What am I Doing?

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Rise of the "Empire"

Dear Diary,

In the past I have shared with you the disliking I have towards [...BEEP's...] accounting department (see here and here).  My biggest beef with them is the excessive use of the word "ASAP."  Normally it's the low-on-the-food-chain staff accountants that use ASAP the most, but this morning I discovered the problem is much worse.

Yesterday afternoon at 2:31 PM I received an e-mail from accounting asking me to provide them with my projections for when loans are going to have their interest rates reset.  On Mondays, I leave at 3:00 PM to go to my son's baseball practices.  I have been doing this for about three months.  I sacrifice my lunch hour so that I can leave early.

At 3:55 PM I received a voicemail from the person that sent the e-mail asking when I'll send them the projections.  I am out of the office and I am certainly not going to log on from home to do it.

This morning, at 5:38 AM the C.F. freaking O. of [...BEEP...] e-mails my boss and says, "For budget purposes, we need to input the most recent forecast of recasts by month ASAP.  We’ve asked Matt to provide this data."

Oh great!  Now the CFO and my boss are involved in this.  To summarize, based on this timeline, I received two "ASAP" requests in 1.5 hours and one CFO-sized "ASAP" at 5:38 AM.  Accounting, from here on out, is dead to me.  They are evil incarnate and shall now be known as the "Empire."

Now that I think about it, I think my story would make a great movie.  Here's what I'm thinking:

[Begin Mattrix's movie idea.]

From the bloated carcass of bankrupt [...BEEP...], an ambitious politician carved the Moronic Empire, a New Order of government meant to sweep away the injustices and inefficiencies of its predecessor.

Rather than offer the people of the galaxy newfound hope, the Empire instead became a tyrannical regime, presided over by a shadowy and detached despot steeped in the dark side of the ASAP.  Personal liberties were crushed, and the governance of everyday affairs was pulled away from the senate, and instead given to unscrupulous regional governors.

Accompanying the growth of the Empire was an unprecedented military buildup.  The many shipyards in the Emperor's domain churned out immense fleets of Star Destroyers and TIE-out fighters.  The Imperial starfleet maintained order in the mortgage industry, a role previously undertaken by Jedi Mattrix, a protector wiped out during the Emperor's ascent.

It was through fear that the Empire ruled.  Its power hungry lieutenants and technocrats developed greater and greater instruments of destruction to cow a rebellious populace.  This philosophy culminated in the creation of the Stupid Star, a mobile space station with a prime weapon of unspeakable power.  When fully charged, the Stupid Star's superlaser had the ability to destroy a planet by emitting thousands of ASAP requests.

[End Mattrix's movie idea.]

That's all I have so far, Diary.  What do you think?  I think if I work on this it might be great.  I can't think of anything else that has been done like this already.


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