FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media Relations
Email: media@despair.com
Web: www.despair.com
Fax: 214.826.1952
DALLAS, TX - June 22, 1999 - Silicon Valley media circles were abuzz today with talk of the recent press conference debacle within the Mountain View offices of Marimba, Inc.
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| BEFORE THE STORM: Polese and Kersten chat up reporters. |
Dr. E.L. Kersten, COO and co-founder of Despair, Inc. joined Marimba CEO and co-founder Kim Polese at Marimba�s headquarters to address a large gathering of reporters.
Specifically, Despair was there to announce their wide-scale adoption of Marimba�s new �DocService� technology. Publicly announced yesterday, Marimba�s DocService is designed to provide automatic, targeted delivery of documents to recipients, both inside and outside a corporation.
Despair, Inc. was proud to announce that it was among the very first customers of the application, having tested the product extensively over the past half year.
�This is exciting stuff. By using Marimba�s DocService to automatically target and distribute pink slips to little people in my employ, Despair will be remain on the cutting edge of employee-termination technology,� Kersten said, clearly excited.
�Future implementations of DocService might include the direct, digital distibution of additional Despair products to thousands of customers, eliminating the need for hundreds of fulfillment jobs and personnel...�
Polese added wryly, �And maybe even saving a few thousand trees, eh Larry?�
His countenance darkening, Kersten replied, �Yes. There appears to be an unfortunate environmental upside to this.�
Reporters, who believed him to be joking, burst into laughter. The conference remained jovial for a few minutes more, with Kersten and Polese posing together for press photos (pictured, above).
Kersten was then asked by a Fast Company reporter what the cynical COO thought of Marimba�s recent IPO. It was then that Kersten give his unfortunate answer:
�When you stop to think about it, it is amazing how far Kim and Marimba have brought push technology, after Pointca- WREECKKAHHHHH!�
"POLESE BRUTALITY"
Before Kersten even finished the sentence, Polese erupted in a blood-curdling screech and lunged towards him. After tackling the terrified Kersten, she began to scream obscenities in a hybrid of English and Java while repeatedly slapping him and bashing his skull with a 'I'm a HotJava addict� coffee mug. Attending reporters and employees were shocked.
The situation quickly deteriorated as Polese was overcome with violent seizures. In a dizzying display of brute force, Polese pushed over every table, chair and person in the entire conference room, before storming out and driving away.
Witnesses were said to be stunned by the raw momentum of her assault.
�She was pushing over stuff like Elaine Benes on crack, man,� offered a Marimba intern, �She is the coolest boss ever. She�s Xena.�
Reporters were not as kind in their descriptions.
Bambi Francisco, a reporter with CBS MarketWatch, was covered in vegetarian bean curd after being shoved into a catering table from the nearby Pho Xe Lua Noodle House. She said of the outburst:
�Totally ridiculous. I know Marimba�s spent a lot of money removing the word �push� from their collateral and prospectus, but come on. It was a simple mistake...�
Other upended reporters offered opinions ranging from, �ghastly�, �bloody reprehensible� to �strangely arousing but nevertheless childish�.
Only Jeen Drefuss, a reporter with Wired Magazine, had positive words, �Kiss your browser goodbye, folks. Push lives.�
Suzan Woods, a spokesman for Marimba, was quick to contest witnesses� characterizations, saying, �Kim did not push anyone. She utilized an open-standard technique, developed at Marimba, called the Distributed Unilateral Momentum Protocol, or DUMP. If anyone prints that she pushed, we�ll sue.�
Woods herself was embedded in a drywall divider for over an hour.
NO SIMPLE EXPLANATIONS
VAN HOFF, JONES: POLESE STRESSED BY MODELING CAREER
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| Friends Arthur Van Hoff, Christy Jones & Larry Ellison offer varying theories about the outburst. |
Friends close to Polese speculated that the outburst had little to do with Kersten�s use of the now offensive, four-letter word �push�, and was actually precipitated by the growing pressures of Polese�s other career: modeling.
In the middle of 1996, Polese took on an outside career as a model to supplement her income during �the lean years� at Marimba. Within less than 9 months, she landed on the cover of almost every reputable business and technology magazine in print, and later became a featured model in Anne Klein ads.
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| Kim Polese, on the coveted cover slot of Fortune�s 1999 Swimsuit Edition. |
Things reached a pinnacle earlier this year when Polese was selected as the cover model on Fortune Magazine�s wildly popular Swimsuit Issue (pictured, right).
Associates allowed that her meteoric rise to supermodel status led to a host of peculiar pressures, with one anonymous source claiming that she was even considering legally changing her name to the more exotic, one-word �Polese�.
Arthur Van Hoff, CTO of Marimba and a longtime friend of Polese, described Kim�s state of mind as, �Thrashing. Too many processes competing for not enough memory. She�s got to close out some apps.�
Christy Jones, founder of Austin-based PCorder.com, concurred with Hoff, saying, �Kim has to drop the modeling gig. She just has to. She can�t run a billion dollar company on a diet of popcorn and Mrs. Dash.�
ELLISON: POLESE �HYPERSENSITIVE�
Not everyone was as sympathetic to Polese.
Larry Ellison, who sits on the board of Despair, Inc., said, �Kim�s just hypersensitive. I know Kersten did not intend to offend her. He loves DocService- just loves it. In fact, at the last board meeting, he let Steve (Jobs) and I use the DocService beta to send pink-slips to everyone at Despair named �Bill�. It was great.�
But some questioned whether Ellison could be trusted to be objective about matters of hypersensitivity and Polese. When Kim Polese told a reporter in 1997 that she found Ellison�s �Network Computer� idea to be �just plain whacked�, Ellison grew so angry he began buzzing his Gulfstream V personal jet directly over the Marimba offices.
Some theorize that the random, deafening sonic booms heard at Marimba may have actually further contributed to Polese�s traumatic stress.
AFTERMATH
The violent assault by Polese was only the latest in a recent string of misfortunes to beset the beleagured Kersten. Two months ago, his company was beseiged by customers protesting a recent national award. Only two weeks ago Despair, Inc. was designated a �Top Rated Store� by Yahoo! Shopping, undermining its concerted customer dissatisfaction efforts and greatly humiliating Kersten himself.
Speaking from the reconstructive surgery center of nearby El Camino Hospital, a heavily-medicated Kersten was quoted as saying, �That which does not kill me...postpones the inevitable.�.
He later deemed the quip �despairworthy� and turned it over to designers for conversion to a Demotivator� (pictured, below.) The design joined eleven others in the upcoming 2000 product collection, soon to be made available to the public.
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ADVERSITY:
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
(from the upcoming Demotivators� 2000 collection) |
Larry Ellison believes that this period of prolonged suffering may ultimately produce Despair�s greatest products yet. He suggested that the Internet products pioneer is poised to become no less than �the dominant face of cynicism in the disintermediated economy�.
"I've seen some of the new products coming downstream and you want them like a trekkie wants Seven-of-Nine," Ellison said, �The Despair Y2K Calendar blew my mind apart.�
Pressed for further comments, Ellison paused, then said reflectively, �I really hate Bill Gates. Oh, and I�m thinking about buying Despair. Is that enough?�
Articles and items appearing in our "Recent Spin" are satirical and are not intended to be an accurate portrayal of the persons, companies or events depicted within them.
