Corporate Compliance

I went to work today for a couple of hours, because there was a mandatory training course that was not make-uppable. This training course dealt with “corporate compliance,” or, as I like to call it “Robot Training.”

I call it Robot Training because, not only do they teach you how to be nice little robot stooges of the corporation, but you get to be taught BY robots. And by robots I mean little computer animated characters who pop up onscreen over a self-powered power-point presentation. In addition to corporate compliance, these robots were apparently there to teach us how to be as angry, frustrated and bored as possible.

Here is the cast of characters that I got to know and love:

Paul – The ringleader. Paul looked dashing in a boxy digital three-piece suit and a well-trimmed mustache fairly obviously meant to distract the eye from his bald pate. Paul did most of the talking, letting everyone in the room know that falsifying documents was a bad thing. He spoke, like my friend/co-worker Adam said, like the robot in the Radiohead song “Fitter Happier.”

Harvey – Clearly Harvey was meant to be the villain of the piece. Harvey bore a striking resemblance to a certain physicist famous for his theory of relativity, except instead of crazy hair, Harvey had a big, dense white afro. Whenever Harvey made an appearance, it would be presaged by a gigantic whirring atom that he would pop out of. For some reason, even though Harvey was in nearly every segment, he would disappear at the end of them with no fanfare and then RE-appear in this annoying, annoying atom-animation. Harvey spoke exactly like Paul, except at a higher frequency.

Judge – Judge is a judge. Whenever Judge would enter, it would be through a door that was only 85% as annoying as the Harvey’s atom theatrics. Judge would occasionally cause a podium and gavel to appear out of thin air and shout “Overruled!” Judge would do this regardless of whether it made any sense to the situation whatsoever. Judge hates violations. He said so.

Merlin – Looks like what you’d expect. Merlin had some bizarre fetish about the special Corporate Compliance Violation hotline at extension 777. He did not become self-aware of this until the very end, where he kind of called himself out for mentioning it so much. His voice was a rich baritone version of the same robot voice everyone had. This was the least annoying version, and sexiest. This is not to say that it was sexy or not annoying.

Deadhead(?) – I can’t remember this dude’s name, but another of my co-workers, Mike, referred to him as a “Deadhead,” so we’ll go with that. Deadhead was apparently the comic relief. Paul and Harvey handed off the hosting duties to Deadhead about halfway through as they needed a “break” (begging the question, why do robots need a break, but the suffering humans in the room do not get one? I do not know). Deadhead then proceeded to hijack the Corporate Compliance seminar and show off a trick. This trick comprised of Deadhead putting himself into a giant computer recycle bin, ducking down out of sight and emerging again looking like President Bill Clinton. After this baffling display, Paul and Harvey returned and, after much complaining about not having a “larger role,” Deadhead left. With him gone, Paul wondered why they continually let him take over. Harvey countered by insisting that Deadhead provided some “light moments.” I hope you now see why I hate Harvey.

Brian – Easily the most bizarre, nightmare-inducing character of them all. Brian repeatedly appeared as a floating head at the top of the screen, without any warning. He would then proceed to speak in a (somehow) even MORE monotonous voice than any of the preceding characters. Not only this, his words would ALSO appear as text in a voice-box next to his head. Also, no characters acknowledged Brian’s existence.

All in all, I'm glad I got paid for this and it was not taken out of my vacation time.

I think this might be the longest post ever.