One of the most exciting things about being an employment equity hire at Mitchieville is the large paycheque, meeting high profile people, the exciting work, and the complete lack of need for ability! As Press Release Co-ordinator reporting to the Ministry of Re-Education, I, August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, get to report to You, The People of Mitchieville, what our beloved Minister of Re-Education, Fenris Badwulf, thinks you should think. I am your personal Toronto Star!
Friend Manager 9000 This is an exciting new piece of software developed by fine folks at the Fenris Badwulf House of Incomprehensible Software. Friend Manager 9000 will handle all of your e-mail traffic, from routine business chatter, to friends and family. Today, I accompany Fenris Badwulf on a visit to the place where happy, productive workers work in third world conditions to produce the sonnets and deathless prose used by patrons of Friend Manager 9000.
It is only a few steps from the elevator to the spacious natural setting where Fenris keeps his stable of poets and artists who tirelessly produce for the Friend Manager 9000 project.
AHHvF: Well, Minister Fenris, how do you motivate your gifted artists to produce all that beautiful poetry and prose for the use of your clients?
Fenris: I lock them up down deep in the dungeons. If they want to eat, they work. If they want privileges, they have to work harder, faster, and more often.
AHHvF: That sounds so third world!
Fenris: Thats right. And none of them are getting out until I get an Order of Canada. And I can flood the dungeons with sewage at any time.
AHHvF: Thats great!
We proceed down a corridor to where there is a sun lamp pointing at a steel door. One of the fine folks at Mitchieville, Leslie, was there, motivating one of the artists.
Artist: No! No! Please!
Leslie: You have failed in your work quota.
Artist: No! No! Please, No!
Leslie: This ‘Sonnet 357B’ … you mention ‘You are Heroin for my soul’?.
Artist: Sonnet 357B? I, I write two sonnets an hour, twelve hours a day …
Leslie: I don’t like it.
Artist: I, uh, I, uh
Leslie: Heroin is already heroin for the soul. It is no good, this sonnet. No sunlight for you.
Leslie puts her hand over a hole in the door, blocking the sun lamp from shining into the spacious work environment.
Artist: No! No! I live on three cockroaches and two bowls of prune mush a day! I live in a room the size of a septic tank. Let me have my five minutes of sunlight! Aaaaaah!
Leslie: Get to work, you worm. Hurry.
Fenris: Excellent effort, Leslie. You are a model of efficiency.
Leslie draws a deep breath whilst Fenris, always a gentleman, kisses her on the leather gloved hand.
AHHvF: Your stable of artists here … they are all Canada Arts Council recipients?
Fenris: Every last parasite of them. Tapeworm poets, liver fluke novelists, and brain worm buskers. They should have thought about the consequences of their actions before they whored after taxpayers money.
AHHvF: These are the people that produce the poetry that your software produces?
Fenris: Only the ones we can dupe, drug, and kidnap. We bring them down, down here. It is better for the planet that way. The school pockets their Canada Council money, social assistance, and travel allowance. Their suffering is sweet music. I enjoy watching Leslie make them suffer.
Leslie: I enjoy knowing that.
Fenris: I enjoy their suffering even more, knowing that.
Leslie: I am going to The Club for dinner, tonight.
Fenris: The usual table?
Leslie: (nodding) Tonight, I wear my leopard ensemble …
So, there you have it. Friend Manager 9000. With love notes written by talented artists, and supplied to you by efficient professionals! I highly recommend this product!
I, August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, wrote this.
