Green Computer Gremlins meet Molly Human
Work is not a good place to be nervous. So your first day at work usually sucks.
“Which one work on Molly Human? We want her best chance to click.” Sloth asked anxiously.
Pride grunted importantly and said “20 new email scams to choose from. Female Human, first day at work. Only give one email scam today.”
Sloth and Hunger said “Oh! Right! Just one today!” and bobbed their green heads.
Molly logged into her computer nervously, checking the password twice. She didn’t know she was being watched by 3 Green Computer Gremlins, or she would have been even more nervous.
She checked her email, and sure enough, there was an email from her manager, Bill, and one from Temperance in HR. The one from her manager was marked “Urgent”, so she opened it first. It also had an attachment. HR’s emails were always boring, and maybe a bit scary. Would they ask anything personal, or hard to answer?
Hi Molly,
I have attached some sample pages from the last year’s monthly ads. This month’s ad will have the same text, but you have to put in a picture. Here’s a link to the server where we have our templates. There are also photos taken by our staff, of kids sports at schools that we sponsor near our offices.
Pick a photo and insert it into the advertisement.
No photoshopping. Cropping is OK.
I’d like a first draft by lunchtime if you can.
Sincerely,
Bill
Pride grunted. “She concentrate on boss letter. We fix that.” He reached for his touch screen.
Molly was surprised when the HR message wiggled on her screen. Her old computer never did that. There! It did it again.
Nervously, she opened it. A small “sssh” sound swelled and vanished. Did the first letter do that? She couldn’t remember, so she decided to check.
Ignoring the HR letter, she closed her manager’s letter. It “sighed” quietly.
Then she opened it again. It “ssh”ed like the HR letter.
“Hmm!” She said, not sure what to make of that, and went back to the HR letter.
There were several links to forms to fill and a note.
Hi Molly,
Welcome to Faz Co!
Bill said he has something urgent for you, but we do need forms A, B, and C done today.”
Sincerely,
Temperance
Molly was relieved, but she checked the forms anyway, just in case. No problems, just standard forms.
She closed all the forms. “Sigh, sigh, sigh”, and went back to Bill’s message.
In the folder of photos by staff, she found many boring photos of rows of kids, 2, 5, even 20, with smiling teachers and plaques or signs.
Several other pictures were OK, with real action shots of kids playing sports. One, though, caught her eye. Two boys and a soccer ball, all in mid-air! Too bad the goals were just to the right of them. What could she do? She made her choice. She would crop the picture to include just the boys and the ball. That would completely leave out the goal posts.
“What does this do?” Sloth pointed at a check mark next to one of the spam letters.
“Oh, no! Don’t touch that!” said Pride.
Too late! Sloth’s finger never quite touched the screen, but it still clicked.
Molly started at the cheerful “Bong!” A new email. From the VP Finance! She opened the message.
Urgent! Please check this layout for me!
She clicked.
“Yay!” Hunger and Sloth jumped up and high-fived with their green hands, then stopped and stared at Pride.
His face was drooping. A tear rolled from his left eye. “After all my planning, and work, and study of humans, and of Molly Human herself. After all that, the email to send was chosen by pure chance! How can I learn anything from that?”
