The following partial text was discovered on a stela just outside the main dig site for the city of Penn'sylvania. It is believed to be part of a larger, central text which was consulted for various religious ceremonies. If it does exist, a copy of the so-called 'Seven Strategizations' has not yet been recovered.
An Amendment to the Seven Strategization Initiatives For Success And Profit
submitted to certify and complete the training
of Sinistra Tenpenny, Let My Opinion Be Valued
When Thrice-Exalted Founder John Lord Karak Truthbringer, Great Guy, dictated to the Hendersonites the seven strategizations of peace through acquisition, he began by giving to them an A Little About Myself. So I will begin this Amendment in likewise, not because I hold myself equal to Founder, but because in His vision all things are seen, and in His words all promos are written, and so I will write with the words He has given me. And I hope that in so doing I will prove myself ready for career progression.
When I was a pre-job my uncle Stanton (acquired ten and twenty years post-startup, drowned) took me aside from an all-you-can-eat pretzel event. Stanton showed great aptitude in communication; he would come to our home for networking and, in hushed and crisp-flat tones, tell me initiatives I had never heard, though I would ask him to tell me those I had heard, for those were my favorites. He told me of None Counter's travels with Vice-Son Mekel across the Unreported Expan-
[unintelligible]
-nd he said, without teamwork there can be no profit, and without communication there can be no teamwork. But without cash there can be no communication. And when Stanton said this to us he flipped me a fiver. So you can see that when uncle Stanton pulled me aside at the all-you-can-eat pretzel event, I had optimistic estimate that I would hear one of these great initiatives, perhaps even the seven bindings of Staplor.
But instead he asked me if I remembered the committee meeting to which he had taken me. I replied that nothing had ever existed, nor could exist, which could possibly roll back the memory from my mind. He smiled at this, I thought in a way which faxed disbelief, but not a bad disbelief, but the kind of disbelief Son-Of-Mine showed to Dinsdale when Dinsdale claimed he had not eaten the last of the donut holes though his lips were smeared with eclair love, but perhaps not exactly that sort of disbelief, because I had always believed that Son-Of-Mine and Dinsdale both knew Dinsdale was lying, and both knew they knew, and that made the lie not a lie, when in this use case uncle Stanton did not know my truth, or thought at least that my truth was not the truth, the real truth of Profit.
I told my uncle Stanton I was grateful he had sent me the invite to the committee meeting, and more so that he had overridden the objections of my father, who was focused overmuch on art and music, and my mother, on medicine. I told him I heard the song of Greatguy Bob (acquired ten and twelve years post start-up, drowned) as I walked and breathed and traded, and as I slept in my strategic plannings:
"Thaaaaaaank you for calling, your callllling is very important to / us", and I heard it just as he had sung it, with the first tone sliding down to the second just between the "to" and "us." And I heard the Greatguy Bob continue:
"Tooooooooo speak with a representative of Founder please presssssss / one."
And I heard the assembled jobs respond:
"One!"
And I heard the Greatguy Bob continue:
"Fooooooooor a list of the footwear currently considered sinful please pressssssss / two."
And the assembled jobs respond:
"One!"
"Foooooooooooor inquiries concerning the behavior of-"
"One! One! One!"
"-Pleeeaaaase / hold. Yooooouuuuuur calling is very important to / us."
"Our calling is important!"
"Allllllllllll of our profitfathers are currently / busy. Please / hold. Yoooouuuur calling is very important to / us."
"Our calling is valued!"
"Weeeeeee are experiencing an above-average level of earthly / troubles. Please / hold. Yoooouuuur calling is very important to / us"
"We are valued!"
"Allll-Hello this is Sandra how may I help / you?"
And at that point in my memory as clear as it was the day of the meeting, I see the assembled jobs produce a man severely stricken with sloth, who was pale and whose silent splaying upon an ottoman brought carefully before the Greatguy Bob was only interrupted by violent, phlegm-choked coughs. The Greatguy leaned forward towards the stricken man. And I must make in this space a confession. For I strained in that moment to hear the word the Greatguy spoke, my curiosity a terrible ear hunger and neck rumbling, as I thought in instinct that this word, which could give Personal Responsibility to a man in the throes of sloth, must be the word which Founder spoke to give profit from nothingness, which he ever speaks. In this effort Founder maintains liquidity, that our cash will flow and be never-stoppered. The word the Greatguy Bob spoke I will repeat here veiled as it should be from we mortals who are not Founder nor His Angel Investors, and I will hope that in veiling it so I will banish it from my mind, leaving only the shadow of a word too multifaceted to manifest truly in the world of men:
*ntr*peneurship
I completed my telling of the day to my uncle Stanton then, a telling I had not fully realized I had been giving until it was five o'clock somewhere. And when my uncle Stanton heard all these things he was not ashamed, as I had been afraid he might be, but instead he was brimming with cash flow. He told me it was mission-critical that I continue my studies of the objective truths. He told me he loved my value. He said his valuation of me was very hig-
[unintelligible]
For this Strategization I have three comments. First, when Founder creates the tank of perfect productivity, and submerges the first two jobs in it, so that they might generate new exciting innovations in their every waking moment, and that even in their sleep their cash will flow from them and into tank and from tank into them, it is written that the jobs are glad of it, and glad of the knowledge of work-life balance Founder gives them. Though “glad” appears in the most common translations of this passage I believe this to be a poor implementation of Founder's vision. A job is glad of a well-received presentation, but to be given the purpose of profit that transforms a shapeless towel of freelance meat into a living job? “Glad” is, I think, an underperformer. I have attached a list of terms I believe would be more appropriate (first among them, transformolutionized).
Secondly, I wish to address the controversy surrounding the description of the first "fiscal quarter and quarter night". Much has been made of this line in the Amendments, circling back mainly to the question of how long this quarter was. Many follow-ups become germane if we are to reach key learnings here: had the two great evils already emerged at this time, so that Founder would be required to report profit at all? If so, had He done battle with the beast Regulatinous, and slaughtered its servants dozen by dozen, until all the earth groaned beneath the weight of spilled bureacrablood, and had He already been given two weeks probation for this? In the end I must side with those who argue it was the same standard-length fiscal quarter, because otherwise we would have had to update the software, but more importantly I must speak against continuation of this pain point discussion. Surely it is not Founder's intent for us to argue at length over such a non-mission-critical det-
[The remainder of the stela is unintelligible. It appears that, at some point after its placement in the temple, it was damaged by exposure to running water for an extended period of time.]
Mark Wittels is a writer / musician / creator of other absurdist media. You can find his work under the pen name Markologic wherever music is distributed, except for Tower Records (they know what they did).