The Walton Firm Memos

This is a very exciting week for me because Chris Onstead has put up three Achewood strips,  and he hasn’t been this prolific for a while.  I’ve been anxiouse about the strip ever since he dropped the “you don’t always feel that way” bomb in a radio interview. Specifically, I’ve been worrying that he might go the way of other comic-strip greats Bill Watterson and Gary Larson: defiantly dropping the mike at a time of high popularity and exiting the public sphere with artistic fulfillment and audience reverance both going strong (not a bad thing for Onstead of course, but bad for those of us who are weak and hopelessly dependant on the continuing lives of his characters).

I’ve recommended Achewood to a lot of people over the years, many of whom do not find the strip as good as I do, and I think that the reason for this is that the way I have experienced the strip has made it more enjoyable to me. I first encountered Achewood in the cubuicle, which is where I most recommend it’s use. I was working my first real adult job in a suburban area which rested near the Microsoft campus both in space and spirit.  If you leave Seattle on 520 and take it past the 405 but short of its terminus, you will find this place. It is a wide plateau where the myriad and low-lying office glass is buffeted by Douglas Fir, and most lunches range from $6.00 to $8.95. Our work was in mild demand and technical in nature; it came in short bursts spaced with many days of comfortable tedium. Our skills were not especially unique, but our resumes had rolled off the copier in a year without crisis, and thanks mainly to this we had the security of the position.

Achewood is perfect for this environment. I imagined that  800 miles south, Onstead worked in a simmilar suburb: one surreally apart from the drastic concerns of many: where one man would make a living performing menial and unnecessary technical taskes, and another would be an inventor of fictional cats. Both of us had managed a fortunate escape of the manual labor a more just world would have fitted me with.

This alternatingly special and infuriating land is, to me, the special microculture in which Achewood is most poignant. I am not sure if it feels this way to anyone else, I am sure that most of it’s fans love it in some other way. When Onstead does inevitably curtail the work, which I am sure he will do in an honest and dignified way, my wishes for him will be the same as those back in the office-park spirit-realm: may you have blunts and nachos for all of your days.

This is a simple, messy sounding song, with samples about the lottery:

Lottery

Dear Mr. Tremblay, We are issuing you this letter of reprimand to detail the history of these events and our actions, as they exist in the record submitted to the court.

On march 14th, at a firm event at Dave & Busters you were said by several employees to have displayed signs of intoxication including slurred speech, impaired movement and spilled wine on your shirt. On this occasion you also referred to a coworker as a “fucking Celtics fan”, and were otherwise abrasive. As the firm maintains a strict standard of conduct for all company events, you were invited to an interview with H.R. At this interview You did not deny any account of your behavior and expressed regret. You agreed to take action to improve the quality of your conduct, and you agreed to enter conflict resolution if necessary. When asked if there was anything you could think of that may have impacted your work negatively, you said you didn’t know. When asked if you frequently had an unhealthy use of alcohol, you said you didn’t know. When asked if you felt any ill will towards your coworkers, you said you didn’t know. When asked if there was anything the firm could do to improve your disposition, you said you didn’t know. Finding your apology for the incident sufficient, we offered you three days of additional sick leave, and invited you to a voluntary meeting with HR to discuss these issues at a later date, should you choose.

After returning from your sick leave you said you spent some time in New Mexico, and that you were feeling well. You reported having had some time to reflect on your behavior, and said that you were generally feeling much better.

On May 19th, an employee expressed further concern about your behavior. She said that during a lunch break you told her you “hate this place”, “hate all these people”, and “don’t really like work very much”. Due to this you were made to attend a  meeting with an HR representative. At this meeting you were combative and stubborn, and you expressed little willingness to resolve the issue. When asked if the comments made were honest, you said you didn’t know. When asked why you made them, you said you didn’t know. When asked if you felt you needed more time to work on your behavior issues with HR, you said you didn’t know. You then agreed to leave for the rest of the day and return to work in a better state of mind. Upon returning to work the following day, your supervisor reported no need for you to attend a further counseling session.

On may 21st, you were brought into a conflict resolution session with another employee. This employee had complained about the volume of music played at your desk. You retorted that his language was abusive and threatening. You had reported him to say “My Chemical Romance fucking sucks”, “If I have to go through another day of this i’m going to snap all the fuck over you”, and “go back to eighth grade, you fucking goth pansy”.  Although we inquired, there were no other witnesses to corroborate these statements.

These incidents, though of absolutely no fault of yours, we want to stress, represented a pattern. We love you, as we do all of our employees in an appropriate way, and generally wish you the best. We discussed your problems with an old friend of ours over some rosemary tea. She agreed that your ills appeared to be self esteem related. After a nostalgic visit with our freshman psych professor upstate, our mind was made up: that your full recovery was not just in our mutual interest, but our responsibility.

We made a careful survey of your living environment and home life. Your relationships and material consumption were carefully cataloged. On june 10th, after you had made some selfish and unwise sexual decisions, we learned that your girlfreind of six months was planning on leaving you. It became our charge to confront her on this decision on your behalf. We decided to perform our intervention in a public place, and located her in a grocery store parking lot. We explained the delicate state of your emotional development, and made her understand that this was not the right time for this decision, as the impact on your workplace performance would be significant. As she was predictably resistant to this reasoning, we were forced to make a number of grisly and visceral threats,  ultimately winning her tentative compliance.

Although the relationship would ultimatly sour before the end of the summer despite our wishes, we like to think that our actions placed the timing of its demise at a place that was better for you to accept psychologically, as you were entering the fall then, and synergistically the fall of your life, not a green shoot thwarted by the summer happenstance, trampled irreverently in a young garden, but a  marred survivor of that fitful period, steeled toward the shrinking days with a cohesive and memorable account of past relationships. In this way, rather then  viewing yourself as a chronically thwarted, miscreated citizen in anomie of his own purpose , you would have at least a tentative understanding of yourself as a sexual being. Even if this would be a meager conception, we thought it would still make you now ready to learn the news of your child.

This Interview was prepared with special attention. We invited a volunteer from a local wiccan group to be participate, in order to provide an earthly and, if possible, motherly aspect to the session. We also purchased several lamps to give the room more comfortable lighting, and baked an assortment of items that we hoped would give you comfort. It was in this setting that we began to reminiss about your early days with us as a highly paid intern. You were a recent graduate from a toptechnical school, would work a minimum of 60 hours a week, and identified strongly with your department. The near nightly bar visits were thick with comraderie, and doused in liquor. like many nerds, you had not learned to drink moderately at a younger age, so in your now socially accelerated state, you imbibed to excess. Older hands at the firm would trade quiet smirks about you and your lot as a rowdy gang of swashbucklers in the peak of their lives, All of your darkened and reddened morning eyes hung on the office like Christmas ornaments, and the legends of the crew’s debauchery were strung through the break room chatter like pine garlands: Cheerfull decorations to us, holding effigy of those more energetic and optimistic days our backs ached to remember. Unbeknownst to you, lost in this blurred cacophony of young professional life, a pregnancy had occurred, to which you were attributed. We spoke to the young woman at length. She did not want you to know about the baby, as she did not care for you. She felt you were brash, insensitive, and humorless, she went on at length about the depth to which your conversations disgusted her, made her queasy with their collusion of boredom and cruelty. When we asked here if she thought you might be capable of raising a child, she uttered a series of grunts and half-cusses culminating in the word “trainwreck”, then rested her head on the table.

As the young woman was fearful of the medical risks of an operation, and felt she could not fully commit to raising the child herself, we arranged to adopt it. We felt it best that the breezes and grasses of the high meadow take charge of the princely marshmallow, so that it may be raised in natural majesty, and not be corrupted by the chronic alienation of our corporate culture. In the most innocent of surroundings is where we left it: on a shimmering day of spring, as dew drops burst into tiny sprigs of heat under sunlight, and legions of ants were busy at sorting the detritus left by winter tantrums, we took a short time to eat an idylic picnic lunch of dried figs and olive tapenade with rye flatbread. We delighted for some time in the baby’s soft giggling, its skin cradled in the gentle bosom of that mountain, before dawning our microfiber pancho’s and beating a sensible retreat.

Back in the late 20th century an accomplished economist was buying some vacation property out west. The real estate agent picked him up from town in an antique ox-drawn cart, hoping that he could tempt the businessman into buying the animal as a pet to complement his new rustic estate. “Yes shes a beautiful animal”, the real estate agent said. “its a four mile ride from here up to the ranch and she made it no problem, and this is a pretty heavy antique wagon too”. “I don’t know, the economist said, I’ll probably just give my relatives rides in a rustic-looking beat up old pickup instead”. At the end of the ride the real estate agent made another pitch “are you sure, we made it all the way up here no problem, thats an eight mile haul and she’s still going strong…”

“wait a minute,” the economist said, cutting him off: ”whose animal is that one over there.” In a corral to the side of the road was a beautifull prize bull.

“THAT bull” the agent exclaimed, “well its a well bred animal for sure, but it’s gored to death all 50 cowboys that have tried to break him.”

“Gored 50 cowbows!” the economist replied, “why he must be the strongest animal in this whole countryside, name your price.”

On the morning we emerged I remember a fan broke and our basement started to really bake. We were sweaty and crowded and getting anxious to crack the doors. Someone’s girlfreind was sullen in the corner, some fought, some gambled on what we’d find. Some gym-teacher-looking motherfucker was trying to quiet us but he couldn’t keep our attention over the outside screaming. It sounded as though there were some exuberant howls swirling around the surface. Upon our exit we noticed that Jocks were darting here and there about the new prairie, shirtless and with cargo shorts bleaching in the violent white sunrise. They were hoarsely and vigorously at the business of declaring victory. A smooth-chested one was holding an empty bottle like a club as he hugged me. We made eye contact as he let one go at top volume; swerving into falsetto. As his neck tightened and flexed, some blood rushed to his temples and then he wilted. He went doubled over for breath onto the next sap as if he were the youngest man alive. It was only about half of the campus males that had had this reaction, this becoming a new bullet of pale flesh; having un-torn hands and heads in the game. They were red eyed and shooting around us on the lawn, making us feel exhausted. These were children unwrapping a thousand-corpse Christmas present. The howlers trouped together as a nation, their amphetemal manifest not written but committed to the air in exuberant shrieks. Their constitution was fueled by probability, which was a purer fuel than faith, but did not seem to be burning away as quick. Aside from lighting up some cigarettes (i’m embarrassed to say, but even on the morning after, we called them silly things like “smokes”) the four of us were catatonic. “no more parents” one of us said sadly, as he watched a stocky and barefoot one scramble away from us awkwardly. I would have tried to laugh it off, but his face was far too grave.

Our startup is currently developing an innovative web platform to “centralize the web” by means of incorporating a variety of advanced web features along with our signature web services to meet a significant need in the market for efficiency and productivity. It will be completely web based and will have a focus on the consumer/user experience. We are currently seeking to recruit individuals with experiences and skills in web development, both server-side and client-side familiar with a broad range of languages, however, preferably HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Java, XML, XSLT, PHP, MySQL, AJAX, etc.

If you’re interested in working in a very energetic and exciting internet startup venture and would like to be part of the development of a revolutionary and new beta platform, please send your resumé and a short cover letter…

There are 85 words in this job ad and 5 of them are “web”, WE GET IT. Also, I don’t think “centralize the web” is a thing that means what you think it means, nor is “efficiency and productivity” a market per se.  “Focus on the consumer/user experience” is more or less standard boilerplate for internet startups, and “beta platform” is kind of confusing. Is the idea for the product to be a platform that is in beta permanently? I cant wait to sign the NDA and find out that the plan here is to develop a link aggregation site, nay, a link aggregation site with venture capital! whatever. Call me when the office gets a ping pong table and I will happily drop out of school and work for no money.

What if the plan here is to just get applicants guessing and eventually one of those applicants will accidentaly think of a viable business idea in that process, then the “executive” is 4 hours of paperwork away from patent-trolldom?

Perhaps there is such an explosively good idea beneath this inky slick that even hinting at what it might actually be would cause me to aneurism. Maybe they are afraid that Sequoia might drop the fat paper TOO SOON the second the business plan is spoken aloud?

As usual, I am likely being too harsh. There is probably an actual idea with actual value behind this, but the tech industry, (or in this case, it’s live-in boyfreind, the pitch industry) has a very serious language problem.  I am looking for a job ad that reads:

Energetic tech startup seeking a liberal-arts graduate who can actually put into consequential language what we can actually promise the market place. Must be able to define the terms “product”, “service”, “competition”, and “value”. A familiarity with the back catalogue of Wired Magazine preferred BUT NOT NECESARRY.

P.S. we cannot rule out that this blurb is really a cryptic personal add, rabbit hole for an A.R.G., rouse for the purpose of sociological research, or an A+ assignment for a really quirky  creative writing teacher. Stranger things have happened.

My father is currently the Board Chair of a hospital in Haiti, I am passing this along for him to help give an update of the situation there. More up to date information can be found on the HAS Blog.

DESCHAPELLES, HAITI – January 13, 2010 – Haiti has sustained a terrible disaster: a 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, the worst in 200 years. As many as 3 million people may have been affected. So far, tens of thousands of people have died.

Ian Rawson, HAS Managing Director on the ground in Deschapelles, provided this snapshot of conditions.

Ever since early this morning, a steady stream of vehicles, mainly the open-back pickups which serve as public taxis on Haiti’s roads, has come to the front of the hospital. In the back are one or two people, their legs or arms covered in bandages or clothes. HAS security staff rush out to the truck with a backboard or gurney, and bring the patient inside to be triaged by the emergency team.

Now, in early afternoon, a crowd of over 200 people are outside the hospital, friends or neighbors of injured patients. They rush to the arriving trucks and try to help to carry the new patients inside. Occasionally, the combination of the person’s injuries and the truck ride are more than can be sustained by the patient, and the family members, with great wailing, adapt to the shock of the loss of a loved one. A sound system has been set up outside, so that family members may be called into the hospital to meet with doctors.

Each patient is brought into the Observation Unit and quickly evaluated. Some are sent to for an X-Ray or lab test while others are taken immediately to the holding area outside surgery, where both operating rooms are being used full time.

All beds have been pressed into use, and still there are patients on benches. Gradually, some of the early arrivals and less injured are prepared for discharge.

Systems at HAS are working well; preparation and practice have paid off. The greatest resource, however, is the dignity and grace of people who have suffered a great shock and sometimes tragedy, and remain calm and show concern not just for the people with whom they have come here, but for others as well.

Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti (HAS), located 40 miles NW of Port-Au-Prince, was able to withstand the recent devastating earthquake and is currently operating with full staff helping victims. With mass casualty protocols in place, the medical staff is evaluating each patient, performing diagnostic tests and delivering life saving care. Due to the expertise developed over its 54 year history, Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti (HAS) is one of the few institutions positioned to provide timely hospital care for the injured. As the flow of people urgently seeking care increases over the next few days and weeks, our resources will be pushed to the breaking point. It is critical that we receive support to help us continue with our mission.

This is the most serious challenge ever faced by HAS in its 54-year history, and while we are currently coping with the onslaught of the injured, we urgently need support. At this moment, we don’t have the capability to accept material goods or personnel. Our greatest and most urgent need is for funds to pay overtime wages to our dedicated staff, and to buy replacement medicines and supplies. We will update the www.hashaiti.org website with news of relief efforts. To make a donation that will have immediate impact, please go to www.hashaiti.org. HAS deeply appreciates the many expressions of help and caring that are coming from around the globe.

…we were all wearing forced grins and our best black shirts, and we had hoped then that the crowd could sort of wash us in a way (cause we’d been bathing with sand and after a point you’d rather just stink). We wished that the thousand-head mass around the fires would be both alibi and punching bag and hold onto our liquor while not minding our breath. It would wait up with blue lights and a stocky polyester chest to deliver a stern warning, which we would treat as a  blessing. Yes, in that time we could wish for some wonderful things. I remember Carrie was still bored then. Still, like a miracle, non-plussed by the exuberance, and then by the panic that had come with that year, which was the strike year for those of you not paying attention…

Scribd, the website where anyone can publish their own documents, is an often overlooked resource.  These documents can be, like, political-tirade pamphlets, unpublished (unpublishable) books, business-school homework, whatever. The whole boat-and-parade is like a rowdy, misfit Google Books. Check it out sometime. I’ve discussed Scribd before of course, but the specific case I’m going to make for it’s potential tonight is this:

Some hero of our time has posted a whole bunch of WW2 training manuals. And for those of us raised in the post-rollerblade era who probably thought Bayonet use was just a straightforward jabbing of a blade into someone’s chest, we were wrong. WE WERE DEAD WRONG. There is a spirit to the bayonet, and were we not so softened by goldfish crackers and the ergonomics industry, we would all be living each day as if it were the result of vigorous training. They were the greatest generation indeed.

So this one time when I was twelve I was waiting for a bus at the kirkland transit center and this socially inept fat guy sat down next to me. The guy insisted on telling me all about his (presumably) imaginary life as a kung-fu master. I had no problem with this at first, but he was going on for a long time, and as his tales escalated I began to get pretty impatient. I was a pretty shy person at that time, so I didn’t, like, think about calling him out, but in retrospect, I was actually fairly pissed. I could have felt pretty justified coming at him with something like: “listen man, if pretending to be Bruce Lee is helping you deal with your self esteem problems, that’s great, but to me it’s really just a lot of bullshit that is of no concern, so stop lying and step the fuck off”.