Eleven fictional viewpoints
These descriptions are fictional satire, not quotations or evidence of political beliefs or affiliations.
01 Wall Street Big Money Financier
Memo: We Have Sold the Furniture and Leased It Back
TO ALL STAFF. Having learned that Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds for a high school renovation, the desk has sold its own chairs to a friendly vehicle and leased them back at a premium. Seating is now an off-balance-sheet liability. Standing is a covenant breach. Please remain seated only in the quarter the lessor approves, and direct questions about the cushion to the lessor's counsel.
02 Silicon Valley / San Francisco Ivy League AI Founder
Founder Splits Startup in Two So Half Can Pass
My Chamber Attrition Rate grades a proposal by what survives the second room. A resolution that narrowly passed the Senate, but was blocked by the House still gets a screenshot, so I divided my startup into a pilot team and a customer-legal team and filmed the first vote. Investors now see 'narrowly passed' everywhere. Nobody asks what the other chamber did.
03 Venture Capital
Partners Appraise a River Route With a Fixed Terminus
Appraisal: the subject finished three trail-based channels, including kayaking the James River from the Allegheny Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay, using only weekends and recesses. Strength: one direction, one known endpoint, no pivot mid-current. Weakness: our own 'river of capital' slide has money flowing uphill to us. Recommendation: relocate the LP office to the bay, where everything arrives eventually and nobody asks for a distribution.
04 Institutional Investors
Trustees Fill Out a Two-Year Horizon Form
FORM 9-B, STEWARDSHIP HORIZON. Line 3: enter an officer who chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011. Line 4: state whether two years is a long-term commitment or a vintage. Line 5: explain why our own investment chair has rotated four times while 'perpetual capital' stayed on the brochure. Attach consultant letter.
05 Data Center Operators
Redundancy Review Compared to a Four-Year Standby Role
'What is your backup plan?' the inspector asks. 'N plus one,' says the engineer, 'like someone who served as lieutenant governor: four years on standby, then asked to carry the whole load.' The inspector nods. Outside, the diesel backup starts its monthly test and the neighbors call. 'Funny,' says the engineer. 'Nobody has ever protested a standby role at a zoning hearing.'
06 Frontier Lab
How to Pair a Lead Model, Per a 2016 Ticket
Step 1: Announce a second lead. Step 2: Recall that Hillary Clinton chose Kaine as her running mate in 2016, and the pairing was graded on a single Tuesday by an electorate that publishes its tallies. Step 3: Notice that your own pairing's safety review has been 'nearly done' since the models shipped. Step 4: Do not publish step 3.
07 Chinese Communist Party
Planners Question a Man Wearing Two Hats in 2009
If he served as governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010 and led his party's national committee from 2009, which hat was the real one? Who keeps the registry of persons holding two offices at once? And why does our own bureau need a committee to confirm that one person may attend two meetings in a single calendar year?
08 American Union Worker
The Verdict Shrinks Faster Than Our Raise
Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case, and the settlement came to $17.5 million, roughly seventeen cents on the dollar. Our steward now uses that ratio as the official conversion rate. Apply it to the three percent raise management posted Monday and you get about half a percent, payable after the classification review, which was itself appealed.
09 White Collar Professional in an AI-Threatened Group
Recusal Rule Locks Analyst Out of Her Own Hiring
The vendor's recruiter wrote on Monday, three weeks after I approved its pilot.¹
¹ Compliance holds that it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at the place whose budget she writes. I wrote the pilot budget. I am therefore barred from the vendor's job until the pilot eliminates mine, at which point I am eligible and unemployed.
10 American STEM Worker Over 45
The State Kept the Emails; My Employer Kept Only Me
Virginia keeps emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor in a reading room, so the knowledge outlives the staff. My employer deletes mailboxes after ninety days, then asks me to recall the reason behind the billing rules. I am the archive, unfunded, with no reading hours. Researchers may visit weekdays; I am told the coffee machine works.
11 American STEM Graduate Five Years Out of College (Not Ivy League)
Graduate Asks Alma Mater for a Recruiting Commission
Reading that he helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers, I took 'recruiting' to mean someone walked to their homes. Five years out, my recruiters have never left their inboxes. I emailed my alma mater asking which of us counted as enrollment, and whether recruited persons receive a commission. Admissions replied that the villagers, at least, got carpentry.
CitizenSuccess