On the first day of April, the following announcement appeared on the splash page of the department's website.
----
Appointment
to the SEC-C Commission
- The Honourable Vambrace Walters,
Minister of Commerce and Imprudent Investment, today announced the
appointment of Mr. Solon Le Pont-Tour as Chair of the Salterton
Economic and Community Concerns (SEC-C) Commission.
- "Mr. Le Pont-Tour is an
accomplished Castorian," said Minister Walters. "His
contributions are exemplary of the peculiar values that Castorians hold most
dear."
---
The dour
website, with its stock photo of the Minister, national symbols, and list of
services, drew few visitors, and the announcement might have passed without
notice for several weeks. But the
webmistress, Glossette Rigaud made it an element of her daily ritual to mouse,
click, and verify the linkages on it.
Ms.
Rigaud was grieved when she saw the appointment announcement as the words and
their formatting had not passed through her webmistress server. Being excluded
from the processing of a vital Ministerial announcement distressed her. The slight came at a crucial point in her lifeless career. Approaching her thirtieth birthday and
facing the upper end of her pay scale, she had applied for a position that
would place her among the exalted department employees assigned to the
Minister's Office.
"May
I speak with Ms. Rigaud, the Minister's Assistant," she imagined telephone
callers asking in hopeful breaths, only to be diverted by the receptionist as a
matter of principle. She would not flaunt her new Minister's Assistant business
cards, but they would be hers to use should she ever chance to be introduced incorrectly
as merely "the webmistress."
Within
minutes of sending an email inquiry on the announcement, the Minister's Press
Secretary Ridley Shillitoo appeared at the entrance of Glossette's cubicle.
"Well,
I assume it's been taken down," said the Press Secretary vibrating with
anger.
"What
do you mean, sir?" Glossette said deferentially knowing that this man had
her Ministerial Assistant aspirations in his hands.
"This
is some kind of sick joke," Shillitoo said now turning red. "Didn't
you know that Le Pont-Tour is a big critic of the government, a failed
provincial politician and ... and ... and ... brother-in-law of the Leader of the Opposition
???"
"Sir,
I had nothing to do with this," Glossette pleaded with watery eyes.
"It must've been a hacker."
"Well,
it's your mess - deal with it," the man shouted turning and waving his arm
as if to slam an imaginary cubicle door. "And by the way, there is no such
thing as a Salterton Sexy commission."
Glossette
was so upset that she forgot to block the malicious web page for hours. During
this time, RSS feeds fed out, and the next morning, the newspapers and radio
broadcasts reported the appointment of a high-profile political opponent to
what was presumed to be a post preserved for patronage. The online paper
in Salterton covered the unusual appointment with enthusiasm.
The
National Police Force investigated this serious breach of Ministerial
announcement security. The entire departmental website was taken off the
internet, and all digital information was destroyed. As a precaution, the department
contracted future maintenance of the site to a software company in East Asia,
saving the taxpayers of Castoria great sums as well as ensuring the security of ministerial announcements. All
department employees with access to computers or smart phones were interviewed
by the state police, but none more ruthlessly and repeatedly than the unfortunate
Glossette Rigaud.
At the
same time, celebratory media coverage of the unusual, apolitical appointment spread across
the land. The Minister was applauded for
his integrity, and, amid this praise, the Castorian Privy Council made what was
once false and malicious real - with the creation of a Salterton commission and
with Le Pont-Tour's appointment as its first member. The appointment was
re-announced for good measure.
Walters was commended again in all quarters.
Walters was commended again in all quarters.
"The
Minister would like to see you," Shillitoo told Glossette the following
Monday morning. "He wants to commend you on the innovative, unauthorized
web announcement initiative and to confirm you as an assistant in our
office."
"Please
forgive me, Mr. Shillitoo, but I decided to withdraw my application," said
Glossette Rigaud, now confident in the rightness of her humble web-based
vocation. "I have accepted a job offer from the online Salterton newspaper
– the editor, who likes to laugh a lot, said he was sorry for having caused me
so much distress."
