The Completely True Story of John McCrusty

In our story, John (see photo at right) has been in the project management game for a very long time and has pretty much had his enthusiasm for working for a living kicked out of him by a never ending cascade of demanding customers, impossible deadlines, disinterested senior management, and less than enthusiastic project teams. Nevertheless, driven by that ancient instinct to put food on the table, beer in the fridge, and get the kids through college and out of the house, John soldiers on. Actually, that’s the only part of our story that is completely true.

Frank and Natalie, as you might have suspected, are visitors from another planet many light-years from our solar system. They have been marooned on our planet ever since their spacecraft was severely damaged in a well-publicized incident somewhere near Roswell New Mexico in the middle of the last century. Contrary to popular belief, however, their ship did not crash and their little green bodies are not picked in jars of alcohol somewhere in the bowels of Area 51 (although some of their friends may be). In fact, Frank and Natalie were able to coax their severely crippled spaceship across the country to the northeastern USA where they successfully ditched into Lake Erie and sank safely to the bottom of that fabled body of water.

And that’s where they remain to this day. They’re still there because they have nowhere else to go. The nitrogen content in our atmosphere is extremely toxic to members of their species and so they are forced to stay hidden in their crippled ship at the bottom of the lake. They explore the Earth using bio-engineered remotely controlled robotic extensions made of a plant-like substance closely resembling celery. They feel safe at this particular bar (nobody cares what you look like here) and haven’t left the premises for over six months. In order to avoid wilting, they spend their evenings in the vegetable crisper in the bar’s kitchen.

J.F. Goodhair is the General Manager of our company. His parents were both rich and well connected. They sent him to the very best schools. J.F. is tall, with great hair and a chin like a dung beetle. J.F. believes himself to be a truly superior human being who deserves to have good things happen to him. His mother was a beauty queen and his father was a CEO. He has never held a position lower than Vice President. J.F. speaks entirely in sports analogies sprinkled with words he learned at MBA school such as ‘paradigm’ and ‘synergy’. J.F. is truly proud of the inspirational speeches he delivers at his semi-annual communications meetings which are held at random every couple of years – usually just after a major layoff.

Frank Moneymaker, see photo at left, is the Vice President of Finance. Like all Vice Presidents of Finance, Frank is a highly valued member of the executive team. Frank is prized for his ability to magically conjure up a profit out of the tail end of a disastrous year. Somehow he is able to pull next year’s revenue into the current fiscal year and slide this year’s expenses into another dimension. Frank is truly a wizard with a balance sheet and can transform a horrendous loss into an amazing windfall just by dragging his cursor around the screen.

Susan Dresswell is the Sales Manager at Our Company. Sue barely made it through high school and has only a vague notion of the business in which Our Company is engaged. Susan is thirty-two years old, divorced, and the mother of a five year old son. She divorced her husband the day her son was born and exactly zero point six seconds after the epidural wore off. Sue was snogging the VP of Finance who was an expert at hiding expenses as R&D and sliding government tax credits her way and reporting it as revenue. Sue always looked like a hero.

Kathy Slackersby is an administrative assistant at our company.

Don Dickless is the Vice President of Operations.

Gwen Cheermore is the Human Resources Manager.

The cast of characters in our little story is vast and varied. We didn’t manage to cover them all in the summaries included above but hopefully we’ll complete the job to the extent that time and disk space permit. So for now, below is a virtually complete list of the cast appearing in our story.