Brink of Mutiny

A war has erupted involving AcMo employees and affiliates.  Less than five minutes after the news of our Hyper Car X-prize leaked on the AcMo intranet, I started receiving PowerPoint presentations from employees who wanted to illustrate their perceived merits in order to claim “dibs” on vehicles we didn’t yet have in inventory.  I learned the hard way what happens when you gamble with imaginary assets against hardcore ruffians.  That’s why I only ever gamble with other people’s real assets now.

It is apparent to me that the staff could at any point realize that I might be the impediment to their dream test vehicle, and their anger and desperation may become focused upon me.  I don’t have time for that.  I have an intranet security problem to resolve because hackers never sleep, and we have secrets to protect.  My attention can’t be divided between protecting my life and bolstering internal defenses.  A plan of action was required.

The AcMo intranet consists of 10 autonomous drones that fly handwritten webpages around the facility.  They are supposed to fly at least ten feet above the grasp of any human, but sometimes the drones get lazy and/or malicious and fly just high enough to potentially buzz heads.  That must be how the staff got hold of the information before it was ready for publication.

I have wasted years trying to create a corporate culture based on paranoid pessimism, but the recent evidence has proven my efforts have failed.  Despite trying to crush the trusting nature of everyone here, I somehow managed to bolster it.  This is a problem on several different levels.  I know I followed the cult leader’s handbook on breaking down an individual’s sense of identity to reform it as a part of the hive.  I’m not sure how the plan failed.

Once I engaged scramble mode, it took a few hours to create a new plan to quell the insurrection before any blood had spilled.  The solution is brilliant, elegant, and simple.  The 5 round AcMo Mega-awful Car Challenge (some purchase necessary) has been created to serve as a qualifier for supplemental test driver duties.  The semi-finalists who survive the first 5 rounds will then be entered into a random drawing.  The winner of the drawing will move to the final challenge:  six months driving The Probation Box.  Since the backlog for that vehicle is several years, the winner will be required to chauffeur the person to whom the box was on loan at the time the competition concludes.  If the employee survives the six months without resigning, going mental, or committing trafficide, he or she will have won the opportunity to sit in ONE of the new hyper car test vehicles for five minutes without the key.  I will allow simulated engine noises to be produced provided that no saliva is spilled on the interior.  That is the best I can offer.

Here are the vehicles for the Mega-awful Car Challenge in no particular order:

The camo exists to protect the driver's identity.  Even the camera didn’t want to focus on this thing.

The details for the judged events and competition rules are still being finalized.  I am confident this will quell the uprising within AcMo and serve as a subtle reminder that I'm the shot caller here.  Regardless the outcome, I know it will be entertaining watching them attempt a multitude of vehicular challenges in these rolling atrocities.  That alone will be worth my time and effort.