Look Sharp!

 Do I need to tell you that things are nuts out there? (insert vague gesture toward open door or window here)

If you asked a hundred people if they wanted to live in a world with war, famine and disease, I would guess you'd get a pretty hefty slice of "No." And yet, here we are. The twenty-first century has brought us all kinds of new and varied ways to suffer through daily life. No personal jet packs, and no flying cars. This is in spite of the efforts of a very good friend of mine who insists on sending me each hopeful article suggesting that either one of those conveyances are just days away to being available commercially. 

But it won't be me that's buying them. I'm a school teacher. I don't qualify for those bits of existential whimsy that would make my life look more like something out of a Sharper Image catalog. It should be noted that even Sharper Image isn't what it used to be, having closed all its brick and mortar stores back in 2008. They live on in a semi-gaseous form on Al Gore's Internet. 

Meanwhile, down near the train station, people are living in cardboard boxes and digging through dumpsters for meals. Not a very sharp image. This takes place while the richest men on the planet race to be the first to leave it, spending billions of dollars on their Buck Rogers dreams and Flash Gordon wishes. The guy that makes those really cool and prohibitively expensive electric cars just ordered his workforce back to the office in a most Dickensian way. "Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers." He continued, adding that the office must be the employee's primary workplace where the other workers they regularly interact with are based — "not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties."

And yes, he did say "duties." This is the same fellow who has decided to change his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, and recently announced that he had "a super bad feeling" about the economy. So bad, in fact, that he sent this email to his company: 

To: Everybody
Subject: Headcount Reduction
Date: Friday, June 3, 2022

Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10% as we have become overstaffed in many areas. Note this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs or installing solar. Hourly headcount will increase.

Elon

Sorry, I guess that last bit sort of gave away the identity of our mystery kerjillionaire. He may just feel upset because his plan to buy Twitter just became more of a dream as his stock price continues to circle the drain. Oh, and his cars don't fly, by the way.