The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

The company for which I used to work provides a free lunch for all its employees on Thursday. It’s one of the last dot-com niceties we had given the company’s woes over the past year, and it’s also a chance for management to make general announcements and give the grunts the low-down on the status of company (with the requisite spin, of course). If it’s someone’s birthday that week, they bring in a cake. If someone got sacked, then our acting CEO — who used to be one of the partners at our Canadian vulture capitalist firm, and who replaced our original CEO after he got sacked — usually makes some kind of statement, coupled with some explanations if the sackee was a particularly skilled, beloved, or long-time member of the company. I like to think that I fit at least two and a half of these criteria, and guess that my “elegy” sounded something like this…

Acting CEO: Mmm, falafel.

VP R&D: You know, back at Corel, they had some pretty good falafel. I remember this one particular falafel sandwich I had while debugging the square-drawing tool in CorelDRAW! 6…

Acting CEO: (elbowing VP R&D) Later. (turning to rest of room) We had a difficult decision to make at the start of the year. While we do have enough money to ensure that we can complete the product and while the investors have turned around and believe that we can deliver, it’s been made clear to me that we need to cut some more costs. It was a tough call, but we had to let Joey go. It was particularly difficult because he was a good employee who had such a great attitude toward his work, even when things were really bad. However, as the project and programming requirements changed, he didn’t have the skill set…

VP R&D: (muttering) Punkass couldn’t even spell “MFC” a couple of months ago…

Acting CEO: …although he put in long hours trying to make sure he was caught up. He’s done a lot for the company — part of the reason we have a good relationship with people like Microsoft and O’Reilly is due to his programming some really excellent prototype UIs and his outstanding work as Director of Developer Relations. And of course, we’ll never forget all that TV exposure he got us with that crazy accordion of his.

VP R&D: (muttering) Bitch and his accordion. Part of why I left Romania was to get away from the fucking Gypsy Kings and fucking accordions.

John Henson (Chief Scientist, one of the last cool guys left): He was there when we made our first presentations to potential VCs, as well as big-ticket clients like eBay. He also led the team that released our first actual product, COLAvision, at DefCon 2000. He also made sure the new people felt welcome. (Sniffs, stifles a tear.) And he made friends with everybody…the P2P higher-ups at Microsoft, Tim O’Reilly, and (chokes) when we had our Christmas dinner at Medieval Times, he knew the guy who played our knight! (Sobs) I loved him! (Catches possible gay implication) …like a brother! Like a brother!

VP R&D: But we needed somebody who really knew it now. I tried to find different roles for him, but it didn’t work out. That, and he’s one of the old guard, he’s not part of my hand-picked team.

Programmer who replaced me: On first day here, Joey took me to Burger Czar and explained company heestory to me. Made me feel like long-time part of collective. Bozshe moi. Am feelink like dirt now.

John Henson: He was studying MFC pretty hard…he always had that big-ass MFC book with him wherever he went…

Sham (a co-worker of mine, great guy): I will wear a black hood, renounce chasing after loose women and cancel my subscription to Maxim in Joey’s honour!

Waterloo co-op student 1: Uh, if you’re just going to let that Maxim go to waste…

Waterloo co-op student 2: Does the new issue have Jolene Blalock? Subcommander T’Pol is a hot piece of Vulcan ass.

Waterloo co-op student 1: Shut up, Wesley! Seven of Nine is hotter.

Waterloo co-op student 2: You shut up!

John Midgely (another co-worker, also great guy): He gave me his Jesus clock! Depending on the angle you look at it, it shows either Jesus or Mary!

VP R&D: (to employees) On another note, I shaved my moustache. Doesn’t it make me look more resourceful and dynamic?

John Henson: Whenever I’d pick up Joey for the drive to work, all I had to do was ask him to buy me a coffee and he would. And not the cheap coffee, either, but the good dark roast. And he often threw in a cookie or muffin or biscotti. What a sweet guy. I’ll…(chokes)…I’ll miss him…(sobs)…I’m just gonna run over to my desk and stick a gun in my mouth right now…(runs out of room)

Sham: Remember the time he had all those Subway 2-for-1 coupons and he gave them to all of us so that we could have a nice lunch…for half price?! He’s a prince! A prince among men!

John Midgely: Sham, are you sure you can live without Maxim?

Sham: My God, what was I thinking? Can I take it back? Are we allowed take-backs?

(in the background, a shotgun fires, followed by a heavy “thump”.)

Acting CEO: And there’s the time he met this cute chick at the Matador and accidentally gave her my business card. Damn, that was funny. By the way, she called and we hooked up. I’m still partially crippled from that night.

VP R&D: (grumbling) Techno-peasant. Real Programmers don’t pick up chicks in bars.

Acting CEO: Shit, that girl did things to me my wife can’t even pronounce. Thanks, Joey.

Okay, maybe it didn’t happen that way.

(By the way, the bit about my giving the acting CEO’s business card to a woman at a bar is true. Read it in this posting.)

I just got the strangest mass-mailing I’ve ever seen:

Time Travelers PLEASE HELP !

message: If you are a time traveler or alien disguised as human and or have the technology to travel physically through time I need your help!

My life has been severely tampered with and cursed!!
I have suffered tremendously and am now dying!

I need to be able to:

Travel back in time.

Rewind my life including my age.

Be able to remember what I know now so that I can prevent my life from being tampered with again after I go back.

I am in very great danger and need this immediately!

I am aware that there are many types of time travel and that humans do not do well through certain types.

I need as close to temporal reversion as possible, as safely as possible. To be able to rewind the hands of time in such a way that the universe of now will cease to exist. I know that there are some very powerful people out there with alien or government equipment capable of doing just that.

If you can help me I will pay for your teleport or trip down here, Along with hotel stay, food and all expenses. I will pay top dollar for the equipment. Proof must be provided.

Only if you have this technology and can help me please send me a (SEPARATE) email to:

Robby0809@aol.com

Thanks

I’m thinking about using this as a reply:

Well, here were are again. You have no idea who I am, don’t you?

Not only am I capable of helping you, but I’ve done so twice already.

I can meet all your requirements except one — the one where you retain your memories of everything’s that happened to you up until now. Normally, it would be possible for you to remember the present (and all events leading up to it) when you go back into the past, but you kept insisting that you also want your aging to be reversed. I can only do that by reverting you to your past state, which means that events leading up to what you call “the present” wouldn’t have happened. Which means you’d have nothing to remember. See the problem?

I was willing to let things slide when things went horribly wrong the first time. Initially, it looked as though you were going to live a long and happy life: you had a successful business, you were in the best shape of your life, and you had just married one of the supporting actresses from American Pie. However, you blew it big time when during your honeymoon in Honduras, you caught a butterfly. That butterfly’s wings were supposed to trigger a hurricane that would have devastated the coastline of El Salvador, including the coastal village of La Libertad. Instead, the village was never destroyed, and as a result, a troubled and overindulged little boy grew up to become the Hitler of the 21st century. He managed to turn the eastern seaboard and much of Europe into the world’s largest smouldering graveyards before he was finally stopped. I managed to retrieve you from that timeline — you were under a pile of rubble and half-mad. I decided to try and send you back in time again.

While the course of your life has not been so catastrophic for the rest of the world this time around, you have still managed to make a mess of it for yourself. And this time, you’re resorting to spamming in order to find a time traveller like me. That’s really low.

The biggest shame of it all (and more so because you don’t remember) is that your life wasn’t as bad as you thought when you first came to me for help. You said you wanted to undo your so-called “terrible, terrible mistake“. In retrospect, I should never have honoured your request. Yes, it was an embarassing situation, but “the incident”, as you liked to call it, would have been forgotten soon enough. It’s nothing that a public apology and a little plastic surgery couldn’t have fixed. Besides, while that kind of thing was taboo once, it would have become socially acceptable a few short years later.

I am truly sorry, but I feel that you’re one of those people who will do the same kind of thing over and over, no matter what kind of circumstances they find themselves in. Please do not contact me anymore. If you see me on the street, please do not approach me or speak to me. I will claim not to know you. I cannot be bribed; you will not be able to buy your way into the past again.

In closing, all I can do is offer you some advice:

1. Please try to think before you act.
2. If you don’t do something about that haircut, you and many innocent people will regret it. It may seem trivial, but believe me, I know better.

— Joey