Weekends in Cryptopolis

Buck is in Hell.

It is Sunday morning, and Buck is buried beneath a ton of worthless bullshit work down in the supply closet five floors beneath the client's super fortress. He anticipates being stuck here until 8:00 PM or so. He was here all day yesterday as well. He is alone. The weather outside is nice: high 60's, sunny and breezy, but he can't see it. The oubliette has no windows.

Buck learned this past week that the information gathered through the intranet site content inventory task he is performing will likely be shelved until the 3rd quarter of 2009.

That's right: 2009. By then the content that he inventoried will have changed drastically.

Yet the deliverables must be delivered. The project must be completed on-time and under budget. The show must go on. Buck does not receive additional compensation for the additional hours he puts in. And as to the fact that a relatively simple program could have been written in 2 or 3 days that would complete in just 5 minutes what Buck has been manually working on for over a month now, well, let's just say the client is paranoid and strictly forbade it.

As you might imagine, Buck is just about ready to blow a fuse.

Happy Holidays!

Superstar

Buck was desperate for someone to invent a way to record his dreams.

Last night he dreamed that he had backstage passes to a music concert, although it was unclear who the headline act was. Several of his friends were there, on guitars and keys or in the orchestra pit, but none of them are musicians in real life. Although the music had an orchestral element, it was actually something closer to popular easy listening music with an exotic twist, like something Sting could have put together. Buck remembers thinking in the dream that it was beautiful music.

The composition was well-suited for improvisational solos from various instrumentalists. Buck recalls a keyboardist and saxophonist taking turns. These solos were nice but nothing profound or exceptionally moving, though they contributed well enough to the melancholy of the theme. Then Buck sensed a commotion behind him, a ripple in the atmosphere. A special guest star had arrived: the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Yes, Prince himself was making a surprise appearance!

Buck watched the superstar as he strode to a roadie who handed him a strange wireless headset instrument. The microphone extended from one of the earpieces like one of those telephone headsets that only a lucky few manage to secure in the Cubopolis call centers. There was also a wire extending from it to an odd-looking keyed instrument with which Buck understood Prince would use to augment his singing notes. He made a few quick adjustments, flipped a switch, turned a dial, and walked out into the spotlight. It was all very smoothly and efficiently executed despite the need for haste.

Buck worried that Prince was handling it too casually. The top of the theme’s cycle was quickly approaching while Prince made his adjustments and walked out on stage. Would he jump in on time? Would the other musicians see him there in time to hold back and give him the musical space he needed to deliver the goods?

They did, and Prince jumped in at precisely the right moment. The instrument sounded like an electric clarinet. His solo was simple at first, weaving concise melodic elements into the theme with sustained, clear notes, and only the most subtle trills and flourishes. Buck approved of the inauspicious opening, but for a moment he wondered if Prince was sufficiently prepared to pull it all together. Had he rehearsed? It certainly seemed improvised, and Buck could see in Prince’s facial expression that he was searching for something new. Certainly The Artist was a professional musician who knew the forms and wouldn’t botch it with missed notes and such, but would he be able to turn the solo into something transcendent as everyone hoped?

Then, around the fourth or fifth measure of the first cycle, after Prince had left a note hanging in suspense begging for a resolve, he kicked it up a single gear with a syncopated walk down the scale, the final few notes of which he bent and chorded with harmonizing notes. From there he smoothly transitioned into a higher gear and took it places that only Prince could take it. It was aggressive and masterful, yet not overwhelming, and it added a totally different color to the canvas. He had found what he was looking for, and it guided him into a second cycle and he soared upon its wings from there. And just when Buck was wondering what the next musician to solo could possibly do to top this performance, the band neatly concluded the song at the end of the cycle with a well-practiced ending, Prince’s solo tying in perfectly.

The crowd went nuts, and Buck was excited to have been able to witness it. Buck got to shake The Artist’s hand before he was escorted to his limo, then Buck helped the roadies pack all the gear. Buck also congratulated and thanked the other musicians, but everyone was still gushing over Prince’s solo. The dream involved a few wrap-up kinds of things before Buck finally woke up to find it was still the middle of the night.

At first, his mind still clouded in the delirium of sleep, Buck thought about what an awesome musician Prince was. Then consciousness slowly educated him. There had been no concert. Prince had given no solo performance. It had all been in Buck’s head. The theme, the orchestration, the solos, everything. He frantically tried to recall the main theme, but he only managed to pull half of it together. The second half kept drifting into a Duran Duran tune, although he couldn’t name which one. The Duran Duran number was a less perfect rendition of what Buck had heard in the dream, as if deep in the recesses of the unconscious mind there is a wellspring of pure, perfect music that isn’t accessible to the conscious mind. Duran Duran had once tried to attain that perfection but had fallen far short and missed the mark, clumsily adding elements and chord changes where none had been needed. Now Buck had heard the real thing, knew in his heart that it had been original, never before heard or successfully brought to life in the waking world of ordinary mortals. Yet try as he might Buck could not recapture it so that he might share it with the world.

Despite this frustration he actually smiled as he drifted back toward sleep, for there was one aspect of the experience that could never be taken from him:

That solo had been his own.

Has Buck Lost His Marbles?

“Buck searched everywhere, but he could not find his marbles.”

Buck was indeed questioning his sanity, based on recent events. On Thursday he pulled the trigger and bought two more ball pythons, a pair of genetic morphs known as “pastels” (or sometimes “jungle pastels”), and they were delivered Friday morning at 10:00 AM. What an exciting day that was, but it kicked off a stressful weekend both for himself and the snakes. To experiment with the narrative possibilities, Buck decided to portray the events from the snakes’ point of view.

The tale as told from BP1 (male) in the first person.

_________________________

Mmm, it’s nice and warm and dark in here.

Shit! The hairless ape found me! The light! The light! There’s no place to hide! Where do I go? What do I do? I know! I’ll curl up into a ball and hide my head. Maybe if I can’t see it, it can’t see me.

Oh no! It’s got me, it’s lifting me up, probably toward its mouth. This is the end, hope it’s quick.

That’s weird, it’s not biting me. Hey! It’s putting me into a really small place. I like small places, but I don’t know this one, never seen it before, and it’s kind of cold. Let me flick my tongue and get my bearings, maybe there’s a way out.

Crap, there’s no way out. Ok, breathe, just breathe, try to relax, stay calm, wait until later and make my break then. At least it’s dark again.

Hmm, there’s something new over here, something kind of warm making some heat over on this side. Maybe if I…can…just…squeeze…around… There! That’s better. Still kind of cramped, but nice and cozy. Think I’ll take a nap.

Hey! What’s all that bumping around for? Can’t a guy get a little sleep around here? Just what the hell is going on out there? Is the world turning upside down? Damn! I’m upside down but I can’t right myself because it’s too cramped. Wait, ahh, that’s better, the world is right side up again. At least, I think it is. Crap! It’s changing again! I’m so confused!

What’s that thrumming vibration I feel? Is something coming to eat me? I don’t see any heat other than this little warm thing over here, ahh that feels sooo good. No, the vibration isn’t getting any closer. I’ll stay alert, though. I think I’m well-hidden, but some weird shit’s been going down, so I’d better not relax.

The thrumming stopped, but I’m still being moved around. Bizarre! Hiding places aren’t supposed to move! Whoaoaoaoaoaoa wha-a-a-a-at’s a-a-a-lll tha-a-a-a-t b-u-u-m-m-p-p-i-i-ing a-a-r-r-o-o-u-u-n-n-d? Ugh, this can’t be good. Aaiiiiiii! I’m sliding down, down, down, hope it doesn’t hurt at the bottom and DAMN! Did I just go UP really fast and do a 360 flip with a twist? What am I, some kind of acrobat?

I can’t take it any more! Help! Help! Somebody help me!!! Oh wait, that’s right, I can’t talk. No vocal cords. This sucks!

Is this shit going to go on all night? I’m losing track of all the stuff that’s happening. More thrumming, more lifting. Strange smell I just caught, like I’m not alone in this mess. Maybe someone else is in here with me. I think it’s been there all along but I’ve been so confused I haven’t paid much attention. And by the way, what does a guy got to do to get a bowl of water around here? The service here seriously sucks.

Oh now THIS is some seriously twisted shit. I can’t put my little forked tongue on exactly what it is, but it’s like I’m climbing way higher than I’d ever want to go, and the air feels…strange. Thin, or something. And what’s with the pressure? Where did it all go? That ain’t cool, makes breathing a bit of a trick. Thank Set the Almighty for this little warm thing over here, because I get the feeling that it’s really cold outside.

Ok, just when I was kind of getting used to the breathing thing, it changed again. Everything’s getting thicker, have to adjust my breathing again. And I feel so confined! I’m not sure, but isn’t this the time of day when I normally do my exploring? I need to stretch out! I’m going to get a cramp! Argh! I hope this new home isn’t permanent.

Wow, that weird pressure thing went on for a long time. Now it’s back to more of what was happening before. More bumping and twisting and thrumming and rattling and thrumming again, lots of starts and stops and starts again, now the hide is moving quickly, I can feel it, and now everything is still. Still cramped as hell.

Everything is still and then, the world starts to jiggle a little bit. Something’s happening, something terrible. Have they found me? Oh no! The light! They found me! Nowhere to hide, no way to move away! I can see their eyes, there are two of them, more hairless ape creatures, more hideous than the other one, they have spots! They’re exposing the top of my hide, they got these things they’re reaching at me with.

Hey, look at that, I was right! They got another one of us! Ooh, she’s a cutie, I like the little heart tatoo she has on her side. Too bad we won’t get a chance to meet. Too bad we don’t have language or we could work as a team to get out of this mess.

Oh crap, it’s the same thing with all these apes. You get all tense waiting to get eaten, but for some sadistic reason they want to play with their food first. Ooh, it just gives me the creeps them touching me like that. It would probably feel good it I knew it wasn’t just them trying to get me to relax before they stuff me into their mouths. Hey, what’s that? A dark place to escape to? Ok, steady big guy, you only got one shot. Ready? GO! Slither! Slither! Slither for your worthless little life!

I’m going to make it! The ape isn’t stopping me! I’m in! I’m in the hiding place! I found an escape route! Oh and it’s so warm and smooth in here! And – oh shit! The hiding spot itself is moving. It’s…oh no. It’s hairless ape flesh. I’m hiding on the ape. It knows, it must. Yep, sure enough, here come the grabbing things again. Damn! Oh well, maybe if they don’t eat me now I’ll have another chance later.

HEY! What was that? A sudden flash of very bright light, like the sun. I don’t really like the sun all that much. Well, at least it didn’t stay. That was way too bright for my taste, and no warning at all. How rude. HEY! There it goes again. What gives? Will this never end? Will I never be released from this madness? Oh, whoa is me.

Now the ape’s grabbers are holding me and placing me somewhere else. Those grabbers sure come in handy, I bet, but then how do the apes squeeze into little places? Seems the grabbers would get in the way to me. Moot point. So where are they putting me now?

Ah, I see, it’s one of these larger places where I supposedly can’t escape from. We’ll see about that later. I know these apes, they sleep at night, and that’s when I’ll make my move. Right now, though, I’m feeling about as tired as I’ve ever felt my whole life. So, what’s up with this new scene? I count one, two good places to hide. And that’s interesting, there’s another one, but it’s unusual, feels like there’s a lot of moisture in there. Note to self: check out that place later on. In the meantime, this little dry hiding place seems warmer than the other one. Think I’ll slither in there for a nice long nap. Ahh, that’s much better. [Yawn] Hope they didn’t eat the babe.

Now, where’s the DO NOT DISTURB sign?

Salute

Little known fact: Jos. A. Banks makes excellent slacks. When a small volume of liquid hits the material, the liquid "beads up" into tiny, invisible droplets rather than be absorbed in a spreading, embarrassing stain. The droplets are then easily dispatched at the scene of the crime using readily available toilet tissue.

Buck salutes the good clothiers at Jos. A. Banks for thinking through the practical considerations of life in Cubopolis.

Grappling with Demons

Buck was wrestling with the old, familiar dilemma: how would he find time to finish the important things he needed to complete when his days were becoming jammed with frivolous pursuits that brought him far more enjoyment?

“Take this blog, for example,” he typed, worrying as he did so that he might not be ready for the client meeting tomorrow afternoon if he didn’t stop goofing off and just use his brain for a few minutes to think through the client’s request. “Clearly this is time that could be better served doing whatever it is Buck is supposed to be doing right now.”

What exactly that something was, however, was not immediately clear, and it was precisely that gray area that Buck hoped to avoid addressing altogether. The client had given him an assignment so murky that Buck wasn’t even sure why they needed him to do it at all. Analyze a proposal that they had already written, forming recommendations based on best practices that they had already decided to discard. Be prepared to talk about the proposed process which had, at its core, a requirement that people should be permitted to bypass it completely if they deemed necessary. This was the kind of non-sequitur that left Buck shaking in his loafers.

His manager was still nowhere to be seen, recovering from surgery, but Buck had been promised some guidance by close-of-business Monday (a promise delivered via an email sent from the manager himself over the holidays), so he delayed the analysis until the expert manager had an opportunity to weigh in. Never mind that the “correct” action as dictated by the natural laws of consultancy would be for Buck to perform as much of his own analysis as possible before he talked to the manager, thus ensuring good feedback come review time.

Meanwhile, just twenty-three days separated Buck from his certification exam date. “If Buck doesn’t use this time to address the client’s need,” he pondered in the third person, “could he not instead use it to prepare for the exam?” This was, of course, a fair and legitimate question, yet Buck had no clue why he was procrastinating the test preparation effort. If he failed the exam then his company would not reimburse him the $200 that he had already spent to register for the exam, an exam that would bring him a certification that he pursued by own choice. This was the key point: why would Buck delay something that would ultimately allow him back into a field of work that he actually enjoyed? Was he afraid of failure, or of discovering his limitations? Was he intimidated by some of his firm’s “techies” and their almost godlike IT skills? Or was the inverse true, and he was actually afraid of success? By becoming truly successful at something and becoming all that he was capable of being, perhaps in the future people would set higher expectations for him than he was willing to accept. In the final equation, was he afraid of responsibility?

The more Buck thought about it, the more disgusted he became with himself. He decided to quickly publish the blog entry before it dragged on, then he’d go on to post a question that he already knew the answer to on a ball python forum. A quick check of his email would come after that, and then he’d call the manager on the phone instead of waiting for the call to come to him. If he had any time remaining after that, then he’d do the analysis.

He could always study for the exam at home later that night. Right after “Heroes.”

Phlegmophobes Beware!

The situation is dire. Buck is buried deep beneath the bowels of his latest client’s downtown super fortress, stationed within a cramped, abandoned supply closet, facing an unknowable direction on the compass, miles of twisted passageways and security checkpoints from anything even remotely resembling a window, and surrounded by heaps of forgotten paper products, printer cartridges, envelopes, and, if his weary eyes are not mistaken, an ancient relic from a bygone era, a machine once known simply as a typewriter. “You’re kidding me!” he rasps in amazement through his disease-ravaged larynx when it dawns on him what the obsolete piece of junk next to him actually is. “I’m trapped next to a fucking typewriter?!”

But the typewriter is the least of his concerns, even though it is balanced precariously between an unused printer and a box of miscellaneous supplies, threatening to topple at any moment and send our intrepid yet highly infected consultant into the rewarding yet bureaucratically challenging world of workman’s comp. No, it’s the contagion that consumes his every waking thought, drowning him in rivers of phlegm and gnawing away at his sanity until he no longer believes that there ever really was a time when he was well. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine what it must have been like to feel healthy, but despite the awesome might of his powerful imagination, he fails in this endeavor. The dull weight of his every breath is too immediate, too palpable to be discarded for even a moment’s fantasy. In trying to conjure up the familiar feeling of finding the tennis ball right where he most wants it to be and smacking a beautiful cross-court forehand winner against his embattled foe, the wet cough suddenly and rudely intrudes, and the sore throat protests. The imaginary optic yellow Wilson 2 ball dies on his racquet and flops meekly into the net as he doubles over in a hacking, phlegmatic seizure. His opponent trots victoriously to the net but wisely spurns the customary handshake in favor of remaining germ-free. “You should get some rest, you sound awful,” he says to Buck.

Which is exactly what the doctor told Buck, but Buck doesn’t have the luxury of rest. Buck already took time off last week to “rest,” but the results remain a bitter disappointment. Besides, the project is “fixed-price,” which means it must be completed on schedule or the firm takes the hit, and the top chamber of the hourglass is near empty and draining fast. Meanwhile, Buck’s manager on the project will be out for at least the next week to recover from a medical procedure but has failed to leave our hero with the instructions he promised before he left. Buck is the last man standing on a job that needs doing, so the doctor’s orders – repeated three times as if somehow the man suspected that Buck would ignore common sense – are regrettably discarded.

Now Buck has to extract meaning from a heap of flowcharts the client has given him that pertain to an operational area and subject matter of which Buck has no previous experience. Falling back on the Vanguard principle of consultancy (see the “99 Club” entry of September 29^th, paragraph 7), he plans to reach out to experts within the firm, but first he must tie up some political loose ends. He dials up the manager’s cell phone and leaves a voicemail to follow up an email from yesterday requesting the required information. Then, after several hours of waiting, he decides it is safe to proceed up the chain, having given the manager ample opportunity to deliver the goods (which were due last week). The manager’s manager, a large hair piece, is the font of knowledge from which Buck will procure the names of the experts.

One email and two voicemails later Buck still hasn’t reached the head honcho. He is stranded, left to rot in the Cubopolis version of a medieval oubliette, a dank crypt from which the anguished cries of the despairing go forever unheard along with the fading, hollow echoes of a pair of dusty lungs striving explosively to expunge themselves from their languid human host.

So Buck is left to do what Buck does best. He pops a prescription narcotic and some nasal decongestant (either of which he would hastily endorse by name if they would be so kind as to actually work), and gets busy procrastinating. He submits an entry to his blog, this very one, in fact, idly wondering as he does so whether his experimental usage of the present tense really matters in the grand scheme of things, and allows that at least one positive thing has come of his predicament:

He got to use the word “phlegmatic” in a sentence.

*******

The ball python (see "What to Name It?") turned out to be a male, which explained the bargain basement pricing. Females get bigger than males so it was a bit of a disappointment for Buck, but he took it in stride. The creature was healthy and behaving in a manner consistent with an unstressed ball python: he wasn’t curling into a defensive ball when approached anymore, he was curious and gentle when handled, and he hadn’t once attempted to bite anyone but the mice. Since the mice were already dead and frozen and the snake didn’t get them until they were properly thawed, it turned out to be not too scary for the mice.

So Mr. Python was comfortable in his surroundings and Buck was left with a guy snake named Morticia. This would not do. In the meantime, Buck had received no suggestions for names as he had requested in a previous post. So he went, at least temporarily, with the name “Gomez” to keep faith with the Adams Family reference, and Gomez is now the official name on record at the veterinarian’s office.

Yet after that fateful day Buck remained unsatisfied with the name. He felt that people might miss the T.V. sitcom reference and instead interpret some kind of an Hispanic origin, which would amount to a minor educational misdirection since ball pythons are indigenous to western Africa, not Central America. “Does it matter?” you might ask, and you would have a very good point on several grounds. First, who cares what people think when they hear the name? Why should Buck care what people think? Second, Buck can barely find anyone outside of his family who doesn’t despise snakes in general, so folks probably won’t even register that the pet has a name at all. They’ll hear “snake” or “python” and that’s all the evidence they need to prove there's a menace living within the 99 household, other than Buck himself, of course. Third, ball pythons are, after all, quite deaf and wouldn’t come anyway even if they could hear you calling them.

Besides, Buck feared that yet another name change (Cleopatra, then Morticia, then Gomez) would convince his children and the playfully exasperated Mrs. 99 that Buck was indecisive at best, but probably something worse. Nevertheless, the imperfection of the name rankled like an old sore, or like a phlegmatic cough that stubbornly refuses one’s abjurations for a moment’s tender mercy. Thus he changed back to the present tense to implore you, gentle readers, to settle the score. The three options are:

1. Keep the name as it is, and call the pet Gomez.

2. Keep the name as it is, but call the pet “Mez” (think of how it phonically suggests “mesmerize”, and reflect on Buck’s mental health for asking you to do this).

3. Change the name to “Lurch,” keeping with the theme but evoking the sometimes clumsy way the animal changes his mind about which way he wants to go and, from time to time, tumbles from the couch.

Buck leaves the ball in your court, until such time that he gives up waiting.

Ask Buck

Dear Buck,

I’ve been reading your column and you seem like a guy who’s on the level. I’m hoping you can help me with a little problem I’ve been having.

Last year I cheated on my husband with another woman. At least, I think she was a woman. I’m not really sure because I was high on crystal meth at the time. I don’t think it mixes really good with the Lithium that my doctor prescribed for my bipolar disorder which was causing me to beat my husband over the head with a frying pan. My husband somehow regained consciousness, escaped from the basement, and found out about the affair. Now he wants to leave me but he can’t until he finds the kids. The voices are telling me not to let him have the kids because they will only spread the demons’ disease and bring about the end of all humanity. They’re hidden in the trunk of our Buick right now.

My question is this: Should I push the car into a river or into a lake? Or would it be better to pour gasoline all over it and set it off with some C4?

Signed,

Concerned in Canton, OH

******

Dear Concerned,

Buck is only a fictitious personality who writes about himself in the third person. He is not a licensed therapist. He recommends that you seek professional help from a licensed psychiatrist before taking any additional steps, and since your children will need water at least every three days in order to survive, he suggests that you insist on an immediate appointment.

---

Dear Buck,

Last year I met a beautiful woman who is a great cook. Now, in my line of work, if you want to call it that, I meet a lot of really fanati- er, fantastic chicks. The problem is I can never score. They promise me the world, but they never deliver the goods. Now I got this chick who can cook too, but do you think she can follow a simple recipe and add a stainless steel nail file or two into the cake mix? No chance of that! This broad is so stupid it makes me want to strangle her and dump her off the back of my recently repossessed fishing boat!

How am I ever gonna get out of here and get laid?

Signed,

Doomed on Death Row, CA

******

Dear Doomed,

Buck posts blogs. He does NOT dispense legal advice, nor would he have any knowledge about how to escape from a maximum security federal penitentiary. Without a direct knowledge of the internal politics of your imprisonment situation, he can only make the generic recommendation that you swap sexual favors for key information about flaws in the prison’s security system.

Failing that, Buck suggests that when it comes time to receive your final meal, request a cherry pie in the shape of a naked woman, then pull an “American Pie.” Don’t worry about getting caught: you won’t be embarrassed for long.

---

Dear Buck,

My sister and I are hosting the family Thanksgiving dinner this year, but we can’t agree on if we should use the smooth cranberry sauce or the chunky cranberry sauce. She says smooth and you slice it, but I say chunky so you can actually see and taste the cranberries.

Also, when setting the table, I think the fork goes on the right, but she says it goes on the left. Please help us before we raise our voices at each other and ruin Thanksgiving forever!

Signed,

Stressed Out in Schenectady, NY

******

Dear Stressed Out,

Buck says get a life! This column is for real people with real problems! He respectfully asks that you don’t write to him for advice unless you have a worthy problem that only someone like Buck can help you with. Please do not bother him with minutiae.

What to Name It?

Buck didn’t have a lot of time to tell the whole story of the acquisition of his new pet. After all, it was the weekend, and who has time to write long, narrative blogs on their day off? There’s always plenty of time for that kind of thing during the weekdays when clients are convinced that he’s a busy man, so he decided to just post the pics on Saturday and let the images speak for themselves.

Long story short, though: he’d been researching ball pythons and planning the purchase for months with a target date sometime in the late January to early February time frame.
Then a reptile exposition composed of independent regional breeders came to town and Buck took two of his girls along to look at all the herps (that’s herpetologist terminology for reptiles and amphibians), and couldn’t help but notice the fine health of the snakes and the bargain basement pricing. He knew from inquiries with trusted sources that the breeders at the expo were reputable and did not import wild caught animals or animals hatched abroad and shipped overseas to the U.S. He left the expo exhilarated at having seen such a huge selection, but he felt deflated because he’d missed a grand opportunity.


When he mentioned the prices to Mrs. 99 (honestly believing that he was just setting her up for the next expo to come through town, whenever that would be), she surprised him by asking why he didn’t just go ahead, drive back to the expo before it closed, pull the trigger and buy a snake. So that’s what he did. He won’t bother his readers with details of the snake’s care in the week since acquisition, but he will provide a link for anyone interested in understanding exactly what it is that he got (http://www.anapsid.org/ball.html).


After he visits the veterinarian Buck will be able to confirm the gender of the snake. Is it a female (as the breeder claimed), or a male? Buck will reveal his pet’s name after the gender is known. Suggestions are welcomed!!!

Housekeeping

Buck was about to get to work on another blog entry when he realized that he’d left a few unfinished threads in previous entries. It was time to take care of some housecleaning before diving into new waters.

“First,” wrote Buck of himself using the third person format within quotation marks in a transparently gratuitous attempt to maintain the stylistic theme of the blog, “Buck emerged victorious in his battle against [Evil Credit Card Company #1] and [Evil Credit Card Company #2]. Visiting the branch location of […#1] turned out to be the key to victory. A certain Ms. Pretty [not her real name] was available to assist him, and Buck turned on the ol’ charm, portraying himself to her as an easy-going, whimsical soul caught in a bewildering and somewhat humorous bureaucratic conundrum, and instilling in her a sense of supreme confidence in her ability to help him successfully solve it. Of the background history he shared only the relevant facts which had brought him to her, and failed to mention the several nasty emails he had already fired off at random enemy reps which had successfully [following the previous blog entry] gotten some serious attention. He also provided the key paperwork provided by […#2] using […#1]’s logo outlining the phone numbers to call and the rules pertaining to closing his account without having to pay the annual membership fee.

“While Buck patiently observed Ms. Pretty dialing first the numbers on the paperwork, then the numbers provided to Buck via email from […#1]’s customer care reps, and finally a number obtained from her own Rolodex, he was amused to see that she was quickly becoming as frustrated as he was. To keep the encounter light-hearted he ventured a wry hypothesis that […#2]’s cardholder retention strategy was to make it impossible for cardholders and their proxies to reach them, and this comment had precisely the desired effect. She laughed, which meant she thought Buck was funny, and people almost always like people they think are funny. This meant she would try harder to assist him, and she did become angrier with […#2] because she recognized the truth of his observation. Suddenly Buck could see in her eyes that she was more determined than ever to close Buck’s account for him.”

Buck glanced nervously behind him to make sure nobody was observing him in the act of posting a blog entry. He was on his third day at a new client, although in the end it was just a different flavor of the same old Cubopolis. He was not likely to be observed, since he was five levels below ground and situated not in a cubicle, but rather in an abandoned printer room. Still, the room was arranged such that his back was to the door. He would have to be careful.

“After twenty minutes of VRU* navigation madness,” he continued, “Ms. Pretty got through to a human being representing […#2], who asked to speak to Buck directly to confirm some personal information and try to retain him as a customer. When this representative informed Buck that she could close the account but could not waive the fee, Buck opened up his official document and read aloud verbatim what it said on this topic. The words he spoke were, of course, in direct opposition to her claim that the fee could not be waived. Then Buck got to listen to some nice music while the representative spoke to her manager. While enjoying the soothing music he pictured the scene in his mind, the manager telling the rep that fees will not be waived, the rep replying that the customer seemed to have been reading off of something, and the manager scolding the rep not to assume anything. After a few minutes the music abruptly ended and true to form, the rep asked him what he was reading from. Buck happily obliged her and described the document and its origins to her, reading her several passages from several sections and describing for her in blistering detail the contents of the small print in the section pertaining to closing accounts and the manner in which fees would be waived. Then Buck got to listen to some nice music again (but was frustrated that the music didn’t continue somewhere in the middle of the composition but instead took him right back to the beginning of the exact same recording), and eventually the manager caved to the inevitability of his or her doom. Buck then had to persuade her manager (again, indirectly via the poor assaulted rep whose average call handle time was going through the roof) that it was necessary that a confirmation letter be sent to his home address, including the fact that the account had been closed and the membership fee waived.”

To make a long story short (or is it already too late for that?), Buck ultimately got his letter in the mail.

“Second,” he typed, remembering that he had mentioned unfinished threads (note the plural), “Buck felt it was time to revisit some of his initial goals regarding this blog to see if they were still valid.”

Let’s see, he thought, what were those two goals? Oh yeah: they were catharsis and practice writing fiction. Well, he had to admit that it was at least somewhat cathartic to write the blogs. He seemed in better spirits overall since he had started, and he had learned from what little fan support he had received thus far that he was not alone. Other cubicle dwellers out there were feeling trapped within the system and trying to fake their way through unscathed. Additionally, how cathartic did it have to be, he wondered, when it served the wonderful yet simple purpose of distracting him from more important tasks at hand? Tasks such as, for example, the analysis his client was paying him to perform?

As for the blog serving as a means for Buck to practice writing fiction, it was undoubtedly wonderful for that, as clearly the blog itself was one giant work of fiction. Certainly no professional consultant would take so much time to write such an extensive blog on his clients’ time, and it was way beyond the bounds of believability to conceive that a man whose greatest talent and unshakable vice was chronic procrastination could succeed so spectacularly in the role of project manager in any Cubopolis setting. No, clearly the blog was a complete work of fiction, perhaps written by a professional provocateur, or maybe a man with nothing better to do in his off hours.

Or was that last paragraph the fiction?

Buck signed off for the day, and promised his readers pictures of the new snake he purchased last weekend in his next post.


* VRU is short for “Voice Response Unit,” the systems you deal with before you get a real human at the other end - but then, you probably already knew that, and if you didn’t, then you’re clearly not a resident of Cubopolis and 90% of the so-called ‘humor’ in this blog is lost on you anyways.

Buck At War

In order to provide the faithful with quality blog entertainment, Buck 99 decided to use a pair of enclosing quotation marks to get around the self-imposed 3rd person rule enforced on this blog.

The following excerpt is an email Buck sent to his enemy du jour, a company that is making it difficult for him to close a long-dead account, and who has instructed him that he should visit a branch:

“Dear [Evil Credit Card Company #1],

I will visit a branch, but I am displeased. I called the number you provided and was forwarded to [Evil Credit Card Company #2]. The call was disconnected but fortunately the [Evil Credit Card Company #1] agent had given me the phone number before attempting the transfer. Then I proceeded to call [Evil Credit Card Company #2] three times and was ultimately disconnected from each of those calls in three separate and distinct ways before making it to a single human being. All this taking time away from my day for an account I neither use nor want, and in fact believed to be already closed.

I suspect that the process has been intentionally engineered to make closing an account difficult. I include both [Evil Credit Card Company #1] and [Evil Credit Card Company #2] in this accusation. I also detect from your response that you haven't even looked at my account. The phrase "if the account balance exceeds $2500" gives it away. The balance is ZERO. The account has been dormant for years. Nice form letter, guys. Thanks for spending $0.25 servicing your customer with a pair of button clicks.

If the branch approach fails, then I may be forced to close the account by mail, but there is no way that I will pay a fee for that "service." How am I to ensure that my $20 won't be applied to the membership fee? Perhaps this is what happened the last time I tried to close this account.

No, I have a better idea. If the branch approach fails, I go to the Better Business Bureau and the SEC, with carbon copies for my senators and representatives at both the state and federal levels. I have personal experience with the success rate of this approach, having once been professionally responsible for responding to complaint letters forwarded to my major credit card corporation employer from these sources.

I've worked in the credit card industry for eight years and know how to ultimately win this engagement. Make it easy on yourselves and pave the way for me to close this account quickly and absolutely free of charge. No membership fee, no closing fee. You'll never get them from me, and you'll end up having to spend way more than $20 just fighting me and reversing any damage you do to my credit report. Expensive call center reps will experience very long talk times, and their supervisors and managers will end up on the phone a lot too. And the longer this takes me, the more I'll make sure it affects your bottom line. I'm already highly annoyed and frankly amazed that I have to physically go to a branch for this. This is the 21st century and I have to travel to close an account that has no balance? Are you kidding me? The manager there will get an earful, and I'll only just be getting started.

Since my statements say "[Evil Credit Card Company #1]" and not "[Evil Credit Card Company #2]", my battle is with you, not them. If you want me off your back, you will be my intermediary. You will do what is necessary to get [Evil Credit Card Company #2] to close this account (assuming your agent was speaking truthfully about [Evil Credit Card Company #2] servicing the account, but if you haven't noticed, I'm finding it challenging to trust you at the moment).

Good luck.

Regards,

[Buck 99]”

Tweaker

Tweaker was the only person Buck knew who could take a perfectly smooth day and somehow wring an emergency from it.

The walls of the Mission Control Center (MCC) held the faint green hue of the status light. Sure, there were issues, but by and large things were going well. The tasks captured in the By-the-Minute schedule - an abomination born of project management practices gone horribly awry that our faithful readers will recognize as the primary deliverable for which our protagonist, the intrepid Buck 99, is unfortunately responsible – were systematically completing ahead of forecast in most cases, and well in advance of deadline dates in all other cases. This particular day had absolutely zero planned milestones of level “CRITICAL,” nor were there any tasks due for completion of levels “CRUCIAL,” “ESSENTIAL,” or even “MIND-BOGGLINGLY IMPORTANT.” And the only risk for which there was no contingency plan had not occurred (Risk ID 722568: “Sol goes supernova and destroys all customer records, and yeah, the world too”) and was deemed extremely unlikely to occur today, especially since Sol is well known to have insufficient mass to go nova, let alone supernova. No, the sun would not burn out, it would gradually (i.e., on an astrological time scale) fade away into white dwarf status followed tens of billions of years later by cold, dark oblivion. No explosions today. Today would be slow.

“Buck, when are you going to have the report ready?” she asked.

Buck looked up at the atomic digital clock on the wall. The time was precisely 11:25:42.0078 EST, which was exactly 2 hours 4 minutes and 17.0022 seconds prior to when the report was due to arrive in her in-box. Buck recalled, however, that the previous day he had promised her that today he would deliver the report a half hour earlier for her convenience (an extra 30 minutes to complete a 10-minute copy/paste exercise), but that still gave him 1 hour 36 minutes plus change. He re-confirmed his commitment by replying, “You’ll have the report at 1300 hours.”

His experience with Tweaker informed him that she was well on her way to freaking out about absolutely nothing, a daily occurrence since the beginning of the MCC execution phase. So in a vain attempt to head off that bit of nastiness at the pass, he had begun to prepare the report at 11:00:00, the moment of his arrival. Since there were no milestones to report, all he had to do was take the report that was published by the previous shift’s By-the-Minute Manager (whom Buck will hereafter refer to as Dr. Quack if he actually has reason to refer to him again), fix the erroneous details, and republish it. This would be a fifteen minute task, punctuated by numerous and various interruptions by other individuals eager to justify their existences by finding things to worry about.

At 12:15:07, Tweaker asked for an ETA on the report. “Almost ready,” responded Buck gruffly.

“Good. I need that by 1300 hours today, remember.”

Buck remembered and told her so. He was nearly certain that his tone of voice accurately conveyed his annoyance. Couldn’t she see the two people standing at his desk?

At 12:30:55 Buck glanced over at Tweaker. It was difficult to determine whether her ill coloring was a function of her anxiety or the lighting of the status indicator. He took no chances and tried to reassure her with an update. “Just a few more minutes.”

“I need it by 1330 hours, but it would be better if I had it by 1300. Will it be ready?” she asked.

At that moment the light in the room could have been any color at all, but all Buck saw was red.

Her tone spoke volumes about the degree to which she felt she was being put out by Buck’s perceived delay. Never mind that Buck had explained to her before his shift started that there were unlikely to be any changes since the morning report and she could go ahead and get started early by simply copying the morning report. They could always take the two minutes to reconcile the “deltas” (there were none) at 1300 or 1330, whichever she preferred.

Buck sensed her fear, could almost smell it like a dog, and toyed with the idea of capitalizing on it. If she failed to deliver her report by 14:15:00 EST, then in her mind she would stand out like a sore thumb as an incompetent who failed to deliver her report on time. Phone calls would be received and uncomfortable conversations would take place. A notation would be added to her dossier. This would not do at all.

Of course she would pin the blame on Buck, and Buck didn’t relish uncomfortable conversations any more than she did. He’d had his fair share over the years and knew that brand of torture too intimately. No, he would deliver exactly what he said he would deliver, and he would do it earlier than planned in accordance with the natural laws of consultancy.

Nevertheless, Tweaker chimed in again five minutes later, desperate for good news. Buck’s mouse pointer was hovering over the “Send” button even as she spoke. The time on the wall was 12:36:01, and Buck’s faith in the half-life of Cesium 133 convinced him of the accuracy of this measurement.

If Tweaker had been a contractor rather than a Cubopolis agent, then Buck would have immediately spoken the necessary words to embarrass her straight into early retirement. Unfortunately this was not the reality of the situation. If he berated this moron in the manner she merited, it could mean the end of his career as a consultant. He briefly wondered why this should concern him and enjoyed a brief, bright, inner glimpse into a possible future as a bulldozer operator, but in the end he meekly chose the path prescribed by the Doctrine of Middle Class Compliance (DMCC), the same path that would condemn him to remain contained “within the box.” He clicked “Send” and cheerfully informed her that the information was in her email.

“Oh!” she exclaimed as though in shock. “It’s early!”

Now Buck’s record had been consistent in this regard, and yet here she was publicly acting surprised. Clearly it was a poorly conceived power play designed to portray a contrast between the strong, dependable up-and-comer and the weak, unreliable consultant. Buck’s teeth clenched in fury, but after he thought about it for a moment he realized he had no cause for concern. The audience in the MCC had watched this same drama unfold every single day and were themselves historically prone to being tweaked themselves by this same tweaker. Besides, it was his job to make his client look good, even if it wasn’t really his client, just someone who worked for the same company as his client, which made her his client by proxy.

Tweaker ended up remaining appeased for all of ten minutes. Then the next hour was spent with Tweaker worrying over the format that Buck would use on the next day’s report. Naturally Buck couldn’t be trusted to handle these crucial details himself. As she hovered over him, peering over his shoulder, pointing at his screen and issuing instructions, she was completely unaware that the tiny MS Word icon entitled “Tweaker” on the bottom of his screen represented the minimized window of a blog entry exposing her inner essence to the world via cyberspace. Meanwhile Buck sighed in resignation and nodded periodically whenever he detected a pause in the cadence of her speech. He’d end up doing it all his own way tomorrow, just like he always did, because he’d tried it her way before, and her way sucked.

Mrs. 99's Tirade

Mrs. 99 was frustrated. Out of the blue a few nights ago she started venting to Buck about the direction the world seems to be going in and what kind of place it will be for their children. Some of the things she said along the way made a lot of sense.

She started with the way car and truck drivers behave around bicyclists on the road. She and Buck both know someone who was recently hit by a car and run off the road while he was riding his bike. He was o.k., and accidents happen, but was it really an accident? Everyone has seen how pushy and impatient car drivers get around bicyclists, as though they are being horribly inconvenienced by having to slow down just long enough to carefully pass the rider. How dare the cyclist interfere with the driver’s speedy progress toward his or her critical goal? Buck has seen drivers intentionally speed up and move closer to the cyclist as an intimidation tactic, and heard many a driver sound their horns in anger. “Get off the road!”

It goes way past bicycles, though. Mrs. 99’s pet peeve is the way people don’t use their turn signals to communicate their intention to change lanes. “Well of course they don’t,” explained Buck. “That’s just an invitation to the other drivers to speed up so nobody will get in front of them.” Mrs. 99 acknowledged the truth of this remark. Sure, there are folks who will let you in when you signal, but the other kind seem more common.

So why is everyone in such a mad rush? What can be so important that people will cast aside simple civility and sometimes even the physical well-being of others in exchange for gaining a single car length in traffic? Are they really that eager to get to their cubicles?

Somehow the topic of school homework got weaved into the conversation. Second graders get tons of homework these days and it takes them until bedtime to complete it. Yet only twenty minutes of total recess time is allotted to them during the school day. The punishment for talking out of turn in the classroom is reduced recess time, so Mrs. 99 is left to wonder: when are kids supposed to burn off their excess energy? When are they supposed to be kids?

Buck didn’t interrupt the tirade to point out the obvious link to obesity. Mrs. 99 was on a roll.

The 99 children are kicking ass in school. In every subject, Uno has received perfect scores on every homework paper, quiz, and test so far (Dos is in kindergarten and doesn’t have quizzes yet, but the teacher has pulled Mrs. 99 aside and asked if the 99s were aware that Dos can already read and write, so all is well). Yet Uno can barely finish the homework! How challenging must it be for children who aren’t quite as far along as Uno is? Why is society working these children so hard?

Is it for better opportunities in the workplace? Mrs. 99 really hammered her point home, her tone voice escalating to an exasperated frenzy. “Are we pushing our children to these ridiculous extremes just so they can get better jobs than we have? You hate your job. It pays well, but you hate it. If Uno does better than you in school, will she get a job like yours except higher up the ladder where there’s even more stress? Will she be driving like a maniac, honking her horn at bicyclists, blowing people off the road, and cutting people off all so she can make it on time to meetings at a job she despises where she works seventy hours a week away from her family? How stressed out will her kids be when she and the system push them to be better than her?”

The situation was dire, but Buck knew what he had to do. Mrs. 99 needed to get laid, and he knew just the man for the job.

Little Green Friend

Buck was walking from one office building to the next on his way to lunch when he noticed a splash of green flash suddenly across the sidewalk. It was a Rough Greensnake, a real, honest-to-God opheodrys aestivus!

Instantly Buck sprang into action. He crouched low and reached for the snake’s tail, but the serpent was too quick! It sped into the grass in search of cover, but fortunately for Buck the grass had been mown recently and he could see the snake clearly. He walked along after it, trying to corner it, but it was elusive, moving this way and that with startling quickness, and Buck missed it twice more before having to break into a run just to keep up. Finally he managed to snag it at the base of a tree.

The snake feinted toward Buck’s wrist and face as if to bite, but Buck had done his homework and held on firmly but gently. The Green Tree Snake (one of its other names) is very docile and does not bite. Buck knew this through both research and experience. He had caught one just like this one once when he was a teenager, and remembered that it had been quite friendly. This one was no different. After a few frightened moments the snake calmed right down, wrapped itself around Buck’s arm, and took a good gander at Buck’s ugly mug, forked tongue tasting the air between them. It was relaxed and curious and soon didn’t mind being handled at all. If anything, it seemed to be enjoying itself. Buck used the opportunity to get a good, close look, checked out its vernal side for coloration, observed the pattern of scales, and determined that Mr. Snake probably hadn’t eaten in awhile. It was a rare treat because the species’ natural camouflage makes it very difficult to spot, but it was especially rare to find one out and about so late in the year. “Aestivus” means “summer” in Latin, and the name was applied to these snakes because they tend to be inactive year round except for the hottest summer months. Buck had been looking for one for the last three months and had resigned himself to giving up for the year.

“What is that, a snake?” asked a guy standing on the sidewalk along with another dude and a hot brunette babe. “Is it trying to bite you?”

“No,” said Buck, suddenly self-conscious. “They don’t bite.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s a Green Tree Snake, Virginia’s only true arboreal snake,” Buck replied, hearing how geeky he sounded even as he spoke the words.

“We were wondering what you were doing,” said the girl. Buck could only imagine how hilarious he’d looked running erratically through the grass and the mulch. Then the three people turned and walked away.

Buck was left alone with his captive. For a moment he actually considered trying to find a way to bring the snake home and keep it, but then reason and his genuine care for these creatures overcame his irrational impulse. The second quickest way to kill the snake would have been to take it home and try to figure out the ins and outs of snake ownership after acquiring it rather than before. Besides, true reptile lovers interested in husbandry always look for individuals born and bred in captivity to avoid depopulating the species in the wild.

The first quickest way to kill it, of course, would have been to step on it, which is exactly what many people would do if they came across the snake on the sidewalk. People can be funny about snakes, and Buck understood that. Buck had a thing against crickets. So rather than put his little green friend back where he’d found it, he walked closer to a cluster of trees and released the snake onto a branch.

Within ten seconds it had completely vanished.

99 Club

“This is the loop,” said Buck, tracing a large, lazy circle in the air with this left hand. “And this,” he added, wiggling two dangling fingers of his right hand like human legs some eighteen inches outside the loop, “is Buck.”

Stubbornly refusing to refer to himself in the 1st person, Buck went on to invite the reader to notice that he was not actually in the loop.

That had always been the story of Buck’s life, but now the winds of change were upon him, blowing through hair that refused to yield because of the sturdy product he used to reinforce it. “Curious the lengths some people will go to carefully construct the illusion of casual disinterest in their appearance,” he mused, but then he quickly pulled himself back from the precipice of digression. “The topic is the winds of change. Buck was finally in the loop.”

Word on the street had reached him that he was not alone. There were others like him dwelling within the sordid depths Cubopolis, silently suffering the insecurities associated with being a consultant. These are human beings, real flesh and blood, body and soul, just like their clients, and yet there is an expectation that they be more than the client: smarter, more productive, more efficient. The consultant is clairvoyant and correctly reads industry trends, finding solutions to problems that the client didn’t even know he had. He “hits the ground running,” accomplishing in hours what might otherwise never be accomplished at all. He weaves order out of the strands of chaos by introducing controls into business and technical processes, despite the fact that he may himself be the former product of that same chaos with no ability to articulate what a “control” actually is in this context, let alone the actual experience necessary to create and implement these controls. All this he must execute with an aura of supreme self-confidence despite a persistent, underlying fear that he will be exposed as the ordinary mortal he really is.

It reminds Buck of his early days as a consultant. He was tossed into a situation where he was supposed to introduce controls for a team of programmers the least experienced of which had exactly 15 more years of programming experience than Buck. Along the way, Buck was supposed to help them write code and identify areas of improvements in their architecture. Buck had faked his way through a year of that nonsense and received nothing but glowing feedback, entertaining multiple interesting job offers, yet at the end of that engagement he still could not have described an actual control. If controls meant the design documents he had written, then sure, he’d introduced “controls.” Yeah, that’s the ticket. Add it to the resume.

At one point the client’s manager had asked Buck into his office to see if Buck could come up with the solution to an architectural problem inherent to the client’s system. Buck was dumbstruck (and dimly aware that he should have foreseen this particular problem: shame on him for allowing the client to find it first!). Buck was invited to take it away and think about it for awhile, and think about it he did. He wrestled with the problem for two weeks. In the end he proposed some options, all of which profoundly sucked. It would be another two years, long after the window of opportunity had closed, before it dawned on him. No, not the answer to the architectural problem, but the flaw in Buck’s approach.

The consultant really is better than the client because he is not actually one person. The consultant is the vanguard of the entire consultant company, and chances are that someone in that company has the background necessary to solve a given problem. This is how he differs from a contractor. A contractor is on his own, while a consultant has his entire firm to fall back on. He does not need to be the expert: someone else in the firm already is. The consultant’s job is to find that expertise and bring it to bear on his client’s situation, and if he succeeds, everybody wins: the client gets his problem solved, the consultant looks like a clairvoyant genius, the expert gets a name to pass along to his manager when it’s time to collect feedback for writing reviews, and the firm itself strengthens its reputation with the client. Good stuff happens.

So Buck heard through the grapevine that people like himself were finding comfort in the blog, that the late night ranting of a lunatic third-person-self-referrer were easing the feelings of isolation inherent in the field of consulting in this tense pressure-cooker Hell we all know and love as Cubopolis. He mentioned this news to the beautiful and enigmatic Mrs. 99, and she said, “You’ve started a religion.”

Or a cult, thought Buck to himself. This was a dangerous situation. People were finding out about the blog. News was spreading. At some point a critical threshold would be reached when enough people would know about the blog that one of them would be the wrong person, someone in a position of power within the firm who didn’t subscribe to the dogma Buck was peddling. Then the house of cards would collapse amidst a flurry of pink slips. Cubocalypse, the end of the road for Buck. He had to do something to rectify this, and fast.

“The first rule of 99 Club,” he began, pacing around the living room in his skivvies, “is don’t talk about 99 Club.”

He adjusted his gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses, pausing to allow time for the first rule to sink in.

“The second rule,” he continued, deliberately emphasizing every last syllable, “is don’t talk about 99 Club!”

Sweaty Black Men in Tuxes

Buck was participating in a charity sporting event in his former hometown. Now if you actually met Buck in person you might think that he doesn’t look very athletic (and it’s true, he doesn’t), but that just serves to put his opponents off their guard. Nobody ever expects Buck to have speed or grace, but on the field of battle he has both (well, not speed, per se, but certainly quickness. Buck is like a sports car that goes from 0 to 60 in 4.0 seconds, but only has a top speed of 62 and suffers frequent engine and chassis breakdowns). Unfortunately, this particular sporting event was a Bowl-a-Thon, and Buck was nursing a right-shoulder rotator cuff impingement and tendonitis in his right arm so bad he could barely tie his own shoes. In short, Buck was in no position to handle a bowling ball. Instead he passed out t-shirts and door prizes.

As he was passing out the goodies he came upon an old friend, a girl he had attended training with when he’d joined The Inc. Buck had recently received word that Girl had become engaged to Boy. Boy also worked for The Inc., and was bowling nearby. They would go on to make a lovely couple.

Buck had recently joined an alternative pop-rock musical act based in another town in the same region. He hadn’t had many shows with them yet and was eager to kick it into high gear. He saw a quick opportunity for easy money and exposure for the band in a new market. So he asked Girl if she needed a band for her wedding.

“As a matter of fact, we do,” she replied. “What kind of music do you play?”

“Danceable pop rock covers,” he summarized. They covered everything from Goo Goo Dolls, Train, and Counting Crows to Bryan Adams and The Stray Cats.

She seemed excited about the idea, but told Buck to ask Boy, because he was arranging the band. Since Buck was on good footing with Boy he was optimistic about his chances of landing the gig. Little did he know that he was about to be the victim of racial discrimination for the first time in his life.

He spoke to Boy and told him straight up that he had a new band and would like to offer up their services at his wedding for a bargain basement price. For his part Boy seemed genuinely interested: after all, people normally pay through the nose for a wedding band. Who wouldn’t want to pay a quarter of the normal price? Plus someone he knew and trusted would be on the inside, within the band, which would allow for some control over the situation if the music wasn’t just so. But then, with dead earnestness, he dropped the bomb.

"Are you sweaty black men in tuxes?" he asked.

The question caught Buck completely off guard. "Huh?"

Boy rephrased his question. "Are any members of your band sweaty black men in tuxes?"

"Um...no. White guys only. Alternative pop-rock and dance music." Buck felt like a broken record. Hadn’t he covered this ground already?

"Dance music? That's good. We want good dance music. Tell me about your horn section."

Buck saw where this was going, even admired the man for the high standards he was setting. He could tell that Boy hadn’t been playing him. Boy truly had assumed that Buck played music in a large ensemble with black men. That's what serious musicians did, right? Buck went through the motions and answered, "Well, we don't really have a horn section. We're four white guys: two guitars, a bass and drums."

“No tuxes?”

“No tuxes.”

"Sequins?"

"None. "

"Buck,” Boy lamented in a tone of sincerest regret, “I hope you understand it’s nothing personal. I’m sure your band is great. But this is my wedding, a once in a lifetime shot, and I intend to have nothing less than a band of sweaty black men in black or purple tuxes with sequins. A negro band with a brass section is an absolute must, and they have to have synchronized dance moves on stage."

Buck, always a gentle soul and easily brainwashed by PC agents, was a little taken aback by the gratuitous use of the word “negro.” However, he had to admit that bands such as the one Boy described truly were perfect for formal celebrations, certainly better than four white guys covering white music. What really bummed him out, though, was that while he knew he was good enough to play in such a band and had even played successfully in blues and funk ventures in the past, he didn’t quite have what it takes to join a band of sweaty black men in tuxes. True, he was sweaty and he could rent a tuxedo. He could play all the right notes at the right times, with a convincing approximation of African-American rhythm. Hell, he could even throw in the synchronized moves. But that would only take him so far.

The Celebrated Mr. H.

Buck 99 continued to believe himself to be subject to the laws of nature, unaware that those laws were defined by a program being executed on a doomed spacecraft. The program enforced each law regardless of whether Buck knew about it. Ignorance of the law was no defense against its enforcement. For example, if Buck were to somehow be unaware of the laws of gravity and go stepping off of a high ledge, a loud, painful splat would quickly educate him. Thus were the laws of the program learnable.

Buck was gradually becoming familiar with the laws as they were applied in the Cubopolis milieu. For example, he understood well the natural consequences of foolishly promising to deliver a specific piece of work by a specific date and time. Making such a promise is a common rookie mistake. The promised time comes and goes, and much stress and worry ensues. Eventually, after having repeatedly experienced these negative stimuli, one tries to avoid them by becoming more vague when making such promises. Instead of promising 5:00 PM, for example, one will try to employ acronyms such as “COB” or “EOD.” Unfortunately these do not help since they only guarantee that one will have to finish the work from home and forfeit the right to kick back and unwind. One must be vaguer than that, expressing one’s intentions in terms of weeks or months, but sooner or later the client will inevitably hold his ground and try to corner the victim.

“The key,” wrote the authoritative Buck as if advising an imaginary young protégé wearing a flimsy silk negligee, “is to think of it as a negotiation in multiple dimensions. When they try to pin you on when, that’s when you switch the topic to what. Sure, go ahead and promise a specific date and time if you must, but make sure you get something in return like scope concessions or obfuscation of the details around whatever it is you have to deliver. If possible, become increasingly vague about what content will be included in a given version of a deliverable even as the dates are becoming more solidified.”

Sometimes Buck’s awesome skills as a professional procrastinator astounded even himself, and he paused for a moment to admire his own brilliance. His euphoria was short lived, however, once the Fraud Complex filter through which he viewed himself brought the context of his procrastination into sharper focus. Was it possible to rid himself of FCD (Fraud Complex Disorder) so he could procrastinate at the office to his heart’s content for the remainder of his career, completely guilt free? His gut said no because the FCD was needed to ensure that enough quality work got done to keep him gainfully employed. As he pondered this dilemma he became acutely aware that he’d covered much of this ground already in this same blog. Only two weeks in and he was already starving for material. He was treading on dangerous ground. Nobody was going to try to get him to endorse their products if he established himself as a washed up hack regurgitating the same tired material week after week. He needed a new topic, and he needed it fast.

He glanced over at his client and watched him draw a diagram on the whiteboard. His client was a native of a distant land, and not one of those vastly overpopulated countries that foreigners in the American workplace typically come from. His client, who Buck shall hereafter refer to as Mr. H., came from a very exotic destination, and one which Buck aspired to one day visit. In recent weeks, Mr. H. had come to trust Buck as someone who could guide him through various aspects of American culture. For example, Mr. H. worried about being suddenly and randomly fired by the powers that be within Cubopolis, an event perhaps common in his homeland but much rarer here. This fear would be understandable if Mr. H.’s papers were not in order, but he had a green card and was well on his way to citizenship. He owned a house and had a wife and kids, one of which attended one of the county’s schools for the gifted. By all accounts Mr. H. strove to ensure that the exterior of his house and yard were well maintained to present proper appearances consistent with high suburban standards. He was a top performer in the workplace, and his superiors had rightly entrusted him with a great deal of responsibility. He was very conscientious about every moment he spent at the office, unlike his consultant. Buck believed that guys like this don’t just get fired without cause. They get laid off, sure, but they receive decent severance packages, especially from this particular instance of Cubopolis. He tried to reassure Mr. H. about this, but Mr. H. remained unconvinced. Perhaps Buck was naïve.

In general, though, Mr. H. utilized Buck’s consulting services beyond the scope of the contract. Just the previous morning, in fact, Mr. H. had asked Buck for advice on finding a trustworthy general contractor to repair some recent and extensive damage done to his deck by a violent storm. He was being careful to balance the need to quickly remediate the eye-sore that his deck was inflicting upon his neighbors with the caution that was necessary to avoid being victimized by a crooked and/or incompetent general contractor. Buck would be the first to admit that if left to his own devices, he himself would end up being victimized under similar circumstances. He was nearly certain that he had been cheated many times over the years by various and sundry automobile mechanics. This time was different, though. This time it was a client, and one he was coming to regard as a friend.

Buck quickly sprang into action, applying the time-honored tools of the consultant: technology and personal network. A quick call to Mrs. 99 on her mobile phone set the wheels in motion. She agreed to poll her peers at a social club engagement later that same evening, and also to touch base with two of their neighbors who had recently had significant work of the same sort done. Buck would have good answers for Mr. H. in a very aggressive timeframe, further solidifying the relationship with his client. This could prove very useful if his client ever found out about the blog.

Why the Panthers Are 0-2

Buck was not worried about the Carolina Panthers’ two losses to open the 2006 NFL season. He knew that they had everyone fooled, lulling other teams into a false sense of security with a series of "unexpected" losses at the start of the season. Steve Smith's fake hammy injury was a brilliant ploy, and coach John Fox was a genius. Buck could only shake his head and smile in admiration of the beauty of the plan. They would open the season 0-4, then head to Cleveland and start bashing heads. Sure, three of their first four games were against division opponents, and that would make it extremely difficult to win the division. But winning the division had never been the plan. Since when had Carolina ever been an effective team as the favorite? No, they needed to be the underdogs. They needed to be disrespected in the press, fueling a visceral rage demanding release through brutal, repeated hammerings delivered with hot-blooded fury against any players unfortunate enough to try to stand in their way. Only then would the world witness true Carolina football.

“The botched punt return,” he typed, trying to make himself believe his own nonsense, “says it all. They had the Vikings on the ropes, but the score was still reasonably close. Then they tried to execute a trick special teams play deep in their own territory. Such risky tactics are not characteristic of John Fox football. Yet the evidence available through a simple perusal of the post-game interviews indicate that Chris Gamble’s ill-fated pass attempt was not something the usually reliable player improvised on the spur of the moment. The play was called from the sidelines.”

Buck concluded that since the trick play was too unlike anything John Fox was prone to call under the given circumstances, and since Gamble normally executed well, the play and its poor execution must have been intended to throw the game away. After that it was a simple matter to act fooled by the fake field goal that Minnesota used to throw a touchdown pass.

His buddy Al saw the situation differently. They’re overrated, he quietly explained to Buck, and what’s worse, they believed the hype about themselves in the press. The truth is that when people assess this year’s Carolina squad, they’re remembering the 2003 Superbowl team and have failed to recognize several key differences between that great team and this one:

1. The 2003 squad had a solid offensive line that both protected Delhomme and allowed the establishment of an up-the-middle rushing game. They were successful because the line consisted of the right personnel who happened to have been working together for multiple seasons. Familiarity is critical in an O-line. The new line doesn’t have it yet, and with Travell Wharton out the situation has only gotten worse. So Delhomme, who can thread the eye of a needle (but only when the game is on the line), will continue to be forced into making bonehead decisions.
2. The 2003 squad was doping up, and this year's squad (presumably) is not.
3. In '03 they had both Steve Smith AND Mushin Mohammad. A speedy, elusive guy for breaking tackles after the quick catch, and a big guy completely unafraid to extend himself vertically in heavy traffic and sustain the inevitable post-reception bruising hits. This combination of players was perfect for a hot-headed and sometimes shaky QB like Delhomme.
4. Ricky Manning. Sometimes suspect, but always great for a few big defensive takeaways. Of all the teams he could go to, did it have to be the Bears? Like their defense needed the help.

I got news for you buddy, Al said with real sympathy, Carolina’s going 0-4 to start the season, then they’ll finally get a win against the Browns. After that, the Ravens will knock the hope right out of them, and Cincinnati and Dallas will bury them, leaving them at a dismal 1-7 when their divisional rivals from Tampa come calling. Maybe they’ll win that game and the next one against the Rams, but at best they can hope to win only half of the remaining games, so they’ll be making their January vacation plans well in advance of ending the season 6-10.

Buck couldn’t believe his ears, but he rarely listened to Al anyway. True, Buck had never really believed his own inane story of the Panthers throwing the game, but he chose to remain bullish on his favorite team’s chances. They had played well, after all, but they’d blown a few plays late in the game and that had made the difference. The season was still young, though. There was still hope.

And Steve Smith wouldn’t be out forever.

Like Kubla Khan

Buck had the makings of a really good song stirring in his head. It needed to get out, so he opened up Notepad and began to channel his anger and confusion over recent personal events into words and rhythms with dark guitars heavy with the throaty, natural harmonic distortion that only all-vacuum tube amplification could render. The words themselves started pouring out, spilling onto the screen from some bleeding wound in his mind, a window that peered into someplace else, an un-place where thoughts and ideas exist independently of their thinkers, and whoever gets to them first claims them as their own. Raw emotions and truths are bottled up in this other realm, too many to be contained, all straining for release. For those who know how to open their minds to them they will gladly come through, suffering imperfect but necessary translation into the media of images, sounds, ideas and words that our minds are capable of shaping and at least trying to comprehend.

Words might begin with a trickle, dripping through to the mind one by one, but you can’t force them, can’t make the mistake of digging for them or you’ll destroy the truth. They have to come of their own free will, and will greedily accept any invitation offered by an open mind, be it a mind at peace or a mind in turmoil. Only then will they flow freely and eventually burst forth in a raging deluge through the rent fabric of the dividing layer.

Buck had written maybe fifteen words of his angry song when his client approached him from behind and requested a series of meetings. Quick as a flash and a keyboard shortcut the Notepad application disappeared to the bottom of the Windows stack, and Buck’s mind was rudely yanked back to the tedium he had naively come to accept as “reality.” Another three minutes and the deed was done; meetings were arranged, wheels were set in motion, and the appearance of usefulness had been cultivated. Buck had “added value,” and sooner or later word would get back to his masters at his parent firm. They would later offer Buck positively effusive verbal and written feedback, all the while keeping something trivial in their back pockets as justification for a smaller salary adjustment come review time.

As the client stalked away on his continuing quest for corporate glory, Buck returned to his song to find that the window had closed. Enough of his emotional energy had been dispelled with those first fifteen words that even the smallest interruption by a single Cubopolis agent had been sufficient to close that particular window and shroud it in the fog of ordinary office concerns. Buck knew from experience that this particular rupture into the realm of his muse would prove difficult to find and reopen again. So he forced a quick ending to the lyrics he had captured, called them a poem instead of a song, and decided to save the instrumental aspects imprinted on his brain for another song, another day, when he would have more ample opportunity to set it free.

Unbelievable
Look what you've done to her
Unthinkable
And for what gain?
The pain that you gave is
unforgivable
Did you think of her?
Or the kids
when she beat you
but now the
window’s closed
and my rage it gets caged
for now it’s not
releasable.

Fraud Complex

As Buck’s ship accelerated into the black hole, his unconscious perception of self-awareness decelerated, effectively stretching the duration of the dream he believed to be his real life to a point approaching infinity.

In short, Buck had become immortal, at least as a perceiver of events within his own mind. Naturally he was unaware of this as he slumbered in blissful ignorance in a state of suspended stasis, courtesy of his ship’s Lifenet system. He did not know that the supposed events of his life were in fact illusions fed to him by the system’s programming. Therefore he still believed himself to be an ordinary mortal and subject to the laws of nature as he understood them.

One of those laws went something like this: if you can produce at least one item of real work per day, then people around you will assume that you are working your ass off for the whole day and are highly productive. In accordance with that law, Buck had gone above and beyond the call of duty and performed a dizzying array of high profile tasks all before 10:30 AM. He had made several quick updates to the dreaded By-the-Nanosecond schedule, sent out numerous meeting invitations via email that suggested Buck was a more farsighted planner than he really was, and tackled a few testing issues in a manner indicative of someone who actually understood the true nature of the issues better than he really did. Perception was key, however, another natural law with which Buck was well accustomed. Today he was giving out that certain productive vibe that had historically resulted in clients asking for him by name and periodically attempting to persuade him to leave his parent firm and join them in the rank and file of the corporate hell known generically in this space as Cubopolis.

“Interestingly,” he typed furiously into his blog while avoiding a task he was loath to begin, “Buck classified himself as someone with a ‘fraud complex.’ A person with a fraud complex always assumes that someone is going to find out that he is really a fraud. The fraud does not believe that he is being fairly compensated for his work; instead, he feels he is being overcompensated. He worries that if people discover how exceedingly simple his job really is, they will fire him and replace him with a legitimate professional willing to do the same job for half the money.”

The irony that he had both a fraud complex and a chronic predilection for procrastination was not lost on Buck. That he was extemporizing on this irony during business hours was itself reinforcing the destructive fraud complex that gradually eroded his self-esteem and slowly filled a deep well of shame within him that threatened to spill over one day into every facet of his life. “If he could just let go of this blog for twenty minutes,” he wrote, “then he’d get the job done, feel a little better about himself, and be a real professional for a change, if just for a few moments, completing ahead of schedule a relatively simple task that others perceived to be challenging, time-consuming, and worthy of substantial financial compensation.”

With sudden inspiration and sense of purpose he decided to go for it, but first he had to actually publish the blog entry, further procrastinating the task at hand. After all, he rationalized, wouldn’t it be a waste to have captured these thoughts in the blog only to leave them forever to decay on some laptop hard drive? That the blog itself was a waste of time and would never be read by a single human being other than himself also occurred to him. But this realization and associated sense of waste would have been even more poignant had he understood the true context of his situation, i.e., that he was effectively immortal. “If you were immortal,” Buck asked rhetorically to the total of zero people who visited his blog site, “would you waste your time on writing a blog?”

In Memoriam

Buck 99 wasn’t sure how to handle a serious topic in his new blog, but he felt certain that he should make the effort regardless. You see, Buck was what you might call a “Herpetologist-wannabe.” He loved reptiles, all kinds, but especially snakes. Buck frequently found himself on small detours from his fitness walks and bicycle rides to explore creek beds and marshy areas in search of slippery, slimy things, and in recent months he had gotten better at spotting his quarry. He was even known on occasion to gently handle the snakes he found, though only after he was able to make a positive identification of the species. Buck was a practical man, after all, and always considered the interests of the lovely Mrs. 99 and their children before putting himself in mortal jeopardy for nothing more than simple amusement.

Thus it was with great sadness that he learned of the tragic death of Steve Irwin, a.k.a. “The Crocodile Hunter.” Man, that was just plain awful news in general, but it hit Buck particularly hard because of the shared interest in reptiles. Irwin had a family too, but he sometimes took terrible risks. Yet he took these risks for a great purpose. Irwin did so much for wildlife awareness around the world, helping people to better understand and appreciate these beautiful creatures, and would have accomplished much more given time. Alas, others like him will have to answer the call, but there will never be another quite like him, with his infectious enthusiasm and wild personality. He was completely unpredictable, and you couldn’t take your eyes off him, wondering what crazy stunt he was going to do next. There will never be another Steve Irwin.

He will be sorely missed, and may his legacy continue and thrive.

Into the Rabbit Hole

Buck was on a roll. He had successfully put off trying to figure out where his old 401K account resided by placing a phone call to a major online wholesaler to arrange to return a faulty specialty computer product. Since Buck limited himself to a maximum of one personal administrative task per day, the 401K would have to wait until tomorrow.

Administrative tasks in the workplace were another matter entirely. He was manifestly unable to avoid doing those. Procrastination and general apathy toward his work in general had cost him the promotions necessary to reach the level at which the corporation would assign him an administrative assistant. Not that he didn’t take pride in his work; to the contrary, he was exceptionally detail oriented and produced only the finest quality deliverables. But the energy and the interest to take it to the next level, to play the game with cold-blooded intensity and call it leadership, these he had not done, and so he was on his own. Yet today he sliced and diced his way through email-based invitations and room reservations, securing teleconference numbers, identifying key players, and diplomatically applying guilt and guile to enforce attendance every step of the way.

Buck had also set himself up nicely to score later that night with the lovely and talented Mrs. 99. Two nights in a row she’d known he was ready and primed, but when she hadn’t delivered the goods, he’d played it cool, giving her the time and space she needed. He knew she was exhausted from preparing the kids to return to school, and it was a no-brainer for him to factor in her emotional strain from dealing with a house about to empty itself. She deserved a break. His patience would soon pay off, though, as it always did.

He paused in the middle of this blog entry to fire off another meeting invitation. Then the “out-of-office” replies started rolling in. Yeah, right, he thought, as if there really was such a thing as truly being out of the office, away from work. You could take the man out of the office, but you couldn’t take the office out of the man. It haunts him in every corner of his life, a shady figure that fades to a shimmer of dimness on Friday afternoon, but gradually expands into focus from that point forth, or suddenly leaps out in ambush with a sharp ring tone occasionally accompanied by a jolting vibration at one’s hip. If the office wants you, it will have you, whenever it wants and wherever you are, no matter what it is exactly that you think you’re actually doing at the moment.

He pondered the nature of the blog, and its future. Was it a waste of his time? Undoubtedly. Would people read it? Probably not. Was it cathartic? Only time would tell. Should he use it as a means to practice writing fiction in the hopes that one day he might become an author as he always dreamed? Sure, he thought. Why not?

It was precisely then, as Buck considered these thoughts, that his vessel slid quietly into a black hole’s gravity well due to a bug in the custom code he had written and introduced into the ship’s navcom system just last week. The navcom system failed to even register the error, so the alarm didn’t sound and the primary thrusters failed to engage (it wouldn’t have mattered: contrary to what common sense might suggest, trying to thrust one’s way out of a black hole only speeds up the inevitable). The ship’s other core systems were unaware of the threat, so the Lifenet system had no reason to wake him and alert him to the danger. Thus Buck would continue on in deep-sleep stasis, living a dream fed to him programmatically by Lifenet in which he believed himself to be a professional project manager on Earth in the early 21st century B.A. (a dream he would not have selected for himself…Buck had selected “Hawaiian surfer” from the menu, but his buddy e-Taco had played a prank and made a switch behind the scenes). He would live this dream until he was crushed into cosmic pulp by the mass of twenty suns inhabiting a twisted fragment of space the size of a single tennis ball. Although he would first be ripped apart and then compressed to the size of a single electron within seven seconds, the nature of the unconscious mind and the effects of space-time distortions upon it would allow the dream to seem much longer than the events conspiring to destroy the dreamer…