Ah, there you are. Please do come in. Make yourself comfortable.

Who are we? Well, we’re what you might call Senior Management – but never mind about that now. It’s not important, and all will be made clear in just a little while.

See, you’ve been a real asset to The Company over the last few years, and we want to give you a reward – a reward beyond anything you could ever have expected. And yes, that requires that you be strapped into this intimidating apparatus by burly security men. Don’t worry about it.

Ah...now that you’re all snug and secure, we’re going to show you an ancient artifact – an antiquity that predates the blueprints of the great pyramids, and has more majesty and truth than the oldest myths of mankind.

We call it The ShowReel.

Please enjoy.

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Wait, is this thing on?

Oh, flargx...excuse me...Greetings, fellow sentients of the Twenty Eight Known Galaxies!

As you know, we here at The Company (™) have devoted our lives to bringing you the very best in Cosmic Entertainment – and our results speak for themselves.

Just a few short eons ago, the Cosmic Community attained Enlightenment – we learned how to free ourselves from strife, and pain, and fear, and poverty and hatred and all those other things that made life...well, frankly, a bitch.

And so we entered the Era of Perfection – a veritable Universal Paradise.

But we’re sure we don’t need to tell you that all this Perfection also brought with it something a little less desirable: boredom.

Luckily, The Company had a plan – a plan to reintroduce entertainment without sacrificing our own enlightenment.

And so on a tiny muddy planet in a remote corner of a nondescript galaxy in the very armpit of the Universe became the site for a grand experiment – we took a native primate of no great accomplishment and transformed it into the greatest figure of fun in the cosmos.

Who among us has not thrilled to watch on CosmoView as these ephemeral creatures banded together to form civilizations...and then wipe out other civilizations, or even their own? Who hasn’t smiled as the little ape-sentients held their loved ones tenderly...or laughed as they sneakily did the same to the loved ones of others? And who among us has not marvelled at their ability to find ways to occupy themselves – that strange phenomenon known as Work?

But even in Paradise, times change...and The Company has changed with it, introducing new and improved models to mix with the main ape-sentients, adding interesting flavours to the whole mix.

We’ve brought you Leaders, and Prophets, and Villains, and Monsters, and they in turn have brought you War, and Religion, and Big Ideas like Tolerance, and Equality, and Religious War. We’ve seen them go through Ages of Bone, and Wood, and Stone, and Metal, and More.

Our spirits – and yes, we’ll admit it, our ratings – have soared.

But time after time we returned to that whole Work idea. We’ve brought you the Worker, and the Slave, and the Capitalist, and the Philanthropist, and others. We’ve seen folks stab each other in the back (sometimes literally) to earn one of those “promotions”, and we’ve seen them sacrifice their own needs for the greater good of the collective (in theory, at least). We’ve seen them gossip about colleagues, and innovate and excavate and all sorts of other things.

Truly, nowhere is Man more ridiculous – and entertaining – than when he’s working.

And so, many cycles ago, we set about updating Work by introducing a new creation – a type of man who would introduce a new source of comedy and tragedy into the workplace.

This new sub-species would be indistinguishable in most ways from the rest of its fellows...but this type of creature would be specially adapted to survive in the workplace without adding real value.

They would create new terms like “synergy” and say things like “Are you working hard? Or hardly working?” They’d spend most of their time creating deliverables and attending meetings and avoiding decisions, and frustrating and confusing all the other workers. They would create arcane bureaucratic Procedures that folks would need to follow, mostly designed to prevent people getting access to the resources they need to do their work...while also “motivating” folks to work harder and repeatedly asking them why they hadn’t finished their work yet.

They would, in short, be the most annoying, disruptive and misery-inducing beings on the planet...all without being actually evil.

It was a tall order...and at times even we doubted The Company would succeed.

But after millennia of trial and error (so, so much error) we’ve finally succeeded in devising the Ultimate Source of Cosmic Entertainment - an update that’s really changed the nature of humanity.

Truly, this is Man 2.0.

This is a bold new age for us all.

This is...Management!

Coming soon to a galactic merchant near you. Pre-orders can be placed at your local black hole.

So...let the games begin!

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Still with us? Excellent - we do so hate it when the experience totally burn a brain out. Very messy.

Anyhoo, we hope you enjoyed The ShowReel. Please feel free to tell your friends.

No, really, feel free. They won’t believe you, and however you do it will probably result in a lot of entertainment for the viewers out there.

Those burly men will rough you up a bit on the way out. Just for the sake of tradition, you understand.

Have a good day…

PS: Snip snap snout, this tale is told out...so let me just say Happy Towel Day, all you froody folks! Go read some Douglas Adams - and make sure you’re ready to laugh, and be amazed, and inspired...and go write your own little homage to the master, aait?

PPS That lil guy in the pic up there is Boss C - my nephew, cutest little tyrant/manager around. Remember that face - we'll all be bowing to it someday...