Who dares enter my domain!? Don’t you know who I am? You think a lowly peon such as yourself is worthy of my precious time? Because, jeez Louise, I am absolutely slammed right now.
Tremble before me: I am the judge, jury, and executioner! I could slap a death sentence on you right now if I wanted to—no oversight, no checks, no balances. No anything.
I have to admit, I didn’t end up here through ambition or talent. I’m not the nephew of anybody important. One afternoon, the whole office got an email about all our funding being slashed. The next day, I was the only one who showed up. Now I’m an all-powerful overlord with a terrible bloodlust and an even more terrible work-life balance.
I sleep under my desk on a growing pile of takeout burger wrappers. I have to use PTO whenever the clocks change for Daylight Saving Time. My wife won’t even talk to me (there’s no bad blood between us; she just thinks I’ve been kidnapped).
At least without any coworkers, I have way fewer Zoom meetings. So there’s that.
Sure, it sounds badass—“judge, jury, and executioner”—but the truth is, doing three jobs really sucks, especially three high-pressure jobs that don’t jibe super well. Some juries are twelve angry men, but I’m just one tired dude. Then there’s the fact that I keep mixing up my ax and my gavel, which has scratched the dickens out of my desk. Plus, have you ever tried wearing a powdered wig underneath an executioner’s hood? Forget about it. It itches like hell, and my head looks like an overstuffed doggie poop bag.
Which reminds me, I also run a small dog-walking business as a side gig. The judge, jury, executioner, and neighborhood dog walker. It’s basically the only time I can get my steps in.
Most people see me as a tyrant, but that’s not true. I believe in justice. I believe in right and wrong. I believe I can juggle my multiple responsibilities as I frantically try to keep up with a card cataloging system that does NOT make sense at all. I can’t find anything. In hindsight, perhaps I shouldn’t have condemned our local librarian to sixty cycles in the Maw of Despair. She could’ve figured this mess out. But then again, she recommended a book where a character had two dads. So, yeah, my hands were tied.
Stop looking at me like that. I may be hidden behind a mountain of paperwork, but I can still see your sneer reflected in my baker’s dozen of computer monitors. I usually draw and quarter people for such insolence, I just don’t really have the time for a proper disembowelment right now. Or anytime this month, really. Let me see… any chance you’re available to die in April 2093?
Super—it’s a date. Although I had hoped to retire several decades earlier, this will give me something to look forward to. Look at me, the epitome of bureaucratic efficiency. The bringer of justice. One more evildoer vanquished by the long arm of the law. Your fate will be written in blood! Because someone came in and requisitioned all the pens.
