Look, off in the ether – is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s a stupid idea, on final approach… And look, the Boss has his office door open! C L E A R A N C E T O L A N D ! … The Boss has wandered into Mission Control with something obviously on his mind. Over time, the PFY and I have learned to equate these thoughtful moments with the BAG FULL lamp of a commercial vacuum cleaner at a waxing salon. Do not open. His presence in Mission Control is never a good sign, but his "thoughtful" presence, even more so. He’ll have seen something, read something, spoken to someone, or possibly overheard something in a toilet stall that will have sounded – to him – like a great idea. Or it might have been a cheddar-frenzy-induced fever dream that he wants to run by us. And the Boss’s crazy ideas are, unfortunately, like bran flakes to his mental digestion, the output of which being delivered to the PFY and myself as a veritable slurry of poorly considered ideas. "AI," he says, pausing for effect, once he’s rolled to a stop. He then waits patiently for one of us to ask "What about AI?" However, that will never happen. In terms of stupidity, it’s up there with saying Candyman into a mirror five times, power washing a gremlin, or visiting a basement when Jason’s in town. … "For the security system," the Boss teases. I continue my intense focus on my monitors, hoping the lunacy will depart. The PFY does the same. The PFY and I know that the only way out of this is to stall till the end of the day, at which time the Boss’s overnight reset will trigger, leaving him only a vague memory of having had a good idea. >clickety< >tap<
"Uh-oh," I say, reaching into my drawer for my crashtop. "It looks like one of the distribution switches on 4 has crashed." >tappity<
"And not just 4 – it looks like the boardroom has gone down too." "It could be a virus," I say, using words I know the Boss will respond to. "A virus?!" the Boss gasps. "I don’t know. It’s too soon to tell," I say, departing. … So now I’m hiding in a cramped comms room on the fourth floor while I plug the crashtop into the CCTV VLAN so I can check on the Boss’s location. Luckily, we upgraded the system to an AI-integrated platform, so I only need to type IDIOT into the search field to find him…