Anti-Spam Project Unearths Dark Humor from Enron Employees
The Spam or Ham project, an effort spearheaded by anti-spam technologist John Graham-Cumming to categorize 90 some thousand e-mails into an accurately labeled database of spam and wanted e-mail, has unearthed some dark humor from Enron.
Thousands of e-mails from dozens of employees were made public during the failed energy company’s bankruptcy trial. Most are mind-numbingly boring corporate e-mails. Some are the usual jokes forwarded en masse that most of us don’t think are all that funny and wish would stop arriving. Others are extremely personal and serve as a reminder to be careful when using a corporate e-mail account.
A few, however, offer a glimpse into the minds of some of the more creative Enron employees as they realized their company was a sham.
In honor of the death of a heart attack last week of former Enron CEO Ken Lay, here is one on a fictional company called Kenron:
“Today we offer vast diversified product range, including office space in many major US and European cities, second hand computer equipment, and useless IT Helpdesk promotional gimmickry. In fact we have the largest stock of nearly new Compaq and Sun computers in the world. These products give customers the flexibility they need to lose all their money and achieve into the highly sought after status of suing our ass in a class action.
“It’s difficult to define Kenron in a sentence, but our senior executives have been described as ‘incompetent’, ‘arrogant’ and ‘a bunch of thieving bustards’ by many top tier financial institutions. We falsify commodity markets so that we can deliver physical commodities to our customers at a ridiculously unsustainable price. It’s difficult, too, to talk about Kenron without using the word ‘screwed.’ Most of the things we do have never been done before, like going from a market capitalisation of nearly $90 billion to $199 in the space of a year!!!!
“We believe in the economic benefits of secret, underhanded insider trading, and we play a leading role in ripping off our investors. We initiated the wholesale bandwidth markets in the United States, and we are helping to build similar markets in Europe and elsewhere. Shame we lost billions in doing so 🙁
“Every day we strive to hype up our share price to unrealistic highs, with the sole purpose of suckering the investor community and lining our own pockets. Our passion has enabled us to completely mismanage risk. No wonder Misfortune Magazine surveys have named Kenron the most innovative company in America for six years in a row. Our emloyees think Kenron is such a wonderful place to work, thousands are leaving every day to spread the word around the world.
“Kenron’s four business units—Wholesale Services, Energy Services, Broadband Services and Transportation Services—ARE NOW CLOSED.”
RIP, Mr. Lay.
Other examples of gallows humor unearthed by the Spam or Ham project can be viewed on Graham-Cumming’s blog here:
http://www.jgc.org/blog/2006/06/gallows-humor-from-inside-enron.html
