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piper902020-10-21 06:04 pm
smallmediumwelldone) wrote in piper902020-10-21 06:04 pm
Entry tags:
[Video]
Good evening.
[There’s a woman speaking, tone clipped. The corporate jumpsuit hangs off her small frame, and her hair is swept up into an old-fashioned bun. Or so it seems - she’s standing a bit away from the screen, and it’s tilted at an odd angle.]
I am given to understand that this is how to contact my new coworkers? My name is Beatrice Brewer, at your service, and I assure you I am quite qualified. I am - was - an apprentice of the fifth circle in, ah, a collection of magi, have experience in a thrilling variety of crises, and am quite keen to get started on - [a heavy sigh, more notable for the fact that someone observant might catch that she doesn’t breathe] - this situation.
[There’s a long pause.]
Drat, is this bloody thing even on? Dreadful place, what sort of dog and pony show are they running, honestly. Stuff? Stuff? Of all the names?
[There’s a woman speaking, tone clipped. The corporate jumpsuit hangs off her small frame, and her hair is swept up into an old-fashioned bun. Or so it seems - she’s standing a bit away from the screen, and it’s tilted at an odd angle.]
I am given to understand that this is how to contact my new coworkers? My name is Beatrice Brewer, at your service, and I assure you I am quite qualified. I am - was - an apprentice of the fifth circle in, ah, a collection of magi, have experience in a thrilling variety of crises, and am quite keen to get started on - [a heavy sigh, more notable for the fact that someone observant might catch that she doesn’t breathe] - this situation.
[There’s a long pause.]
Drat, is this bloody thing even on? Dreadful place, what sort of dog and pony show are they running, honestly. Stuff? Stuff? Of all the names?
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Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Brewer. And I can't help you regarding how terrible the names are here. All we know is that when you say "Stuff", you gotta emphasize it.
[Dan empathizes deeply with the tech difficulties. He's been smashing his way into many of them himself.]
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You as well. Listen, it's hardly as if I haven't encountered the audible capital letters of doom before, but typically it has the grace to be for a word with more flair than "Stuff." I have spent the past few months attempting to put a proper name to a - magically active substance, and they just go with Stuff?! Speaking from a professional perspective it's - it's outrageous!
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No argument there. It's probably already copyrighted, too.
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That's so outrageous that you're likely correct. How would anyone even copyright the word stuff. Do you intone it meaningfully? Does one write Stuff, Trademarked? I hate corporate absurdity.
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I hate corporate everything, so it's all absurd to me.
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[She leans forward closer to the comm in emphasis.]
I know - have known, a group of people who did nothing but pride themselves on their skill with playing at corporate ladders, and how this made them - eugh, noble warriors of the boardroom and thus rightful leaders of the world, and all that rot. They never. Ever. Shut up about it. I had a few blissful quiet months free of them, and now not even this place is free of it?
If anyone says anything like - energistically promote metrics, I am leaving.
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If they were here to take offense, then it would be more worthwhile to address them directly. Otherwise there's just no point. Furthermore, I believe the timescale that the Ventrue work with cancels out any credit they may get for what successes they've eked out – it's a question of productivity to time ratios.
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[A beat, where Beckett visibly considers his words]
...Hmph. You're not wrong.
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Although I would hesitate to say all. Plenty have the grace to set actual goals, with good, proper work. Your own- [ Beatrice clears her throat. Anyway.]
I just don't consider steps on some amorphous path of 'and then we shall rule the world as CEO-kings and bring about enlightenment! Any century now, as long as others stop mucking it up!' as one that has much success return-value over the eons.
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[He is flattered, tho.]
The Ventrue never really recovered from the end of monarchy. That's the trouble with hierarchy and immortals - if there's no turnover, the institution can't adapt.
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[As if you would ever need winkling from your shell, Beckett, you dork.]
My view is not quite as bleak as all that - an unwillingness to adapt is not the same as an inability. Or perhaps it is more bleak for I hold them to have the capability to change, just too comfortable in familiarity to have followed the impetus. Who are they if not carving out their fiefdoms - out of each other's backs, naturally - while playing out their incredibly dull courtship with the Brujah?
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But I think we are actually in agreement on the issue. Theirs has been a failure to adapt; my opinion is that this inflexibility can be blamed on their refusal to allow any kind of turnover in their institution - those already at the top stay there, entrenching their personal attitudes and shibboleths as objective truths, and unlike mortals, no one can take solace in the knowledge that they will eventually die and let someone else have a go at fouling it up.
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While I agree with your wider point of how they've ended up clinging to feudalistic organization, on the question of their skills...well, so long as they're self-defeatingly reliant on powers as a substitutes for actual competence, the wheels will keep spinning in the mud. That's not a question of turnover, it's simply human habit for the easiest option.
Thus, we are doomed to never have anything new to hear them argue over besides Carthage.
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But they do rather remind one of a those fellows down at the pub who can't talk about anything other then the goal they missed in the big game back at school, the one with the club recruiter watching.
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Vivid imagery, but a rather fair one. Oh, we nearly had it in the bag! Our strategy has simply been misunderstood and unfairly maligned - it was everyone else that couldn't pull it off! And that's why someone else should buy my round.
I don't deny your other point, it's just that their, ah, set of arts that come naturally is particularly suited for being able to replace skillful handling of people with short-term solutions.
[She finds that tidbit about the Ventrue much less amusing.]
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I've no doubt your time delving has turned up a much deeper well of rot than I can imagine. [Beatrice isn't directly asking, but she is openly curious. It'd be impossible to deny that.] Though as you pointed out, there's no one here that can rat us out - thus I am free say that my brush against glorious greatness by encountering Lords Hardestadt and Pieterzoon was..uninspiring. Eurgh.
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Hardestadt and Pieterzoon both? What did you do, reveal your nature on a late night television show?
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No. Good evening, Mr. Beckett.
[Did she just...hang up on him? Yes. Yes she did. She even managed to find the right buttons.]
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[he says aloud at the suddenly dark screen.]
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If you do, let me know how. If I have to hear about "diversifying market streams" again I might could die.
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[She's joking. Probably.]
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[She snorts, and then remembers something and sighs.]
Drat. The tragedy of it all is that I did actually have earplugs on me when coming here. If they're ever recovered, you're more than welcome to them.
The saying may go about the silence of the grave, but as it turns out, being dead - or undead, as it were - is still exceptionally noisy.