It's been about 10 years since I've had minions. They've all grown up, started painfully profitable companies, and now hob-knob whose-who of important and influential figures of their field.
I'm growing old and increasinly mal-adapted to normal life. It's no longer becoming for me to leave my lair nor speak on the phone.
I've reflected on making this post, and I've reflected at great length.
Minions aren't what they used to be.
Minions now days are soft and weak willed.
In the old days, it was that minions would
realize they can wield power if they're willing
to spend a time subserviant to someone
capable of teaching.
Now days, kids have this notion that money
only comes from the parents, power comes
from your social (gag) circles, and glory
comes from the things you own.
They seek answers to Perl questions only
for immediate gradification, not to truly
master an insidious tactic and become
a potent force.
Kids now days, not nearly robust enough to
be considered minion material. They,for their
entire life, questioninglessly slide into being slaves of much more powerful
overlords.
They accept as payment for their servatude
a few measily tens of thousands of dollars, and then only paid in payments yearly,
calling that close enough to world domination,
and inexchange for that paultry fee,
deliver one after another innocent to the
hands of Bill Gates, telling the clients they
betray that Microsoft Windows is a servicable
operating system and a supportable platform.
While it is truly becoming to serve on the
side of Microsoft, it is also well known
the ranks are thin at the top but wide at the
bottom, and few ever move past petty explotation
of businesses and moronic home users.
This is not the stock I seek.
These so short-sightedly driven by greed,
rather than lusting for true power, amount
to little more than orcs - a fodder of little
use except as "consumers" in this modern age.
It is far more becoming to hope to some day
aspire to be an overlord of some small
repute yourself and initially forego payment.
Minions in my service will be expected to
endure maindane business-related tasks, such as answering
the phone, but will always be allowed the
basic dignity of being able to tell
clients to "fuck off" when appropriate.
Retaining dignity does not relieve the
necessities of subordination, however.
My minions may seek clarification but will
never question me.
For the term of their indenture, they will
accept my teaching as truth itself.
They will not seek short-cuts where I say
there are none, and if I later reveal short-cuts,
they will know it was because they were not
yet ready before.
While my young troglodytes will doubtless
enterain perversion and drug abuse in their
free time, they will go for the want of the
very necessities of life should urgant cause
arise.
In exchange, they will be tutored on the
basic elements of evil and Perl programming
and will share in the spoils of an insideous plot I've
hatched some time ago to dupe large numbers
of people out of money by playing on their
greed and fear.
Of course, in the interest of avoiding indictment myself, the details of the plot can never
be revealed, but a clever student will quickly
ascertain the nature of the ploy.
After thier period of endenture, minions
will have developed an eye for exploitation and trickery, but most importantly will have developed a deeper understanding of how things work - both in Perl and in the real world.
They will see everything about them as
quite potentially theirs - no program must
go unwritten, and persuent to Free Trade
Agreements, they will be as a sovereign nation.
While the offer is valid,
this is a draft for a post on
jobs.perl.org.
Feedback is welcome - unless you're stupid,
then stay the hell off my blog.
Time and time again I forget both the power
of TV to sap intelligence and the
very prevelence of the thing.
So let this be a test: if you watch more than
half an hour a day of any programming besides CSPAN, don't post here.
-scott
P.S. What if I'm already evil and know some perl? Does that make me overqualified?
