Eleven fictional viewpoints
These descriptions are fictional satire, not quotations or evidence of political beliefs or affiliations.
01 Wall Street Big Money Financier
How to Tariff the London Desk's Research Credits
Step one: note that she sponsored a bill that would create an import fee on countries with an undervalued currency. Step two: declare the London desk's internal research credits undervalued, since New York never agreed to their rate. Step three: charge every London note a fee at the elevator. Step four: book the fee as New York revenue, then watch London reprice the shared lunch tab in retaliation.
02 Silicon Valley / San Francisco Ivy League AI Founder
Who Lies in State When an API Dies?
A 2011 campaign asked for the remains of the last American living veteran of World War I to lie in state, and lost to a ceremony at Arlington. So why does my deprecated v1 API, whose final client is a dental office in Dayton, get only a changelog line? Who authorizes a rotunda for a legacy endpoint? And would anyone block it, or merely schedule a webinar?
03 Venture Capital
Three Counselors, Zero Advisory Council Brochures
When McConnell appointed Capito as counsel to the majority leader, Portman and Fischer came along, and that made three. Our fund's 'Operating Advisory Council' lists forty names and has counseled no one since the logo shoot. The managing partner proposes cutting it to three, then asks whether any of them can be un-appointed before the LP dinner.
04 Institutional Investors
Footnote on the Adjective Our Stewardship Code Lacks
The 2019 letter urged the EPA to develop enforceable federal drinking water standards.¹
¹ Trustees circulated this adjective as a possible amendment to our Responsible Stewardship Principles. Counsel replaced it with "enforceable-adjacent," then "aspirationally firm." The only rule the fund currently enforces is the offsite parking validation, which is checked twice, in person, by a very serious intern.
05 Data Center Operators
Recreational Racks, Medical Racks, and the Curtailment Notice
Operators read that she accepted and supported the legalization of medical marijuana, and ask the utility for the same two-tier rule: recreational load, medical load. They expected leniency for imaging clusters. Instead the utility, delighted by the sorting scheme, ranks every rack by purpose and discovers the streaming racks never trip a breaker, while the radiology rack alone gets curtailed first, for being the only one that was honest about its label.
06 Frontier Lab
The Lab That Requested a Model Zoo
A lab reads 'zoology at Duke University' literally and requests the zoo: cages of checkpoints, a keeper, feeding schedules for compute. Staff are disappointed to learn the field studies animals, not released weights, and that no enclosure holds anything unsafe. One evaluator still pins the taxonomy chart above her desk, calling it the only safety framework that ships with a field guide.
07 Chinese Communist Party
Memo on the Four-Day Acknowledgment Gap
MEMO. File notes that after the result was called by every major outlet, the subject waited until November 23 and then issued a statement recognizing that Biden would be the next president. Analysts are alarmed: our own results are acknowledged days before they occur, which makes them unfalsifiable. Recommendation: install a four-day pause so that agreement looks spontaneous. Pause approved retroactively, effective last Tuesday.
08 American Union Worker
The Piggyback Index of Notice 14-C
The steward calls it the Piggyback Index: how many unrelated items ride inside one notice. The ADVANCE Act was incorporated into the Fire Grants and Safety Act, a rider count of one. Notice 14-C, a fire-extinguisher inspection, also smuggles in the parking lottery and a vending contract: index 3.0. Only the extinguisher tag was left unamended.
09 White Collar Professional in an AI-Threatened Group
Appraisal of a Review Conducted by Avatar
Assessment of a remote visit. Capito voted to increase Telemedicine funding in five West Virginia counties; my annual review was also held remotely, with my manager attending as an avatar who has a better haircut than he does. It listed my strengths, prescribed a development plan, and advised follow-up in six weeks, or sooner if my headcount worsens.
10 American STEM Worker Over 45
Form 7-B: Relevance of Prior Field Study
Line 1: Applicants who earned a bachelor's degree in zoology must explain, in the box provided, how it prepares them for our legacy billing code. Line 2: Describe the habitat, migration pattern and undocumented mating call of that code. Line 3: Tick here if our system should read 'only surviving expert' as a retention risk rather than a job description.
11 American STEM Graduate Five Years Out of College (Not Ivy League)
Dana Advances to the 2nd Round, Again
Dana's inbox congratulates her on advancing to the '2nd round,' again. Her roommate, reading about West Virginia's 2nd congressional district, observes that this particular second at least came with an actual office. Dana says her second round has had no one in it since March but her, rehearsing in the hallway.