Playing The Long Game

No!  This Is Not About A Tontine

I know we've already defined this, except that definition came out of my "Collins Concise Dictionary" and this one is coming out of my "Brewer's Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable", to wit: "A form of annuity shared by several subscribers, in which the shares of those who die are added to the holdings of the survivors until the last survivor inherits all.  It is so named from Lorenzo Tonti, a Neapolitan banker -".  Hmmmm another financial scheme named after a Roman, "Ponzi" springs to mind.  Art!

Why Nuclear-powered aircraft are an extremely bad idea

     No, that illo has absolutely no connection to tontines.  Come on, which is more exciting, a picture of Mr. Tonti or an atomic airplane about to explode?  I rest my case.

     What this Intro is about concerns an abused employee from a good twenty years ago, when, if dinosaurs didn't quite stalk the land, then they'd not been gone for long.  This is a tale from Youtube's Reddit digests, where OP laid out the legend.

     For establishing backrground, Original Poster had been employed in a start-up, where he coyly avoids giving any details about what was started, probably because of slander and defamation laws.  He was one of 9 employees, who had all signed contracts that specified No Overtime, a review at 3 months, an annual review - all pretty standard stuff.  Art!

Don't ask me.  I Googled 'IT startup' and this appeared.

     Things rumble along successfully for 3 years, by which time the company is doing very well indeed.  They have an established client base and more clients doing a sounding-out period.  Talk amongst employees now turns to back-pay, getting OT in the future and being compensated for the OT so far, which in OP's case runs to $50,000.  That's a whole annual salary in itself.  Art!

     For an alleged legal reason, the employees cannot be paid back-pay - I'd query that since it comes from the business itself - so instead any monies owed would be paid as a 'discretionary bonus'.  Conrad again asks, whose discretion?

     This whole process is then dragggggged out by the company.  No, that's not the long game we're talking here.  It does, mind, show what bad faith they negotiate in, which increasingly stokes the ire of OP.  When they came back it was with an offer for equity in the company, which had a turnover of $2 million.  Woo hoo!  Art!

     Hold on, pardner.  Don't count your vampire chickens yet.

     That's an annual turnover, not profit.  Let us therefore assume $1 million in profit, which might be wide of the mark yet gives us an useful approximation.

     What did they offer OP?

     0.01%.  Which works out at $100.

     I think I know what image Art needs to put up here.

     He doesn't say so in the text but OP must have expected an insult like this, as he already had a letter of resignation ready and handed it in.  Unfortunately for the business, the CEO had refused to update OP's contract, so he was still on a one-month notice schedule, with a month's worth of untaken leave, so he marched out the doors that very same day.

     The company then refused to pay OP what they owed in back pay, so he went to an attorney - which he says was unusual twenty-odd years ago - and was advised that they could have his money in a few weeks.  Art!

     OP, being a sly beggar, noticed that the limitation on cases like this was 7 years.

     Legal notice was served on the company, which ignored them.

     SIX YEARS AND ELEVEN MONTHS LATER -

     OP gets an attorney and makes his claim against the company.  From $50,000 originally owed the total accrued, with interest (at 12.25% PER DAY) and fines for non-payment, is now $135,000.

     The CEO, who was still the same as when OP was at the company, rings him and unloads a torrent of venom, which OP diligently records; CEO should have realised by now that this chap is a forward-planner prepared for eventualities.  This recording goes down like a whoopee cushion in church when the judge hears it and he awards OP not only the money owed but legal expenses, too, which probably pushed the total up to $150,000.  Art!

     OP merely states "They got a full audit from the Department of Labor".  This glosses lightly over what would be an incredibly worrying process for the business, because they stand to be fined or prosecuted for ANY violations of labour law going back to the start of the company.  Potentially, if the other original 9 employees had been stiffed out of their OT, the business would be looking at $450,000 in back payments PLUS fines*.

     It gets worse.  Art!

     The CEO, driving whilst drunk out of his skull after the court case, crashed and badly damaged his own car and another one.  Not only did he get a Driving Under the Influence charge, he lost his licence for 6 months, and his insurance company refused to pay anything towards repairs as he was drunk.  Add another $10,000 to the total bill, please!

     That, Vulnavia, is playing the long game.  And winning it.

"The Great War In Europe"

Yesteryon I was banging on about 'Events' and the Event counters.  They only enter play if you pay for them, and may have to be played immediately - the ones with a yellow stripe - or can be kept for a particular battle later on.  Art!

     Yes, that is Hermann Goering, before he got to be a fat drug addict.  He was the last OC of the Teuton's elite 'Jagdgeschwader Ein' squadron.  Art!

     The units at top are British, Australian (yellow) and Canadian (blue).  If you compare former's Attack and Defence numbers, you can see the Ockers and the Canuckistanians are substantially better.  This reflects real life; the Dominion troops were all volunteers and they operated as wholly Ocker or Canuckistanian forces, not being chopped and changed around like British divisions.  This led to not only high esprit de corps, but allowed for improved staff work.  Which is dull but essential.

     The South Canadian (green) unit's Attack and Defence values (the first two or combined first number) give some indication of why the Teutons were worried about their arrival in France en masse.  A South Canadian division was enormous, almost twice the size of the other combatants'.  Art!

     They totalled about 28,000 men, as opposed to the 12,000 to 18,000 of other armies.

     I'm afraid the Teutons only have 3 Available Units.  Everything they had was in the front lines.

     Last night I actually began the game, so we'll see where this goes from here.

"City In The Sky"

Orskan, one of the imprisoned Lithoi scapegoats, is trying to sound out and assess what looks like a human (although we know different).

     ‘Help me sabotage your attempt to murder Planet Earth’s population.  If you do that and survive, I can guarantee to provide you with a piece of the planet to call your own.  A nice dessicated bit of desert in the Gobi, or the Sahara with zero rainfall, or lovely cosy Death Valley.’

     The stunned Lithoi had to get their intellect around the concept of negotiation, operating as a coalition, consensus politics and above all - trust.

     ‘What’s in it for you?’ asked Orskan, typically blunt.

     The Doctor stared at the amoral creature, which quailed under that stony gaze.

     ‘The survival of Homo Sapiens, a species I have invested quite a bit of time and trouble in.’       Orskan felt his scales ripple.  Describing the humans as “Homo Sapiens” implied that this strangely-clad hum- no – no, it wasn’t a human being.  He concentrated.  What other species were humanoid, near-omniscient, abhorred violence?  What other species utilised advanced technology that allowed them to breach the walls of an impregnable space-going fortress with utter impunity?

     ‘By the Great Spirit!’ he whispered.  ‘A Gallifreyan!’  The not-human displayed a facial rictus that Mirskan described as a “smile”, an expression that could be read many different ways.

     There were tales told amongst the stars of the aloof, remote, inscrutable and awesome Time Lord society from Casterberus, who took it upon themselves to impose order on anything involving time travel.  And other whisperings, too, about a lone stranger in voluntary exile from Time Lord society, who turned up in strange places at opportune moments.  

     Quite quick for a Lithoi, that Orskan

I Warned You

I WARNED YOU!  Do you want Skynet?  Because this is how you get Skynet!  Art?

     This is weapon from The Populous Dictatorship and there are claims that it can be dropped into action from a carrier-drone, which proves (if true) that drone warfare is evolving ever-faster.

     I dunno.  Maybe we'll hit "Surrogates" before we get all Skynetty.

Finally -

<sigh> it's the film with Bruce Willis where people live vicariously via perfect robotic doppelgangers.  It's better than the comic it's based on, for your information, because I've read it and it may be lingering in a box in a cupboard in the Sekrit Layr.  Art!

*  Tee hee!