Case narrative
What the report says
The agents of F.U.B.A.R. arrived at headquarters expecting another assignment. Instead, Henry Dumbledorf had summoned them to account for a growing collection of incidents that management had somehow survived long enough to document.
A goat had been blown up. A house had been blown up. A handcuffed man had been blown up. There had also been an incident involving sausages, which Dumbledorf would rather not discuss.
Hobitus Wobbleknees, already spectacularly drunk, made his entrance by knocking on the wall beside an open doorway and announcing himself for duty. Iven Oldbum helped him toward the boss's office. Dumbledorf demanded to know whether Hobitus had been drinking on the job again.
Fortunately for F.U.B.A.R., its newest member was present: Merriadoc, a halfling bard who had chosen to practice law. Merriadoc cited the Civil Treatment of Employees Act of Greenhollow, year 721, declared the earlier explosions ordinary workplace incidents, and insisted the employees had mentally signed a union contract upon entering the building. He also asserted that the sausages had failed to meet manufacturing specifications.
Dumbledorf explained that Merriadoc had been assigned to F.U.B.A.R. because nobody else wanted to deal with him. Merriadoc considered himself the team's union lawyer and began collecting a three-gold retainer from his new clients.
One employee was still missing. Vokkia Gatewood eventually crashed through an office vent, claiming to have been present all along and certainly not stealing pens or a mug. When Dumbledorf questioned her about a missing cup from an earlier assignment, she denied ever having visited the place and suggested that suspecting her was sexist.
Dumbledorf had seen enough. The team would undergo mandatory workplace training.
The first exercise sounded straightforward: guide Hobitus around the office without bumping into the furniture. The other agents could use their skills, spells, and abilities to help, but Hobitus's own performance would determine whether he succeeded.
The office was a terrible place to conduct this exercise. Hobitus was a drunken master monk, and the staff had apparently decided that throwing office supplies at him was a reasonable response to his progress.
With Iven's help, Hobitus achieved a moment of improbable clarity. He launched into handsprings, raced along a wall, performed a double flip, and landed in something resembling a pirouette. He could barely stand still afterward, but Merriadoc argued that these feats proved his client was legally sober under the terms of the contract.
Hobitus continued weaving between desks while employees hurled staplers, plants, and other objects at him. Then he remembered he could deflect and redirect attacks.
Hobitus began sending everything back.
Five office employees died. One received a cactus in the throat. Another took a stapler to the skull. A third was struck in the heart by four pencils. A fourth was hit by a paper-cutter blade thrown like a machete. The fifth threw a chair and received it back by way of a flying double kick. Adrian from accounting was among the dead.
Hobitus tried to specify nonlethal damage. Dumbledorf ruled that the damage was lethal.
Merriadoc immediately argued self-defense: the employees had attacked his client first. Dumbledorf, pinching the bridge of his nose, was forced to confront the possibility that the lawyer was the only thing keeping the entire organization out of court.
Hobitus ultimately completed the course, including a final distraction in which he chased what he called a squirrel, tumbled over a chair, and landed flat on the floor. Dumbledorf grudgingly noted that Hobitus seemed more coordinated when allegedly drunk and checked a box allowing him to drink on duty.
The first training exercise had been completed successfully. The office had five fewer employees.
Iven Oldbum was selected for the second exercise: demonstrate a workplace-safety procedure using advice supplied by his teammates.
Hobitus offered a memorable rule about crushing the skull of anyone who insulted your mother in a tavern. Merriadoc offered a more specialized lesson: goats may spontaneously explode, so employees should stay away from goats that have not yet exploded. Such explosions, he stressed, were not necessarily his clients' fault.
Almost immediately, a goat appeared in the office. Iven walked straight into it. Dumbledorf was horrified: the office had not contained a goat in fifteen years, and somehow Iven had collided with one seconds after being warned.
The goat was Steven, recognizable from Riverside. It followed Vokkia and nudged her hand affectionately. Vokkia maintained that she had never seen this goat in her life. Dumbledorf gave up trying to determine whether she was lying.
Vokkia's contribution to workplace safety was practical: whenever something goes wrong, simply say you were not there that day.
Iven successfully applied this technique. Coworkers accepted the explanation even though the audit logs would have shown he was present. Hobitus became so thoroughly convinced that he began insisting Iven truly had not been there.
Merriadoc concluded the exercise with the legal definition of a sausage, asserting that a product required at least twenty percent pork to qualify under the kingdom's laws. Against all sensible expectations, Iven completed his training.
With the training winding down, Dumbledorf introduced conflict resolution, read the instructions, and immediately decided that negotiating mutually acceptable solutions was too complicated. He switched to process improvement and placed Vokkia in charge.
Vokkia identified the problem almost instantly: someone else should do the work.
She selected an IT employee passing through the office. Dumbledorf improvised the unfortunate man's identity on the spot: Bartholomew, the IT guy.
Vokkia convinced the office that Bartholomew had accepted responsibility. She explained that they had discussed the matter at the water cooler, where Bartholomew had returned refreshed from vacation and generously volunteered to take over her workload.
Bartholomew protested that he had never agreed to anything. Vokkia kept insisting otherwise. When Hobitus questioned her story, she threw a stapler at him and denied doing so, suggesting that he had tripped into a cubicle wall.
Hobitus later picked up the stapler, wandered over to Adrian's corpse, threw it at him, and returned to ask when somebody planned to clean up the bodies.
By the end of the workshop, Bartholomew was responsible for work he did not understand, had not volunteered for, and could not escape. F.U.B.A.R. had improved its processes by assigning all its problems to one man.
Dumbledorf admitted that the team had completed the activities. He did not understand how people responsible for explosions, a five-person office massacre, and assorted administrative catastrophes could perform so well at training.
Merriadoc recognized a negotiating opportunity. He argued that the team's performance, sacrifices, and exposure to unsafe conditions entitled them to employee status, salary, overtime, paid time off, and holidays.
Dumbledorf conceded that they deserved more than intern treatment and promoted the agents to F.U.B.A.R. Second Class. He agreed to keep sending them on missions.
Hobitus asked whether that was better than their previous rank. Merriadoc told him to stop talking and let his lawyer handle it.
Thus concluded Mandatory Get Better at Your Job Day: five office workers dead, one goat unexpectedly returned, one IT technician buried under an imaginary workload, and the agents of F.U.B.A.R. promoted.
Management considered the training a success.