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At Least It Was Diverse, Part I

From the top came a directive,
a line that management rehearsed,
they needed money, more ESG,
and said we must be more diverse.
So they hired some new people,
and I did interviews for days,
noticed a lot of folks fell short,
but they hired them anyway.
Bragged about it on the website,
hoping to stay with the zeitgeist,
but when a huge new project came
I noticed something wasn’t right.
The work was progressing slowly,
we found far too many mistakes,
were working against a deadline,
with big penalties if we’re late.
I tried to push the people on,
they grumbled, started to complain,
reminded them of the big stakes,
their behavior was just the same.
When I told upper management
that they might not be up for this,
they acted like I as out-of-line
they said I was being ‘racist.’
I wasn’t putting up with that,
so I quit, and left them for good,
hoping that they could do the job,
nut not really sure that they could.
Three months later I heard from friends
the program delivered had failed,
nothing had worked, half wasn’t done,
and the big-time clients had bailed.
We’d passed up folks more qualified,
people who could’ve done the work,
the company lost millions, yes,
but at least the loss was diverse.

I was working on a movie,
an awesome historical script,
have to say it was my best work,
the producers jumped at my pitch.
We began to development,
when all of the changes began,
we must cut this, have to add this,
the usual Hollywood plan.
When somebody on Twitter cried
“Why are all the characters white?”
The script was about King Edward,
but they just screamed, “It isn’t right!”
They caused so much commotion that
the producers went weak and caved,
they casted a black King Edward,
three Asians for his barons brave.
We raised out eyebrows and proclaimed,
“Nobody will buy into this!
Medieval Europe was quite pale,
I’m sorry, that’s the truth of it!”
They then cut me from the project,
proceeded without my input,
I wanted to take them to court,
but was told it would do no good.
When the film finally came out
the producers were oh-so-proud,
declaring that it would change the world…
until the receipts all came down.
Like I feared, people shook their heads,
could not suspend their disbelief,
the movie bombed, money was lost,
the whole thing was a travesty.
The studio took a bit hit,
put dozens of folk out of work,
and sure those people struggled hard,
but at least the film was diverse.

CONCLUDES IN PART II.

Copyright © David Welch | Year Posted 2022

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