Editing Openai/67fdb3c1-a488-800b-8659-6e01e1418399 (section)

=== WHAT DID YOU DO LAST WEEK? ===

A Dystopian Comedy of Micromanagement Gone Galactic

===== Setting: =====

The year is 2091. The Federal Office of Microproductivity & Engagement (F.O.M.E.) has replaced the now-defunct OPM after a historic LinkedINLive insurrection during the Great Quarterly Metrics Crisis of 2087.

What began as a “voluntary” morale booster — the “What Did You Do Last Week?” email — has evolved into an Orwellian feedback loop of self-surveillance, gamified shame, and AI-managed job evaluations.

===== The Program (WDYDLW): =====

Every Monday at 0600 Galactic Eastern Time, federal employees across all agencies receive a mandatory "Performance Transparency Notification". The subject line?

: 🔍 “Hey [Your Name], We Noticed You Haven’t Reflected Yet 👀”

The email demands 5 bullet points explaining what you did last week. Failure to respond flags your profile with a "Yellow Dot" — the bureaucratic equivalent of a scarlet letter, visible on all internal communications, security badges, and cafeteria trays.

Employees began writing:
* “Attended 3.5 productivity calibration rituals.”
* “Filed Form ZETA-X in compliance with existential policy shift #88221b.”
* “Pretended to help a constituent for 9.3 minutes.”

Some just submitted:
* “I survived.”

===== The Unraveling: =====

====== Phase 1 – The Push ======

The program’s champions (known internally as the “Five Point Priests”) claimed it would “boost transparency” and “empower personal narrative branding.”

They also installed AI Quantifiers that auto-rated bullet points from "Bold and Strategic" to "Underwhelming and Concerning."

====== Phase 2 – The Confusion ======

Agencies began to panic. The Department of Agriculture listed “photosynthesizing” as a weekly success. The Department of Defense installed a missile-warning system for overdue WDYDLW emails.

Employees formed underground Slack channels with names like “5 Lies & a Truth,” where they coached each other on how to make spreadsheet updates sound like wartime heroics.

====== Phase 3 – The Revolt ======

One brave IRS tax examiner submitted:

: “This week, I did nothing. And you still owe me a pension.”

It went viral. The system flagged them as “Morale Hazard Level 7” and reassigned them to the Department of Existential Messaging.

===== OPM's Grand Clarification (Too Late): =====

“We wish to clarify that weekly self-reporting is voluntary. However, non-participation may reflect negatively in your Annual Loyalty Narrative.”

The Department of Defense, after mistakenly applying the program to missile silos, reversed course. But by then, 43% of federal staff had already developed “bullet-point-induced anxiety disorder” (BPAD) and 17% had permanently auto-formatted their brain into Outlook tasks.

===== Final Status: =====

The program was quietly sunsetted and rebranded as a mindfulness app called Reflectsy™, which now offers:

: “Daily affirmations for insecure civil servants.”

Each message begins with:

: “Hey star performer! Tell us: what did YOU nearly accomplish today?”

===== Closing Thought: =====

In the end, no one really knew what they did last week.
But the system sure knew who didn’t say anything.

Would you like a visual propaganda-style poster for the Five Point Priests? Or a memo from Reflectsy™ announcing its launch with “optional but highly encouraged” check-ins?