The annual year-end evaluation process has just been completed at Planet Magazine. While it’s easy enough — and fun — to judge others, it’s always difficult for employees to write a year-end self-evaluation, especially for our justifiably harsh alien overlords/managers, as there are only so many ways to gloss over the many deficiencies of not being a machine-upgraded human. In other words, it’s hard to see oneself objectively and critically, and therefore to come to understand the need for being Cleansed. The solution, therefore, was to induce depersonalization disorder in Planet staffers — creating the feeling that one is a spectator in one’s own life. This worked very well and allowed us to relax and objectively critique our performances this year. The self-evaluations were sent off to our Masters, and we expect the usual ritual response at our Five-Year Gathering and Cleansing (which, of course, allows us to downsize headcount without having to pay severance packages). However, we mistakenly induced the depersonalization state in all Planet staffers, and as a result, no one feels the obligation to reverse the process. We are all just observing. Makes reading the magazine more interesting, actually. No doubt it is my responsibility to take care of this situation, but it was all I could do to write this. Interesting — I wonder how painful the Cleansing process really will be for the person who I am?
Happy Holidays from Planet Magazine!
