Eleven fictional viewpoints
These descriptions are fictional satire, not quotations or evidence of political beliefs or affiliations.
01 Wall Street Big Money Financier
Desk Cannot Price a Memorandum That Required a Flight
The desk reviews the instrument without enthusiasm. In May 2019 he traveled to Guam and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Guam Department of Labor, then listed joint investigations, information sharing and staff training as deliverables. Our affiliate memoranda are executed by email and list one deliverable, an inter-office fee. Our staff training is a webinar, billed by the attendee, who is also the instructor.
02 Silicon Valley / San Francisco Ivy League AI Founder
Ethics Oversight Module Ships as Version 'Acting'
Vendor intake form, field 7: Ethics Oversight Module, version 'acting.' The founder squints at the record that Trump designated him acting director of the United States Office of Government Ethics, admires the labeling, and promptly appoints his own Chief Ethics Officer: a Notion page, last edited during a hackathon, with a rocket emoji for a signature.
03 Venture Capital
Partners Mistake a Nomination for a Letter of Intent
'Read it again,' says the partner. The associate reports that Trump announced that he would nominate Sonderling as secretary of labor, then waited about three months for a vote. 'So, a non-binding letter of intent with confirmatory diligence?' The partner asks to tour the data room and learns it is a hearing. 'Ours is a lunch,' he admits, and quietly retires the word 'rigorous.'
04 Institutional Investors
Trustees Draft a Fee Refund Under Supervision
Step 1: Note that the PAID program let employers correct certain violations by paying back wages under Department of Labor supervision. Step 2: List every fee the fund has quietly overcharged itself. Step 3: Repay it voluntarily, as a credit redeemable only against future consulting hours. Step 4: Record the refund as a win, and schedule the next voluntary disclosure for after the consultant retires.
05 Data Center Operators
Who Advises the Transformer That Never Answers?
If he joined the Wage and Hour Division as a senior policy advisor, in a division whose very name is an invoice for hours, who counts the hours our interconnection request has spent working at being idle? Why does the utility log every megawatt we ask for but never the twenty-six months we wait? And where is the senior policy advisor to a transformer 'under review' since the lease was signed?
06 Frontier Lab
Lab Publishes Literacy Framework It Cannot Itself Pass
The lab admires an AI Literacy Framework for employers, a document teaching people to read the machine. Ironically, its own model card runs four hundred pages, and the literacy test it gave its flagship was passed by memorizing the answer key. Staff conclude literacy is something one publishes for others, then commission a short framework teaching employers how to read the lab's framework.
07 Chinese Communist Party
Talent Table Lacks a Tier for Shepard Broad
¹ The cadre-ranking table assigns every credential a tier, yet its entry for a Juris Doctor from Nova Southeastern University's Shepard Broad College of Law reads 'tier: pending reorganization.' Reviewers wonder how a ministry-level post follows an institution absent from the central list.
² The table's compiler holds a certificate issued by the table.
08 American Union Worker
Picture a Clock That Counts Upward
Picture a clock that counts upward. When he joined the law firm Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart as an associate in November 2008, I imagine hours accumulated in tenths and sent out as invoices. On our floor the time clock rounds every minute down to the nearest quarter hour, in the company's favor. The minutes exist, brothers and sisters. They are simply owned.
09 White Collar Professional in an AI-Threatened Group
Opinion Letters Now Available, Opinions Sold Separately
She reads that he helped restore the division's practice of issuing opinion letters and takes it literally: letters containing opinions. She drafts one about the new workflow. The drafting assistant returns it as 'a neutral summary, sentiment: concerned,' and offers a premium tier where opinions can be enabled per seat. She declines. The opinion is sent anyway, in her name, and it is very positive.
10 American STEM Worker Over 45
Memo: Hold Raj's Ceremony Before the Batch Job Fails
TO: Engineering. RE: Ceremony policy. Observation: Scott Bessent swore him in at the Oval Office in a ceremony on October 9, after the title had been acting since April. Proposal: hold ours for Raj, who has run the billing batch job since 2009. Attendees: none. Refreshments: the batch job, which fails Friday.
11 American STEM Graduate Five Years Out of College (Not Ivy League)
Ping Ratio: Three Badges, Zero Notices
Guidance in March 2019 spelled out requirements for electronic notices at third-party worksites, so I invented the Ping Ratio: notices received divided by badges worn. At my contract site I wear three badges, from the agency, the client and the client's client, and receive zero pings. Ratio: 0/3. The cafeteria menu, however, reaches me daily, in full color.
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