 61 percent. The parking lot is at zero. Please direct complaints to Walt.
11 American STEM Graduate Five Years Out of College (Not Ivy League)
The Babydog Index: Office Pet Parties Per Conversion Talk
Our startup's office dog got a catered birthday party Friday, so I am formalizing the Babydog Index, named for the bulldog of a senator who hosted a birthday party for his bulldog Babydog at the Capitol. Pet parties thrown, divided by conversion conversations held for me. Biscuit is at four. I am at zero. The index returns infinity, and HR has scheduled a celebration of that.