The Bug
In 1984 I worked in some lofty executive suites, however, as the lone male secretary. There I saw plenty of incompetence and wasted effort, including the CEO’s much ballyhooed “task force on innovation,” made up entirely of the stodgiest, least creative executives he could find. I used to call it the “task force against innovation” to my boss, a talented man naturally excluded from the group, which usually made him laugh. Then one day, thanks to a little typo neither of us caught in the weekly notes, everyone from the president on down found out about my clever nickname. But even though I’d seen firsthand the arrogance and stupidity of some executives, I was surprised to read about Enron’s byzantine manipulations and WorldCom’s outright lies.
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When the walls do metaphorically come tumbling down at the end, Strand plays the moment as a one-liner at the end of a long, flabby comedy sketch. Likewise the CEO of Jericho is simply an excuse for a quick, sugarcoated laugh. He’s just a disembodied voice ringing out from a corner office–a funny bit the first time it’s employed but never fully explored. Is the CEO meant to be God? Or is he, like Major Major in Catch-22, too timid to face his minions directly?
