DRAMA!

TNT may bill itself as the home of television drama, but drama has many, many homes both on television and in real life.  Drama resides in more homes than we have remote bases.  It's that prevalent.  I learned about drama's ubiquity a long time ago when I realized it always showed up wherever I was.  It's hard to accept that there are only a few permanent escapes from drama.  I also realized that a key difference between comedy and drama exists.  Comedy is when a dramatic event happens to someone else.

Drama has an infinite amount of layers.  The accidental reply all snafu is probably not new to most of you. There's leaving your unlocked briefcase that contains classified materials unlocked on a public bus type of drama, and then there is an approaching tornado with no safe shelter in sight.  Note that none of the above mentioned scenarios has occurred with AcMo assets.  No matter what the level, drama isn't always fun and pretty with an outgoing personality.  The other thing about drama is that it can always get worse.

Knowing the foundation for drama has not made it easier to accept that some find AcMo's operational issues amusing.  I assure you that would not be the case if you were fortunate enough to be part of the AcMo empire--due to a copyright issue, we cannot call it a cartel.  AcMo drama is serious drama.  Despite our accelerating turnover rate, every person still here is vital to maintaining our current level of excellence, and each is dedicated to that goal. At least up until the moment their resignation hits my desk.  Then they're dead to me.  The resignation department is one of our busiest.  They are just able to keep ahead of demand. 

Our latest drama involves the OPR investigation.  I hadn't heard anything about it so I thought it had concluded favorably for us.  I should have been smart enough to realize that until the documents are signed, nothing is finalized.  C. Scagnetti, our supposed man on the inside, has not made contact in weeks. I am beginning to worry that he has not been influencing the investigative panel in our favor.  This could be career ending drama for several of us.  A finding of fault in an OPR investigation can't be redacted from the permanent file.  In some cases they even tattoo the final ruling on the back of the person deemed responsible.  I don't want that to happen to me.  The police department, or the SWAT team commander would accept responsibility if I had the power to assign blame.

The development pace here doesn't afford us time to fabricate alibis.  The collective minds here need to be future focused at all times because our competitors are always lurking and ready to strike at the first sign of weakness.  We don't like living under constant threat of attack even though it keeps us sharp.  In rare instances when we are beaten to new developments, we monitor our competitor's progress until the technology has become mature enough for us to appropriate it. This also gives us ample time to research the actual size and potential of that particular revenue stream.  We consider a lot of our competitors as secret and quite diligent beta testers for our future products.

One of the key factors in the makeup of our staff is their propensity to create drama.  This trait is an accidental coincidence.  We work very hard to create an environment in which our employees can coexist.  Unfortunately, most of the mission critical personnel can't get along with others so they are relegated to the basement offices.  Most of the normal employees will not go into the basement under any circumstances.  After a while, everyone forgets there are even people and labs there, including me.  

Most of our ongoing drama involves product recalls and the occasional testing crash.  The procedure for the recalls is to deny until the problem disappears.  It is always harder to explain why a car brought in for a radio problem ended up crashed on a race track, but we find a way. The result is usually a collaborative effort from all of our departments.  The most important part of business after paying operating costs is making the customer happy.  In case you were wondering, the radio glitch in question only occurred above 100 mph, so there was no safe and legal way to test it other than at the track.  We traced it to a fuse problem which we were able to repair after six more extended track sessions.

Based on the suspicion that our drama is not going to end any time soon, we are looking at methods to monetize it so that we can profit off of your laughter.  This would be an ideal revenue stream to exploit.  Research has proven that people will pay good money to laugh at other people's problems.  We're going to have issues on a daily basis anyway, so we might as well profit from them.  Now we're stressing you.