The Frontier Psychiatrists newsletter has some associated sub-newsletters. One of them is a series of satirical articles, where I address Compliance and regulatory issues through the lens of:
Examining what might've happened in the Lord of the Rings fantasy world had legal and compliance departments been involved.
This is silly stuff. It is intended to keep everyone's feelings intact. I am going to link to prior articles throughout. I will remind readers that this is a mostly free for new posts newsletter, with a lot of content (>400 articles) behind the paywall of older content, and if they enjoy the newsletter, they can subscribe or share to earn free access to the archives. It’s harder to be Sauron if you think everyone is watching you constantly, I imagine. He tried to go big with the One Ring…and frankly, It didn’t scale.
Without further ado…
“You've got to be kidding me.”
“sir, I wish I were.”
“I told you not to call me sir. I'm the most junior of the Nazgûl. I just barely made the cut to being part of the team, which is why I have to put up with reports from you in the first place. Now, tell me again, what happened?”
“you're aware of the Moria operation?”
“I am the one who planned the operation. Of course I'm aware of it. All of the mithril that we could possibly need, with dwarves already having provided a fantastic head start on the excavation, and all we had to do was work with with an aligned Maia.”
“yes sir, sorry sir, sorry…Mr. least of the Nazgûl. It appears that in the process of completing some of the contracting with the associated entities….”
“You mean the goblins?”
“Not just the goblins?”
“what do you mean not just the goblins? Are you talking about the some software the goblins used?”
Beat.
“…I'm listening.”
“The plan, as you so cleverly laid out, was to enter arrangements with some of the deeper dwelling humanoid species. They could be brought in after the dwarves had successfully delved—what we quite appropriately understood to be greedily, and very deep, perhaps too greedily from their standpoint—and definitely too deep for their own good…”
“You need to collect your thoughts.”
“… it was deep enough for us to be able to take a bottom-up approach to mithril acquisition.”
“This was exactly my plan. Are you telling me there is a problem with the goblins?”
“I'm telling you there's a problem with the software.”
“what was the problem with with the software?”
“Well, it turns out our lead on the project, Mr. Balrog, didn't actually get a contract signed with any of his associates or the software they chose to use.”
“Wait…what?”
“There are zero contracts for anyone involved in the entire mine.”
“We break those anyway; who cares?”
“no, I mean, there's no paperwork for anything.”
“And let me guess; the goblins were using Tuesday.com?”
“It’s the preferred task management software for their nefarious activities.”
“But Tuesday.com doesn’t abide by appropriate rules and regulations regarding rare earths handling practices!”
“I am aware, sir. They went rogue on this…but that is not all.”
“Well, there's the balrog associate agreement…”
“There is a balrog associate agreement. It was never executed.”
“what the hell are you talking about? That Balrog executes everything! He can barely go 15 minutes without executing one of those goblins!”
“There is one thing the Balrog does not seem interested in executing reliably.”
“For the love of Sauron! The contract. You mean he didn't even execute his contract?”
“that is correct, sir. Mr. Nazgûl.”
“well, can we get him to sign an attestation?”
“This is my update, Mr. Nazgûl, sir. Sorry sir. It seems he has…fallen.”
“What do you mean, fallen? Down? Fallen down on the job?”
“You are aware of the bridge?”
“ the nightmare bridge at kaz-a-doomed? The one that would cost $250,000 to upgrade with lighting and handrails?”
“The Bridge at Kaz-a-Dum, that your team decided not to sign off on the particular budget for the improvement of last quarter? Yes.”
“When you say fallen, like off that bridge? Holy God. Like, that's like an infinite fall!”
“As it turns out, it's not infinite. There is an endless stare that climbs out of it.”
“Well that's good news!”
“it's not entirely good news. Gandalf the Grey fell with him. Apparently, he was adamant that absent appropriate contracting, no one was going to pass a negotiation with him.”
“that dude is such a blowhard.”
“That dude…will also no longer be bothering us, But there was a lot of hewing, and a fair amount of rending, I am told, in the process of the fall, and there was some fighting. It happened on the process of a multi-day stairclimbing exercise that occurred from the bottom of wherever the hell they fell… to the top of the mountainside.”
“This all sounds bad, but I'm assuming we can get an attestation from Mr. Balrog? That he followed all appropriate rules and policies and procedures?”
“This is why I'm bringing this to you, sir; I'm sorry, it's just hard for me; I'm used to saying. sir”
“Look, I dropped it; just get on with it. I don't care what you call me.”
“OK, sir, it appears at the end of this whole process, the Balrog fell and broke the mountainside. The Balrog is now incapable of signing any agreements, much less our master Balrog associate agreement.”
“OK, but he took out Gandalf?”
“Well, about that, it seems that Gandalf has had a bit of a PR makeover and has re-branded himself Gandalf the white.”
“I thought Saruman…”
“so did he, sir. Wait a minute, so who owns all that Mithril IP now?”
“The mithril-related intellectual property and the actual mineral futures…it appears are not covered under anything other than the unexecuted BAA.”
“Wait a minute.”
“wait as many minutes as you would like. Unfortunately, the dwarvish finders-keepers rule appears to be the relevant law without a binding contract.”
“And who found it?”
“Peregrine Took.”
“Pipin?”
“yes, sir. Perigrine “Pipin” Took is the legal owner of the metals and minerals.”And, here about to tell me, sit down, sit, really…who is on record as ….”
Owen Muir, M.D., your narrator here, reminds my readers that Monday.com does, in fact, sign Business Associate Agreements, and that is why I can use it in healthcare. I love Monday; I have written songs about Monday, and I pay them, but they do not pay me. I still love it so much. There is no paid sponsorship here, just a deep and abiding love of Monday as featured in this song right here: