The Benchmark

Dez's wall of framed emails is now company property, fifty-two items on the fixed asset register, and Janet's asset verification policy says every one must be read aloud, checked against the original word for word, and certified in ink by its author. Graham, who wrote thirty of them, puts it in writing: the audit is done by Friday at 4:55, no exceptions, no seniority. The audit email becomes asset fifty-three.The originals of Graham's emails are four years of voice-typing audio, much of it recorded in the bath. Philippa drives up from the Cotswolds to read her own email, the chief executive certifies his crayon verdicts, and Tristan comes back to read asset one: love it, ship it. Then Janet finds the original had a rocket, and the frame doesn't.A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Adapted from the Root Without Responsibility ebook.Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

Ollie has never been able to say no, so Philippa books him on Say No and Grow, a four-day course starring Percy the Padlock in a hard hat. She puts the measurement in writing: every visit to Ollie's desk under thirty seconds counts as a no, the target is twenty by Friday at 4:55, and the results go on the reception screen. IT to measure, exactly, no exceptions.Ollie says yes to everyone. Then the coffee machine on the end of his desk turns red, decides it doesn't trust the pump Ollie fitted at midnight, and starts turning people away in nine seconds each. By Thursday the screen says 151, Philippa's blog calls it growth, and Fiona Hale comes down to watch a refusal. Then Graham asks Ollie, in writing, to override the lock before the board meets.A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Adapted from the Root Without Responsibility ebook.Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

Nobody has worked the boardroom projector since 2017. Then Darren reads the whole wi-fi policy and finds the password on page three. Graham puts it in writing: Darren runs the board's AV, start to finish, whatever Darren puts on the projector is the board pack, and IT is not to touch it. Graham's eighty-four slides are on a memory stick. Darren's desktop is a shuffled slideshow of three thousand photos of his cousin's dog, Duchess.Graham presents the year of Digital Enablement for forty-one minutes, entirely in pictures of a Staffordshire bull terrier, and the chief executive laughs for the first time in a board meeting. Then a photo comes up that isn't a costume: Duchess in a life jacket, on a lilo, in the flooded car park, with a date stamp. Fiona Hale has nine rejected motor claims from the lake.A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Adapted from the Root Without Responsibility ebook.Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

Sales hasn't raised a single ticket in a week, and its IT satisfaction score has gone from forty percent to a hundred. The reason is Darren, who believes he is a domain administrator and has been going from desk to desk fixing laptops. Every fix puts a new photo of his cousin's dog on the reception screen. Graham calls it citizen IT and puts it in writing: every member of staff gets exactly the same admin rights as Darren, Friday at 4:55, no exceptions, leadership first.Fiona Hale spends four hours assessing the risk of three hundred and forty people becoming administrators of one television. Graham asks to go first at 4:54, and for the first time in four years doesn't send the email. Then Dez looks at why the tickets really stopped, and finds one line in Bronwyn's notebook.A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Adapted from the Root Without Responsibility ebook.Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

The printer on level three has never jammed, never guessed and never helped, and everybody hates it. So Graham brings in Tristan and PrintMind, an AI print assistant with a smiling toner cartridge called Inky, and puts it in writing: every job anyone at Kestrel has ever sent to the printer must come out, no deleting, no exceptions, collected in person at the Christmas party, Friday at 4:55. IT to move the printer.Smart Recall finds 41,212 forgotten jobs from eleven years: nine thousand photos of Darren's cousin's dog, 219 of Philippa leaving reception, six hundred green crayon drawings sent from the chief executive's phone, and 340 documents held for a man who has never touched a printer in his life. The insurer says Kestrel can neither print them nor delete them. Then the oldest job in Graham's pile comes out, one page, from extension 1200.A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Extra-long episode.Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

A forty-pound invoice from Shiftwell Office Moves reveals that Kestrel has been renting a storage unit in Redditch since 2009, paid from a cost code called Ask Dez. Graham, now Head of Cost Transformation, puts it in writing: every unexplained contract closes at 4:55 on Friday, and anything found is disposed of by Shiftwell, no questions asked. Don't look in the boxes. Dez puts all forty-one unexplained contracts on the reception screen, with names. Darren explains the visitor wi-fi (it's for the dog), Philippa explains her photographer, Fiona writes three pages explaining the insurance, and the chief executive explains the soft play centre in green crayon. Only unit 14B is left. So Dez, Ollie and Carol drive up the ring road with a brass key from the drawer marked Responsibility, and find something under a blanket that has been humming for seventeen years. A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

With the Harrogate claim finally paid, Janet in finance has nothing to reject on Thursdays. Graham puts it in writing: Janet audits every expense claim since 2014 against the expenses policy, word for word, no exceptions, no seniority, and anything without a receipt is paid back by Friday at 4:55. IT to give her the data, all of it. The policy turns out to be Graham's, voice-typed in the bath, and the strictest document in the company. His five lanyards are rejected as jewellery, Philippa's mileage costs 190 pounds per minute of presence, the coffee machine needs 212 signatures, and Darren's carrier bag of receipts makes him the most compliant man in the building. Then Janet reaches the board: the chief executive signs everything in green crayon, and the crayon has no receipt. A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on. Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

HR's quarterly headcount check finds Darren on payroll twice: once as Darren, Sales, and once as Gary Darren Pollard, the new starter he's been buddying for three months. One of them has to go by Friday at 4:55. Graham puts it in writing: HR must not decide, Darren decides, IT provides all the data, and whichever Darren performs worse is offboarded.Dez provides all of it. Gary has never clicked a phishing link, never raised a ticket, never filed an expense claim and has perfect presence, mostly because he's been in a box under Darren's desk. Darren writes his own probation review, Philippa launches Be More Gary, Janet reads the leaver policy, and the insurer takes a very close interest in a 312-pound receipt from a soft play centre in Harrogate.A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on.Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

An American magazine wants to put Ask Kes in its annual helpdesk AI benchmark, against Thoughtwell's Kes-4 Enterprise: one point two trillion parameters, no lunch break, eleven thousand pounds a month. Graham puts the rules in writing: Kes-4 gets the same rights as Darren, nobody may touch a Kes-4 ticket, and if Kes-4 says it's fixed, it's fixed.Dez follows it exactly. Kes-4 answers every ticket in under a second with perfect empathy, and nothing gets fixed. Graham is locked out of his laptop, the coffee machine dies, Philippa photographs herself through the revolving door, and the leaderboard in reception says ninety-nine point nine percent. The baseline entrant is Carol the fern. Then someone reads rule twelve out loud, and Dez finally explains what the visitor wi-fi can do.A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on.Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).

The council has replaced Clive from the drains with FloodFlow, an AI powered app with a winking drain cover called Gully. Graham, who may have recommended it, puts the rule in writing: nobody at Kestrel may phone the council, everything goes through the app, and if it isn't in the app, it isn't happening.Dez follows it exactly. Gully will only help with water that already exists. The only person allowed to report a flood is Bronwyn, who doesn't use anything with a mascot. The car park becomes a lake for six days, with a duck, a heron, Graham's car, Philippa in a canoe and Darren's flood party, while finance rejects every claim because the flood isn't happening. Then Dez reads the model card, and finds out what the whole Midlands has really been using as its weather forecast.A darkly funny original audio fiction series about the people who keep the lights on.Original story; all characters and companies are fictional. Voices synthesised locally with Chatterbox TTS (MIT).