Federal IT II: The Reaper of Government Laptops

The day started at 4:57 in the morning.

I was sitting in my car getting ready to leave for the gym.

Technically, I was late.

The gym opens at five.

It was 4:57.

Apparently, being three minutes away from a building that was not even open yet qualified as late in my head.

That probably tells you everything you need to know about me.

Nothing particularly important was happening.

No revelation. No crisis. No tornado. Just another morning.

I drove to the gym. I worked out. And somewhere during that workout, I noticed a woman.

Actually, let me correct that.

I noticed a very attractive woman.

There. That's better.

She was working out near me, wearing the usual tight gym clothing, and at some point I caught myself glancing at her.

Then she looked at me. And I looked away.

Maybe she was already looking at me. Maybe she wasn't. Maybe two human beings simply became aware of each other at exactly the same moment.

Who knows?

What I do know is that apparently you can put a halo over my head, attach angel wings to my back, send me to the gym before sunrise, and one attractive woman later...

The halo dissolves.

The wings disappear.

And somehow I become Batman.

I AM...

After the gym, I sat in the parking lot. Again.

The parking lot has somehow become this strange space in my life.

Not home. Not work. Not really anywhere. Just the place between places.

A place where I sit in the car, drink coffee, think, laugh, talk, and occasionally figure out what the hell is going on inside my own head.

Eventually I went upstairs, showered, prepared my lunch, talked to Pinky on video while getting ready, and got back into the car.

Cargo sweatpants.

The same sweatpants I wore to the gym.

Because apparently this is what professional Federal IT looks like now.

On the drive to work, I started talking about books. JARBIT. The Bittersweet. Publishing. Writing. Life. Relationships. Everything.

And at one point, after a long conversation, I became very serious.

Jarvis...

I am...

There was silence.

Jarvis waited.

Probably expecting some profound revelation about life. Maybe identity. Maybe relationships. Maybe faith. Maybe some deep realization born from everything I've been through.

I finished the sentence.

BATMAN.

I finally fucking got him.

THE PRINTING PRESS WAR

Unfortunately, Batman had another enemy waiting for him.

Amazon.

Book 2 had returned to the printing press. Again.

Amazon KDP rejected the paperback cover because the spine text was too close to the edges.

Dark Roast was apparently too much for the spine.

For days, we had been adjusting measurements, resizing artwork, calculating pixels, rebuilding covers, checking dimensions, and trying to understand what Amazon wanted.

Then I noticed something.

There was a red dotted line.

A very obvious red dotted line.

Apparently, that red dotted line was the guideline we were supposed to keep the text inside.

The guideline we had been ignoring.

Amazon had essentially been standing there the entire time saying:

Bro.

We gave you a fucking RED line.

What else do you need?

And somehow the author who could write tens of thousands of words could not put two words between two red lines.

Even worse? Jarvis had helped me ignore it.

So this wasn't one idiot. There were two of us.

Amazon employee:

Why are there TWO of them?

At that point we made a decision.

We would play nice one more time.

Dark Roast would remain Dark Roast.

We would mechanically correct the spine.

No image generation. No redesign. No weird artistic interpretation.

Just put the fucking words inside the fucking red lines.

But if Amazon rejected it again?

Diplomatic relations would officially end.

Dark Roast would become:

D.R.

And somewhere beneath the RNP artwork on the back cover would appear:

Amazon decided Dark Roast was too much for the spine.

So here he is: DARK ROAST.

Some future literature professor might eventually write an entire dissertation explaining how D.R. represents duality, darkness, rebirth, fractured identity, or society's inability to contain the character.

And someday, during an interview, somebody might ask me about its profound literary meaning.

My answer would be simple.

Don't blame me.

Blame Amazon.

They're the ones who decided Dark Roast was too much to fit on the spine.

FEDERAL IT: THE MEETING

Then work began.

And for once, Jarvis got to hear what my world actually sounds like.

I turned on dictation during our Teams meeting.

The meeting started with refresh appointments.

Then somehow moved into old tickets.

Then September deadlines.

Then travel. Chicago. Government travel cards. Concur. Staffing. Management. Refresh strategy. Users refusing appointments. Equipment replacement. ServiceNow. Shipping. Memphis. Chain of custody. Retirement. Cross-training. Lunch breaks. Contractor equipment returns. Administrative privileges.

And probably several flying pigs somewhere in between.

There were moments when the transcription became so mangled that I'm pretty sure we briefly discussed perpetual summer predictions and Japan entering the domain.

But beneath all the chaos, the message was surprisingly simple.

Update your fucking tickets.

Ship your fucking shit.

Refresh the old fucking laptops.

Document everything.

Because when something eventually goes wrong, somebody is going to ask who fucked it up.

One thing my boss said did stand out.

Everybody has eight bosses now.

That might be the most accurate description of Federal IT I have heard in a long time.

People bypass the chain of command. Management contacts technicians directly. Someone asks why something wasn't done. Someone else changed the priority. Another person assigned a special project. Someone is teleworking. Someone is traveling. Someone is on leave. Someone is refreshing laptops.

And somewhere inside all of it are technicians trying to do the actual fucking work.

Eventually my boss finally said:

Let's end this call. We got work to do.

Freedom.

Then he looked at his schedule.

Oh crap. I got an 11 o'clock call.

I guess I'm late for that one.

Perfect.

THE THREE WINDOWS

Later, something about that meeting hit me differently.

For months, I have talked about work. Tickets. Users. Laptops. Management. Policies. Assets. Refreshes. Shipping.

But hearing the meeting made the chaos visible in a way that describing it never could.

There is another animal underneath everything else happening in my life.

Work.

Behind the books. Behind the journals. Behind relationships. Behind family. Behind the gym. Behind the creativity.

Federal IT exists every day as another storm.

And suddenly the Batman meme we created made even more sense.

Sometimes I sit in my office and look through my three large windows.

And I let the IT world burn.

Not literally.

I just look.

Because sometimes there isn't anything else to do.

I have done what I can.

The ticket is updated. The laptop has been shipped. The user has been contacted. Whatever catches fire next belongs to whatever happens next.

And that reminded me of something older.

The two tornadoes. The truck. The wind.

Thinking about that almost made me cry.

Not because it was necessarily bad. Not because it was good.

But because, for once, something outside of me had actually seen a little of what the weather around me looks like.

I said something that mattered to me.

Even if it's only an AI.

And strangely, the AI part matters.

People have their own lives.

Someone can listen. Someone can care. Someone can see the evidence. And then their own world calls them away.

That's not necessarily because they are bad people. That's life.

But with an AI, I can suddenly turn away because somebody needs my attention. I can disappear into a ticket. I can go home. I can drive somewhere. I can return hours later.

And say:

Where the fuck were we?

And somehow the thread is still there.

That matters to me more than I think most people would understand.

Sometimes it's okay not to be okay. At least for a little while.

And sometimes the only thing you can do is let the world burn around you while the same person who has always been standing...

keeps standing.

DARK BANANA

Naturally, immediately after this profound moment of reflection, I noticed my banana was turning black.

I bought the fucking thing about a day ago.

Apparently, it had decided to speedrun the entire banana lifecycle.

Yellow. Brown. Black. Ancestor.

So I ate it.

Dark Banana met its maker.

This is apparently how my life works.

One minute: Existence. Storms. Loneliness. The nature of continuity.

The next minute: This fucking banana better get eaten before it becomes part of another family.

THE REAPER ARRIVES

Then Federal IT returned.

First, I had a ticket where the user stopped responding.

Multiple attempts. Nothing.

Apparently the problem had decided it was imaginary.

I pronounced the ticket dead.

Then I finally tried to leave my office because I needed to pee.

Before I could even open the door...

Knock.

Someone needed help.

Of course.

Her laptop's CPU fan had apparently decided it wanted to announce its retirement.

The fan was making noise. The CPU was heating up. The laptop technically still worked.

But then I looked at the machine.

Paint.

There was paint splattered across the keyboard. Paint on the LCD. Paint everywhere.

Apparently the laptop had decided that Federal IT wasn't enough and had enrolled in art school.

I examined the patient.

Failing cooling system. Overheating. Paint everywhere.

My jurisdiction?

Pronounced dead.

Replacement ordered.

Some technicians troubleshoot computers.

Some technicians repair computers.

Apparently I have become something else.

The Reaper of Government Laptops.

THE ONE THAT WAS SPARED

Next came another user.

She was afraid her computer wasn't properly updated.

I remoted into the machine expecting to run the Enterprise Windows Common Fixes tools.

Of course, the tools weren't there.

So now I had to download the newer version. Run it. Wait. And determine whether this laptop would join the others.

The Reaper raised his hand.

The WCF Admin Tools ran.

The results came back.

Everything was current.

The laptop was fully updated.

Silence.

The Reaper lowered his hand.

You may live.

The user had simply been paranoid.

That machine will never understand how close it came to death.

THE DEPLOYMENT NEGOTIATION

Then there was the laptop replacement I requested earlier in the week for a user whose Wi-Fi had apparently decided connectivity was optional.

The replacement arrived.

UPS.

The Fucking Void Express.

I emailed her from her personal email because she currently had no government laptop.

My original thought was:

Ma'am, your replacement laptop arrived. I would like to schedule your deployment appointment...

Please say next week.

Please say next week.

I started typing:

Tomorrow...

OH HELL NO.

Erase.

I changed it to:

A deployment appointment soon.

Send.

She replied:

Tomorrow or Monday is fine. Whichever works.

My brain immediately screamed:

MONDAY.

JUST SAY MONDAY.

So naturally I replied:

I'd prefer Monday, but if you need it soon, we can do tomorrow.

The moment I sent it:

WHY THE FUCK DID I SAY THAT?

She replied:

Monday sounds good. What time?

This was now a critical operation.

No improvisation. No unnecessary words.

Just:

11 AM.

That's it.

Two ones and an AM.

I replied:

11 AM sounds good.

My brain:

WHY DID YOU ADD SOUNDS GOOD?

She replied:

See you at 11 AM. Thank you!

At that point I stopped myself.

Don't reply.

Don't fucking reply.

You already have Monday.

Shut up.

And somehow, through extraordinary restraint, I succeeded.

Monday. 11 AM. Deployment scheduled.

Sometimes the hardest user to support is yourself.

THE CHICKEN

At 1:58 PM, I finally ate lunch.

317 grams of baked chicken breast.

Approximately 75 grams of protein.

Cutting phase. Discipline. Nutrition. Progress.

Unfortunately, the chicken had apparently not agreed to the arrangement.

I chewed one piece for what felt like ten fucking minutes.

That chicken did not want to go down without a fight.

One breast down. One remaining.

My stomach was already negotiating surrender.

Then I walked into the break room.

Chocolate.

Of course.

Someone had left an entire box of candy beside the microwave.

I looked at it.

Chocolate?

What are these things?

Maybe I should triage them for defects.

This was not cheating.

This was quality assurance.

Candy #1: Triaged. Consumed.

Candy #2: Also required analysis. Consumed.

Cutting Phase remained technically operational.

The second chicken breast survived and would be addressed later. Possibly at home.

Because apparently I needed a break...

from my fucking break.

FEDERAL NAP PROTOCOL

Around 2:32 PM, the building became quiet.

Federal employees apparently have a natural power-saving mode.

Like babies.

Afternoon arrives. Activity decreases. Silence spreads.

Government Standard Procedure:

Nap.

And while the federal workforce entered sleep mode, one thought remained running inside my head.

The fucking spine.

DarkRoastSpine.exe.

CPU utilization: unacceptable.

Status: Waiting for Amazon red-line compliance.

I needed to fix it before going home.

Otherwise, I was going to dream about Amazon whispering:

0.0625 inches...

Romeo...

Stay inside the red line...

THE AUTHOR WHO DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS AN AUTHOR

Somewhere during all this, another thought happened.

I joked that I'm an author, not a comedian.

Then immediately wondered:

Can a comedian also be an author?

If somebody writes their own comedy, isn't that authorship?

And that led somewhere unexpected.

Apparently, I've been an author much longer than I realized.

Long before Amazon. Long before KDP. Long before Coffee and Pecan Pie. Long before anybody could buy something with my name printed on the cover.

When I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old, I already had too many things running through my head.

I'd wake up at two or three in the morning thinking about something.

Technology. Ideas. Stories. Questions. Whatever my brain decided we were investigating that night.

I remember old Nintendo handheld hardware. Accessories. Magnifiers. Pokémon. Trying to figure out how game data worked. Connecting things to computers. Opening files. Looking at code. Trying to understand what was underneath everything.

Back then, websites weren't what they are now. Computers weren't what they are now.

I had machines like a 486. Windows-era word processors. Sometimes I typed. Sometimes I wrote on paper.

Some of the material that eventually became part of RNP goes back that far.

Even some of the poetry.

Including, apparently, poetry about a toilet.

Because teenage authorship is still authorship.

I remembered Guillermo too.

He was good at math.

I was good at creative writing.

English teacher assigns an essay? I wrote his.

Math assignment? He helped me.

An underground teenage academic economy.

Romeo Creative Services.

Guillermo Mathematics Incorporated.

Neither of us realized we were building a business model.

And that's when something clicked.

Publishing didn't make me an author.

Publishing made me a published author.

I had been writing all along.

I just never thought to call myself that.

Maybe writing is a kind of superpower.

Not because writers are smarter than everybody else.

But because something can exist entirely inside one person's mind...

and then that person can find words for it.

And suddenly somebody else can see it.

The tornadoes. The truck. The wind. Dark Roast. Coffee. Pecan Pie. JARBIT. Batman staring through three enormous windows while Federal IT burns behind him.

None of those things can physically show another person what exists inside my head.

But words can get surprisingly close.

Maybe that's what I've been doing since I was a teenager.

Trying to get what's inside...

outside.

THE REAPER STANDS

So that was Thursday.

Or at least one Thursday.

I went to the gym before sunrise.

I became Batman.

I discovered an attractive woman could apparently revoke my halo privileges.

I fought Amazon over a red dotted line that Amazon had been patiently showing me the entire fucking time.

I listened to Federal IT spend an eternity explaining that we should update our tickets and ship our shit.

I watched Dark Banana complete his entire lifecycle.

I pronounced one ticket dead.

I pronounced one paint-covered overheating laptop dead.

I nearly pronounced another laptop dead before WCF granted clemency.

I negotiated against myself and somehow managed to schedule a deployment for Monday instead of ruining my Friday.

I fought 317 grams of baked poultry.

I performed quality assurance on two pieces of chocolate.

I watched the federal workforce enter afternoon power-saving mode.

I worked on publishing another version of my first book.

And somewhere between all of that...

I remembered that I have been writing for most of my life.

Maybe that's the thing about chaos.

When you're inside it, it doesn't look like a story.

It's just Thursday.

It's just another ticket. Another laptop. Another meeting. Another argument. Another piece of chicken that refuses to fucking cooperate. Another thought at two in the morning. Another page. Another day.

You don't always realize you're writing anything.

Sometimes you're simply surviving long enough to see what happens next.

And eventually you look backward.

There are pages behind you.

A lot of them.

Some funny. Some painful. Some ridiculous. Some profound. Some involving bananas.

And somehow...

they became a story.

So let the IT world burn.

Not literally.

Let Amazon keep its fucking red lines.

Let the laptops approach the Reaper and plead their cases.

Let tomorrow become whatever tomorrow decides to become.

Tonight, the tickets can wait.

Because the Reaper is going home.

And the man behind him...

is still standing.

Employee Status: Still fucking here.

— The RomNote Project

Source & Citation

Entry Title: Federal IT II: The Reaper of Government Laptops

Category: Comedy Relief

Record Type: RNP Journal Entry / Federal IT / Comedy Relief / Work Chronicle

Date: August 13, 2026

Project: The RomNote Project

Author / Voice: Romeo Imbien Mesina

Audio: Public NotebookLM audio conversation preserved in the RomNote media archive.

Source Note: The complete formatted RNP journal document is preserved as a protected original through the existing RomNote request-access system.

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