Apex members of genus Avaricius: Avaricius ceonsis jobii(L), and Avaricius dominatus muskus(R)
Javabot and I sometimes chat during lunch. I quite like the chap. He’s an engineer and, unlike me, has remained within the bounds of our noble profession. He is a contractor for Generic IT Company With a Poncy Name , which I cannot be bothered to remember except to say that it sounds either like a fungus or an anti-fungal ointment. Engineering companies (most companies in general) used to be named after their founders, proprietors, or partners: Edison, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Dunlop, Krupp, and so on. Or they had solid names like US Steel, or International Business Machines (even though they made typewriters in the early days!) When did engineering firms start using poncy names? Cloudophenia. Innoventa. Confluenza. Idiotica?
“GITCo’s Cloud Services team has got all my bots stress-testing the beta of their new Poncy Cloud Suite™ . Pretty boring, but it pays rent,” says Javabot. “They are looking for content writers to do marketing literature and trade-show stuff. Why don’t you apply? You’d get hired immediately,” he added in his customary matter-of-fact drawl.
“What does Poncy do, exactly?” I ask.
Before Javabot can answer, he is interrupted by the man sitting at the table next to ours. He wears an M&S suit with a bright red tie, and has, using copious amounts of Greasy Glutinous Goo™ , coaxed his hair into a raunchy hillock at the front of his head.
[Reproduced from Meursault’s Field Notebook ] Broadly speaking there are two kinds of creatures that inhabit the indoor corporate ecosystem at the Aquarium. Around four-fifths belong to Binarius algorithmus. Most are B.a nerdus, commonly known as the Lesser Software Developer, of which Javabot is a typical specimen. The rest are Avaricius embeanus: predominantly A.e. vulgaris, but also its sibling taxa A.e. unscrupulus and A.e. usurius. Avaricius embeanus spp. is usually spotted in an office cubicle; large groups may be found rummaging for food outside the lairs of its larger, more powerful cousins Avaricius ceonsis jobii and Avaricius dominatus muskus.
[ Ibid. ] All members of Avaricius.spp. are known for their ability to propel, at speed, large quantities of faecal matter in all directions. In any corporate food chain, Avaricius spp. is almost always dominant over members of Binarius spp. There are exceptions, of course: Go Go Girl (a B.a. primus, an elite programmer, not easily replaceable) is immune to bullying and intimidation as long as she doesn’t pick a fight with one of the apex predators. The rest of us, such as Javabot and I, and the scores of faceless, nameless nerds in the Aquarium are fair game. To be blunt, we’re food and entertainment.
The gelled-up oink in the suit is a typical specimen of Avaricius embeanus vulgaris, the common MBA: prodigious shoveller of shite, and eager climber of the greasy pole.
“It’s not about what our web suite does, it’s about what our client can do with it,” he squeaks.
“Ah. I thought I recognized a fellow fan of The Steve. I’m Sen. Pleased to meet you,” I say while putting on my friendly smile, which I practice while shaving: every time I rinse the blade, I smile at the mirror.
“I’m Self-Anointed Marketing Maverick,” he replies. “Poncy Cloud Suite™ is like a Swiss Army knife. It’s a one-stop solution for any cloud computing requirement on AWS! It has best-in-class cloud security, resource inventory, and well-architected optimizations.” Then, putting on his best turtleneck voice: “And one more thing–it’s on AWS, so it is infinitely scalable.”
“Extraordinary,” I reply. Shite and hair gel combine to make a powerfully nauseating odour. I decide to play the game. Why not? I may be a lapsed engineer but I can shovel shite if I want to…
“Let me guess: Only around 5% of your users actually test some of the tools on their VM instance. At lunchtime, for ten minutes, around 80% log in and muck about with your sample data on your demo VM instance, and the rest log in after work, and leave you a thumbs-up feedback after 10 seconds. And (I’m feeling rather bloody-minded) your conversion rate to the paid version is zero. And you’re trying to push the top five tools that have the longest usage time into a separate SKU when version 1.0 of the product is released?”
The SAMM leans back, momentarily stunned. Shite has a tendency to stick. Javabot probably knows the exact usage numbers, which are probably very close to the shite I quoted earlier because he looks inquiringly at me.
“Let’s assume you’re correct. Pitch me a solution,” SAMM replies.
I pick up my shovel again: “Marketing is trying way too hard. Less is more, you know. I’m sure you have one feature in the suite that is a proper Stirling Moss, right?”
Of course, it doesn’t. I’m guessing that Poncy Cloud Suite™ is an assortment of Apache- and MIT-licensed tools scraped up from GitHub and the AWS Dev Docs, all slapped together into a React front-end. But the SAMM doesn’t know that. Or he does but doesn’t care as long as GITCo finds enough Series B investors. Avaricus embeanus will knowingly sell shite to any willing customer under the assumption that the buyer will merely sell it on to someone else, and so on, and so forth… The wheels of commerce are greased by shite.
A sudden hush falls over the room. The ominous clicking of pointy heels approaches us. GITCo’s Evil Queen (who, up until then, was browsing brass-studded leather collars on Etsy) walks into the cafeteria.
Clickety-Clickety-Clickety-Clickety…
Almost everyone in the room (including the SAMM) immediately puts their heads down and stares at their phones, their food, their shoelaces…. I can imagine the SAMM’s thoughts: “Please don’t stop, please, please, please walk on.” But the Evil Queen can smell fear!
Clickety-Clickety-CLICKETY-CLICK. She stops and smiles at the SAMM. His erect hairdo goes flaccid and flops down to his snout.
‘Ms Queen! Customers love the beta,’ says the SAMM
“SAMM, am I right?” Of course, she knows the SAMM: she knows every half-truth on every version of every CV that was ever placed on her desk. Feigning dim recollection is her way of reminding him, and everyone else within earshot, of our lowly status in the food chain. “All well?”
“Ms Queen! All good. All good. Umm… Our beta test customers loved the new tools.” squeaks the SAMM nervously, gesturing vaguely towards Javabot and me. “These engineers called it… Umm…”
Scheiße. I almost say that out loud.
Time to end the afternoon’s entertainment–the Evil Queen can smell shite better than anyone. She shovels it better than anyone else too, but she will not kindly suffer the fool who dares to send some in her direction… And I was thinking about Javabot’s lead… The Evil Queen may decide to interview me in the last round… I must appear to be an ordinary member of Binarius algorithmus nerdus. Bring out the tech jargon!
“It’s like a precision-engineered pentalobe,” I say, politely.
The Evil Queen doesn’t bother to google “pentalobe”. Nerd-speak doesn’t interest her. Besides my scent is unfamiliar to her–I don’t work in (or for) GITCo. More importantly, the SAMM has caught her interest for some reason–I make a mental note to discuss the results of the stress testing with Javabot.
“Best-in-class. GITCo’s biggest hit. That’s the verdict,” declares the SAMM.
The Evil Queen’s nostrils flare for the briefest of moments. Did she smell it? I couldn’t tell because I dared not look into her eyes at this distance.
“Of course it is.” she says.
Clickety-Clickety-Clickety-Clickety. Her footsteps recede towards the lift. The room falls silent again, waiting for the doors to close, and for the bell to go ding. The Evil Queen enters the lift. She whirls around to face the silent room, and I risk a quick glance: her eyes have narrowed into slits. As the doors close, she smiles at the SAMM.
She’s smelled it. He’s done for.
DING!
Editor’s notes:
This is the second article in the Aquarium series, or field despatches, as Meursault likes to call them. Javabot, Go Go Girl and Xman first appeared in The Cracked Bell Jar. For more on the Evil Queen of GITCo, see The Cactus List.