Boy, I'm determined to let all of my work madness go. It's rather cathartic to just put it in writing.

Sooooo gentle folk, listen to the long lost lambastic lay of Linus the Minus. In our troubled land of the Kingdom of Dysfunction, Minus was a patron of the proven Peter Principle. He was adequate in his previous job doing admin and pushing paper, making sure that funds and food flowed into the kingdom and that it did so according to banal byzantine bylaws of The Red Queen. He could have been the twin of the Littlefinger of Game of Thrones, a grasping climber, seeking ever higher patents of nobility. Minus and his wife began an exclusive social club in the land, which quickly turned into a soap opera of drama and career ending rumor. However, the debacle allowed him to meet Baby Shogun and Credithog the Younger.

He became fast friends and allies with Baby Shogun and Credithog the Younger, who granted him an audience with The Red Queen. As he bent the knee before the queen he lost his heart...and his soul. He kissed her robes and professed his desire to lead peasants who went out and saved people. He was granted a barony and given a promise of greater power in the kingdom so long as he destroyed that fief so that it could be absorbed into another fief so that another Credithog the Younger might prosper. As luck would have it gentle reader, our Lady Alice here just happened to work in that barony.

Minus rode into his new castle determined to do the will of the queen. He dictated bizarre and counterproductive paperwork and procedures, choking any forward motion in the barony. We would joke that, why do something well once when you can do it five times poorly. He quickly turned the knights of the barony against each other, promising his newfound allies rich rewards that would be pilfered from the defeated. Those of us who stood against The Red Queen knew we were in trouble when Minus began praising the queen with slavish devotion, laughing loudly at her sad jokes and tossing roses in her path. Insurrection and rebellion consumed the land and no one could be trusted. Minus' allies could do no wrong and his detractors could do no right. Skanky Lyn, previously a reject from another section, came to the forefront of Minus' allies and her dagger could be found in the backs of many, including myself. I had mistakenly taken Skank under my wing and mentored her for a year. I could see her turning to the dark side, but there was nothing I could do and so I dove harder into my work. One fine summer day, Minus assigned Skanky Lyn and me the same task. I proceeded with confidence whereupon Skank accused me of stealing her work. I tried to explain, but she would have non of that reality and fled into the chamber of Minus to play kissy face and whisper my name into his ear.

For the next two weeks I would watch Skank scurry into Minus' chambers and close the door. After an hour, she would emerge with an evil smile. Minutes after she left, Minus would berate me for something minor. At the end of the two weeks all of my allies were removed and I was exiled to the Island of Misfit Toys and Skank was awarded my program and all of my projects. With my exile and the exile of the true knights of the barony, the fief collapsed and was absorbed into the holds of Credithog the Younger.

The moral of the story is that when Minus went to collect his debt, The Red Queen told him, "if I do that for you, I'll have to do that for everyone" and Minus was, in turn, exiled into oblivion, never to become an earl. Skanky Lyn burned through a number of the kingdom's husbands and was also exiled when it all blew up in her face. I would be horrified if we were a modern organization, devoted to saving lives, but since we are a dysfunctional kingdom where might makes right, I can accept it.