DOGE Wants to Know: What Did You Do Last Week, Mr. Einstein?
Rooting Out the Slackers Through the Years
To: All Government Employees Everywhere
Date: Now and Then
Fm: Department of Government Efficiency
Re: Please reply to this mail with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.
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Fm: Albert Einstein
Date: 1905
To: Department of Government Efficiency
Guten Tag, Herr Doge.
You are sure you wanna write to me from Washington? I mean, I'm here. You're over there, right? I mean, are you guys some kinda rocket scientists, or what? Ja?
Because, you know, I do work for government, but it's Swiss government, not yours. In the patent office, na und?
But, anyway, it was a kinda slow week, this last one, at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. You know, the usual Meshuggeneh wanting to patent, you know, somethink, like, that they invented the wheel or whatever. Or the shovel. Or somethink like that. Very clever Volk, ja? Ha ha ha! So, yes, Herr Doge, it was kinda slow. But I keep myself busy, even though, ahem, it wasn't, you know, exactly government business.
So, what exactly did I accomplish last week, you wanna know? Well, it was sort of an Annus Mirabilis crammed into eine Woche, I guess.
Okay. First, I publish a paper on da photoelectric effect. I think I get a Nobel prize for dat one. So dat was on Monday. Then I published anudder paper on Brownian Motion dat, you know, dat proved dat atoms exist. No biggee, but maybe it was, so dey say. So dat was Tuesday.
And den I publish a paper on special relativity. I dunno, dat was probably Wednesday, maybe. You know, I'm not too good wid dates and numbers. Time and space is always kind of confusing for me.
So, like, maybe on Friday, I think, I published a fourth paper, a little something dat explained the mass-energy equivalence which I kinda doodled out in shorthand as E = mc². Explosive stuff, somebody said, relatively speaking. But what do I know? Am I some kind of Einstein? (Ha ha - that's a joke, Herr Doge! Verstehst du?)
So dat's, kinda, pretty much it. Maybe you should read da papers I wrote, okay?
Alles gute and best to the kids. All of them. And der mudders, too.
Al Einstein
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To: Albert Einstein
Date: 1905
Fm: Department of Government Efficiency
Dear Mr. Einstein.
It is clear that you are some of the government deadwood that we need to get rid of. Please clean out your office and return the key for your roll top desk. You're fired!
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Fm: Marcel Proust
Date: 1922
To: Department of Government Efficiency
Bonjour Monsieur Doggy-chien!
I am well, merci, and thank you so much for asking about me.
What did I accomplish last week? Well, not much, mon ami, I am sorry to say. Because I was home on extended sick leave. Just lying about in bed all the day and the night. I have such a light sensitivity (I am a very, sensitive kind of guy, you know); and also, merde, such horrible insomnia. Cannot sleep a wink! Not a wink!
So, Monsieur le Chien, while lying in bed all day I write a little book just reminiscing about times past, like mostly when I was a kid growing up and eating lots of cookies. You like our madeleines, Monsieur le Chien? À la recherche du temps perdu, that's what I called this book. Remembrance of Things Past. Very French and very wordy, you know! You know, Monsieur Chien, we French don't work too hard, but we really like to talk! Just like Mr. Emmanuel Macron! Blah blah blah... Ça va?
But these cookies are quite good, they are, tres bien! Hmm mmm! So one thing leads to another: I ate a cookie (maybe there was a little something extra in that cookie, like some magic mushroom spoors peut-être...???) and, what do you know, the lights were spinning and all, and the next thing, it's amazing, I traveled a bit down memory lane (Aha ha! Or did I travel down Swann's Way? Ha ha!)... and, voilà, I had written this seven volume novel. So, oui, Monsieur, that's it. That's about all I did last week. Unless, maybe... I forgot something! Get it? À la recherche du temps perdu! Aha ha ha!
Love to all and all and all!
Mark Proust
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To: Marcel Proust
Date: 1922
Fm: Department of Government Efficiency
Dear Mr. Proust.
Eating and sleeping on the job is prohibited. You are fired. Please clean out your office tout de suite!
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Fm: Julius Caesar
Date: 44 BC
To: Department of Government Efficiency
Bonjourno, Signor Doge!
Molte gracie for getting in touch! Yes, for sure, it was quite a week! A battle here, a conquest there, a coup d'etat, a little palace intrigue! But, veni vidi vici! You know what I mean? I mean, those people had some kinda Gaul. Capisce? Ha ha!
But seriously, I've been away from Rome and state government for quite a while - at least all of last week, for sure! It takes a bit of time to put down this barbarian revolt or another.
And the traffic jams on the Appian Way - brutal! Mamma mia! But now that I've crossed the Rubicon, I'm back in the scriptorium again. Yup, gotta dust off the ole parchment scrolls and chat up a few patrician senators. And then I'm going to visit a few vestal virgins hanging out at the temples, if you know what I mean, Mr. Doge, aha ha ha! We also got that little matter of the triumphal parade out of the way and spent some time watching the chariot races over at the Hippodrome.
Matter of fact, I almost forgot - I've got a meeting at the Senate this afternoon that I've got to attend to. Brutus and some of his boys are going to submit some kind of petition or other, along with some pizza that we all can share for dinner. That's what Brutus told me: they'll all gonna bring their dinner knives so they can cut up the pizza. Or maybe he said they were going to cut up the Caesar? Nah, you don't need a knife for a Caesar salad! That makes no sense. But it was something like that.
So that's it! That's what I did last week. So, unless something happens to mess things up, I should be working full time on government business again starting around, oh, the Ides of March.
Tootle loo - that's Japanese for sayonara, you know!
XOXOX
Jules, Caesar, pro tempore
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To: Julius Caesar
Date: 44 BC
Fm: Department of Government Efficiency
Dear Mr. Caesar:
By last week, you were supposed to have returned to full time work at the office. You are terminated as of the Ides of March. Please return your keys to the Coliseum vomitorium and turn in your official government toga. Make sure you dry-clean it to remove any blood stains.
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Fm: Dorothea Lange
Date: 1933
To: Department of Government Efficiency
Good afternoon, Mr. Doge,
I have been out of the office a lot. I've been taking photographs, mostly of poor people, mostly of farmers and farm families - men, women, children, babies - all displaced by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. These are people who are hungry; people living marginal lives in a state of absolute misery and despair.
I've also taken a lot of photos in the cities - especially photos of workers who have lost their jobs, people who are unemployed, destitute people in bread lines, people who are completely down on their luck and starving on the streets. Kind of like how I think the mean streets of 2025 will look like one day.
My photographs are a documentary of the class differences in American society and the ills of capitalism. But did I take those pics this week or the week before? Well, I really can't say for sure.
In the course of my work, I also ran across others memorializing the reality of our world, like Sanora Babb. While I was taking pictures, Ms. Babb was working in the Farm Security Administration camps in California with her supervisor, Tom Collins. In fact, John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath borrowed heavily from - if not outright plagiarized - Babb's field notes and stories that formed the basis of her own Dust Bowl refugee novel, Whose Names Are Unknown. No one would publish Babb's novel after The Grapes of Wrath became a best-seller and stole her thunder. Between you and me, Babb's book is actually a lot better written and with more authentic characters than what Steinbeck wrote.
But, if you want to know what I specifically accomplished last week, and only last week, then I am sorry: I really cannot point to one - let alone five - things that I accomplished specifically last week! I mean, I have taken hundreds and hundreds of photographs. Do they count? I think I've accomplished a lot by focusing on the lives and misfortunes of so many people whose terrible fate needs our compassion, our understanding and our support. After all, almost every photograph I have taken is on file with the Smithsonian Institute and with the Library of Congress. Is that accomplishment enough, Mr. Doge?
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To: Dorothea Lange
Date: 1933
Fm: Department of Government Efficiency
Dear Ms. D. Lange:
Because you were unable to verify five things that you accomplished last week, you are immediately fired. You can now become an itinerant fruit picker or join the breadlines and the ranks of the unemployed who you are so fond of photographing. Good luck and hasta la vista!
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Fm: Volodymyr Zelensky
Date: 2025
To: Department of Government Efficiency
Hey, Mr. Doge! It's me! Remember me? It's Vlod! I used to be one of America's favorites, remember? Do you really not remember all the things I accomplished?
I mean, okay, so I can't account for half a trillion dollars in aid money. So people forget things. Happens all the time, you know? It was a gift, anyway, right? What's a half trillion dollars between friends? I can't pay any of it back, you know, so, like, why don't you just take the money from the Russkies, just like the Brits and the EU are doing, huh?
As for what I accomplished last week? You mean SPECIFICALLY last week? You mean, other than signing off on absolutely everything of value in Ukraine and giving it to you? Just like we're some kinda colony, huh?
Well, last week... I conquered all of Russia! All of it! Yes, absolutely! Nobody knows know it yet, except me; but I did. I really did! Who you going to believe, anyway, ME or those lying Russkies?
Anyway. I was going to be heading to Moscow to accept Pootie's head on a platter. And I also was going to change that silly annual celebration they hold at Red Square to mark when the Soviets defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. But, maybe later. Can you imagine, those dumb Bolsheviks trying to claim that Germany actually invaded the Soviet Union and not the other way around? And, of course, the Nazis were really swell guys, just like all those Nazis working for me in Kiev, right? We all know that, yeah? And all those neo-Nazis in the European Union. What are you, Mr. Doge, some kinda comedian?
Oh. But I'm the comedian. I forgot about that. Ha ha!
But, okay. Back to what I accomplished. Well, I can't lie. Well, I can't lie too much. At least, I can't lie all the time. But we had to, uh, strategically speaking, surrender quite a bit of Ukrainian territory, last week, you know. A few more cities and towns. Just a few more. And, yeah, a whole bunch more NATO tanks and stuff got blown up along with thousands more Ukrainian soldiers. Sure, that was an accomplishment!
But it's just a ruse, just a ruse. And temporary, of course. We've got those Russians right where we want them! Right where we want them! If this war goes on for only another ten or twenty years, I assure you, we're going to win!
That's right, Mr. Doge. If you Americans just give me another hundred trillion dollars or so, plus about a dozen nukes, several aircraft carriers, a couple hundred F35 fighter jets, some nuclear submarines, a few B-52s, and few hundred thousand American soldiers, then everything's gonna be alright. I mean, a hundred trillion dollars is just pocket change, right? Trust me. I mean, you spent 50,000 American soldiers' lives in Vietnam losing that war so why not waste that many now for Ukraine? It's for a good cause, of course. Even though I have no idea what that cause is. But I will, I will. Right after we conquer Russia and I get Pootie's head served to me on a platter, da?
So, uh, you want bullet points of what I did? Hey, Mr. Doge, how'm I gonna give you bullet points if America won't give me any more bullets? Aha ha ha! So that's about it. You give me more bullets... in boxes, I mean, not fired at ME... and I'll give you your bullet points, okay? How's that for a deal?
Love and kisses to all. All my best to the Don (you know, I think he doesn't really like me. What's the problem, eh?).
Your friend, Vlod
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To: What's Your Name, General Delivery, Kiev, Ukraine
Date: 2025
Fm: Department of Government Efficiency
Dear What's Your Name.
You're fired. Clean out your doomsday bunker in Kiev and turn in your key to the secret bank deposit box. PS - you still have to repay $500 billion dollars plus late fees, penalties and compound daily interest at 22 1/2%. Our special loan and debt collections officers will see you soon in a dark alley somewhere to explain the terms of repaying your debts.
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Fm: God (preferred pronouns: WE/OURS/THEE/THOU)
Date: 2025
To: Department of Government Efficiency
Hello Doge. God here. So, uh, you wanna know what I accomplished last week and to cc my manager? Doh. What manager? I mean, dude, I'm supposed to be the Boss Supremo and all that, so I'm gonna skip the part about cc'ing my manager, okay?
So what did I do last week? Damned if I know! You think I got nothing better to do than to punch a time clock? I'm not some kind of junior associate lawyer billing by the tenth of an hour, you know!
The last time I kept track of working individual days is, like, In The Beginning, okay? So there was this singularity, just this little nothing quantum dot in the void and that was kind of boring. So, ka-boom, I made it all go Bang, a really Big Bang, and then it expanded and all the basic laws of physics started to drop out when the expansion slowed down to around the speed of light and matter stuff started to cool off.
Yeah, I know this expansion thingy is a bit of a scientific cop-out, but you just got to take it on faith that that's what happened. Because, I mean, y'all got any better ideas? No, I didn't think so. So that's why I'm God and you're not. Capisce?
But, good God (not to take my own name in vain, you understand), after that huge Big Bang, everything was just a huge mess. Tohu va-Vohu - that's French for one big mess, okay? So the first thing I did was separate the light from the darkness. Yessir. That's what I did. Day 1.
Now Day 2 took some doing. This whole universe thing, so far, was just as boring as that singularity I talked about. And the whole place didn't have no atmosphere at all, know what I mean? So I created some atmosphere to give the place a little, well, you know, "atmosphere," in a manner of speaking. It was an airy fairy thing at first but, yeah, you want a little atmosphere, you get a little atmosphere. And you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Very cool.
Then Day 3. What the Devil did I do on Day 3? Oh, right. I thought it would be kinda fun to have a terrarium of sorts, so I made a bunch of dry land and veggies. Yeah, I really like veggies. Green stuff growing all over the place.
Then, lemme see, what'd I do on Day 4? Day 4... Day 4... Day 4... hmm, oh, right: the Sun, the Moon and the Stars!
I said to myself, yo, God, why not have an honest-to-God "light show" here, there and wherever? So that's what I did: a light show up in the sky. Very pretty. Kind of like a mash up of Hawaii by day and Times Square, New York City by night; only there wasn't a Hawaii or a Times Square at that time, but that's what I imagined, so there it was. You get the idea. So, yeah, that's what I did on Day 4.
Day 5? Okay, right. Day 5 I created a bunch of fishes and other flippered things to swim around in the water. Blub blub. But, you know, watching fish trundle around in an aquarium is entertaining - well kind of - but only for so long. So real fast that, too, got really boring. And there's one thing I really, really hate is BORING (you hear that Mr. Doge?).
So, on Day 6 I made a whole bunch of animals, metaphorically speaking, of course. One of those animal types was you'all: you humming beans. I wasn't too sure, you know, about the human part of that creation because, frankly speaking, all of you are really just a bunch of smart asses who need to have your butts kicked now and again.
Hmm, maybe I could'a done better with a computer-designed artificially intelligent robo-human? I dunno - the AI man-machine hybrid might'a had four arms and three rotating heads and a set of wings and five charge-coupled device eyes and tentacles with suckers instead of feet, maybe? Maybe put the intelligent beings on Mars or Jupiter instead of Earth? But, yeah, I gotta do some DeepThink-ing about that. Anyway, that's what I did on the 6th Day.
And then, basta!!
I looked back at what I had created and asked myself: Was it good?
Well, it was, meh... you know... it was just… okay. Maybe next time, I'll get rid of the crapware that doesn't work and create something better. Nobody's perfect, you know. Anyway, like I said, I'll think about it.
So with that I was pooped! I took Day 7 off as a personal holiday to just kind of kick back, smoke some weed, drink a six pack, watch some football on the TV. You know, even God can't work all the time!
So, that's about it, Mr. Doge. I'm not sure exactly what week that was, but That Was The Week That Was. And there you have it: 5 bullet points about my accomplishments, more or less. 'Nuff said.
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To: God
Date: 2025
Fm: Department of Government Efficiency
Dear Mr./Ms./Mx. God.
Six days to create the universe? Really? Talk about a slacker! Why couldn't you get it done in five? Did you just want the overtime, the time and a half for the Sixth Day? What d'ya think, God, that the government is just some kind of cash cow? And what's this about taking a day off to "rest." Weekends are a terrible idea when you could be working 24/7!
God - you've got an hour to clean out your desk up there in the Cloud and to turn in your executive elevator card. You're fired!
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