Eleven fictional viewpoints
These descriptions are fictional satire, not quotations or evidence of political beliefs or affiliations.
01 Wall Street Big Money Financier
Veterans' Tuition Bill Lowers Price by Reclassifying the Buyer
Appraisal, flat: his first successful bill granted in-state tuition status to veterans residing in Arizona. A price that falls because the buyer is reclassified, not the product, strikes this desk as destabilizing. Our own 'qualified purchaser' status still requires five million dollars and counsel, and no legislature has ever lowered it. Recommendation: study the bill, then bill the study to the veterans' committee.
02 Silicon Valley / San Francisco Ivy League AI Founder
Founder's Book Form Demands a Co-Author With a Phone
The publisher's credit form has a field for collaborators, and the founder, eyeing the line that Gallego and Jim DeFelice wrote They Called Us as a two-person job, types in his language model. The form asks for a telephone number where the co-author can be reached for fact-checking. He lists his cofounder's. The cofounder, listed as 'Jim' by default, has not picked up since the seed round.
03 Venture Capital
Partners Discover a Shutdown That Names Its Successor
"In 2019 he endorsed Kamala Harris after Swalwell dropped out," the associate reads, "and Joe Biden after Harris dropped out." The partner sits up. "Each exit named who gets the support next?" He opens the wind-down folder for four dead portfolio companies; every notice says 'all stakeholders.' Legal drafts a handoff clause by Friday. Its named successor, it turns out, wound down in March.
04 Institutional Investors
Instructions for Reading a Three-Year Pilot Allocation
Step one: treat the line 'He served in the Arizona House' for three years as you would a pilot allocation. Step two: note that pilots at this fund become permanent line items with their own committee, whereas here a longer chapter followed in Washington. Step three: do not mention this to the consultants, who bill by the pilot.
05 Data Center Operators
Operators Ask What an Office Called 'New Media Operations' Draws
If someone can be Director of Latino and New Media operations, what is the load of such an operation? Does it draw megawatts, or merely attention? Who files its cooling plan? And when the county labels our campus 'ancillary', which of us gets to be director of anything?
06 Frontier Lab
Membership Lapse Beats Our Safety Pledge on Renewal Rates
Our staff recall that he let his membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus lapse, which he claimed was a financial decision. Admirable: a lapse with a stated cause. Our safety pledge lapsed when the card on file expired, and the auto-renew had been switched off to avoid a processing fee. Compliance found out from a receipt. It remains our only commitment with a billing cycle.
07 Chinese Communist Party
Footnote Mourns a Petition That Failed and Still Won
¹ The recall failed; Arpaio remained in office, the file says, until a later ballot ended the matter anyway. The Bureau has no column for a campaign that fails and then succeeds elsewhere. Our petitions never reach this ambiguity: they are approved before signatures begin, so 'failed' was retired from the forms. ² We have requested a column for 'late, unsponsored outcomes.' It is pending, and unsponsored.
08 American Union Worker
At the Plant, Candidacies Are Announced About You
In 2023, he announced his candidacy, which is how candidacies normally work: the candidate speaks first. At our plant the grammar is reversed. Management posts that your position is a 'candidate for realignment,' you learn it from a notice by the time clock, and nobody has set a date for the vote. The steward says a candidacy you did not announce is just a notice with better branding.
09 White Collar Professional in an AI-Threatened Group
HR Says I Graduated; Where Is My Hat?
The email said I had 'graduated' from my role, so I checked what that means. The article says he graduated from Harvard College in 2004, which came with a degree, a ceremony and a hat. Mine came with a badge-deactivation time and a line about 'exciting next steps.' By the literal definition, I am an alumnus whose commencement speaker was a shared drive.
10 American STEM Worker Over 45
Memo: Retention Primary Opens for Engineers Over Forty-Five
TO: All senior staff. RE: seat retention. Effective Monday, each engineer must win a primary (manager approval) and then a general election (reorg committee) to keep a desk. For reference, in 2014 Gallego won the Democratic primary and then the general election, a sequence we regard as dangerously reliant on voters. Our own process relies on a hallway conversation nobody records.
11 American STEM Graduate Five Years Out of College (Not Ivy League)
I Count the Resignations Nobody Required
I keep a tally called Voluntary Exits: quitting something you were not required to quit. The article says he was not required to give up his seat and resigned anyway. Score: one. Postings I read score zero, because everything is 'required': four years of a framework released in 2023, a degree 'or equivalent,' relocation. This week I left my tutoring shift to focus on applications. Nobody required it. My tally is two.
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