Where the Wild Things Work

The night Max wore his fleece vest and made mischief of one kind and another, the senior partners called him a disruptor. Max said, “I will optimize you!” so he was sent to the client site without his supper.

That very night in Max’s hotel room a corporate restructuring grew, and grew, and grew until his spreadsheets hung from the ceiling and the walls became the world all around. An expense account tumbled by, and he sailed off through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year to where the wild things work.

When he came to the place where the wild things work, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible operational inefficiencies.

“Be still,” Max said, and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into his yellow legal pad without blinking once. He declared them all redundant and made himself the most senior consultant of all.

“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild right-sizing begin!”

He analyzed their workflows. He synergized their verticals. He replaced their terrible roars and terrible teeth with a large language model that required zero health benefits.

“Now stop,” Max said, and sent the wild things packing with a standard severance package.

And Max, the king of all the newly automated processes, was lonely. He wanted to be where someone loved him best of all. Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good coffee and complimentary bagels.

He gave up being king of where the wild things work. He sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks, straight into his own home office, where he found a new Statement of Work to replace an entire HR department with AI waiting for him.

And it was still hot.