Dear, recently I applied to be an animal caretaker for elephants at the local zoo. While I feel comfortable as an animal caretaker, what specifically drove me towards this job was that they were also looking for somebody with ample experience in aeronautics and physics. Well, that job seems to be for me, or so I thought. The application process went well, and they were impressed with my resume. I’ll start tomorrow.

The new job has started quite well. I also met the zoo director, and he seems to be a decent person. What was a bit weird was that he told me that the main reason for hiring a new elephant caretaker was the previous one’s inability to teach the elephants how to fly, and that he was really looking forward to seeing me progress on this topic. What a weird joke.

As I write this, his words still echo in my auditory cortex. Let me put his words down for you:

“Imagine, a world where our elephants don’t just walk, they soar! This would not just be any project; it would be a revolution in zoology!”

I’m a bit puzzled. The peculiar joke is turning into a running gag, and Mr. Zoo director has asked me for regular progress updates on the flying elephant project (FEP) to which i kind of answered jokingly: “With all due respect, sir, elephants are not exactly… aerodynamically designed.” To which he answered, with what i took as a jest: : “That’s what they also said about airplanes, my dear!

It’s not about the design; it’s about the vision!”

Then the situation, let’s say, escalated. The director seemed really — non-proverbially — serious about this flying elephant thing, and I again insisted that elephants couldn’t fly. He was additionally making the point that he had seen flying elephants already, and that one of his colleagues had even told him that he had a “herd of elephants” in his zoo that had “flown from India directly to Germany”. I mentioned to him that, “…from a biological standpoint, elephants are definitely not flying animals and that, furthermore, physically and aerodynamically speaking, they can just not fly. Elephants are incapable of flight. That is a well-known fact and any zoologist, physicist, or aeronautical engineer in the world, will tell you the same”. He was not convinced and replied that “bumblebees are considered to be physically unflyable too, but they still managed to fly”. He left mumbling about “everyone knew it was impossible, until a fool who didn’t know came along and just did it”.

Today, Mr. Flying Elephant talked to me again about the FEP. He told me that he had consulted a physicist and that the physicist had shared with him that, from a quantum physical point of view, it’s very unlikely that elephants can fly, but not totally impossible, and that there’s an incredibly small probability that indeed an elephant could fly. I was trying to appease him and told him that that was true, but that his expectation of what “incredibly small probability” means was maybe a little bit off.

Today was another of “those” days. FEP man informed me that they had decided that they did not have the internal expertise to judge whether I was right or wrong, and thus had decided to sign a contract with an external consultancy to bring in more physical expertise. It seems like a bit of a waste of money to me, but what can I do?

Gods gracious, you would not believe what the Director just talked to me about…. “We’ve got investors interested! This is it! We’re going to be pioneers!” Me: “Please, this isn’t science anymore, it’s madness! We can’t keep doing this.” “You’re either with us on this, or you’re against progress. Don’t be on the wrong side of history.”

Today I had a talk with HR and the zoo director. They handed me an “Abmahnung”, some weird kind of German letter that tells me that I’m not performing as well as I should. It reads that the external consultancy had indeed agreed with my point that normally elephants can’t fly. But apparently they had also mentioned along the way that one could just change the gravitational constant of the universe and then elephants would fly, albeit with undesired further side effects. The “Abmahnung” goes on and reads that I “did not exhibit the right working approach” and that they were missing a kind of “can-do attitude”. It also reads that, in fact, they expect me to change the gravitational constant within the next month.

I handed in my resignation today.

The other day, I got an invitation from the zoo. The letter says that they have no bad feelings towards me, and thus they would like to invite me to the FEP day, which they will celebrate in two weeks. I’m really looking forward to FEP Day.

I was at the zoo on Sunday. I intentionally did not bring my family and went there as an honored guest alone. At the welcoming event, I met a very outspoken and friendly air logistics consultant who told me that he apparently got a “hot sales lead” from a colleague in another department of his company recently.

In the elephant enclosure, a “starting ramp” for the flying elephants had been prepared. Then a guy wearing a T-Shirt reading “quantum physics is bloody funny” was forcing the poor gray animals up the starting ramp, while an unhappy-looking caretaker with a group of penguins dressed up in suits was waiting nervously below.

I guess the resulting bloody puddle of elephant carcasses mixed with smashed penguins, the awestruck crying children holding helium-filled elephant balloons, and the resulting protests of animal rights activists can be considered “unintended further side effects”.

When I left, I spotted the nice logistic consultant in the parking lot. Somewhat surprisingly, he suggested going for a few drinks, to which I did not say no.

We found ourselves at a nearby hotel bar, the kind of place where the lighting is dim and the drinks are overpriced but strong. After some initial chit-chat about the weather and the latest sports scores, I found myself opening up more than I intended.

“I joined this field to make a difference, to connect people with nature… and here I am, and people expected me to instead connect wings to an elephant. I worked with people who mistake an obvious joke about the gravitational constants as serious. People who take stupid proverbial sayings as a generalizing sources of always applicable truth. Where did I go wrong? Or maybe it’s more general, when did all this start going wrong?”

He took a slow sip of his drink, eyes thoughtful, before replying dryly, “Well, if anyone can make elephants fly, it’s this zoo. Remember the underwater hamster exhibit?” “Yes,” I said, a bit of a laugh escaping despite myself. “I heard of it, wasn’t that a disaster too?” “Exactly my point,” he said, setting down his glass.

“Sometimes, the line between innovation and absurdity is just… a line in the sand, washed away by the next high tide of ambition or folly.”

I looked at him, surprised by his philosophical tone. He continued, “Look, as I just sold a quite profitable air cargo transport for a herd of elephants from India to Germany, I will need an expert in elephant care very soon. So let me soothe your pain with a generous offer…” He trailed off, an enigmatic smile on his face. As he whistled an old song about a burning circus, he handed me his business card and left. The card felt heavy in my hand, a tangible symbol of just how surreal my career had become. Oh my, I thought to myself, in the end, elephants will fly indeed…

In the not-too-distant future, where space travel was as commonplace as taking a bus, there lived an astronaut named Max Starblazer. Max, known for his interstellar expeditions, found himself grounded due to the newest corporate policy at the Universal Exploration Co.:

Remote Work from Anywhere in the Galaxy,

which, ironically, meant a cramped cubicle on Earth.

Max was issued the latest fad in corporate ‘innovation’ – the RollPod 3000. It was a rollcontainer designed to fit under an office desk, supposedly embodying everything essential for living and working. Max couldn’t help but smirk at the irony – he who had navigated the vastness of space was now confined to a space smaller than a broom closet.

On his first day, Max wheeled in his RollPod, a compact abomination of a bed, kitchenette, and workspace crammed into a box. His fellow office astronauts gazed in bewildered amusement as he squeezed the contraption under his desk.

“Space exploration meets space-saving,”

Max quipped dryly, but his humor was lost in the sterile sea of the office.

Living out of the RollPod was a cosmic joke. Max awoke each morning, contorting out of the tiny bed, to face a day filled with virtual meetings. His backdrop: a dazzling nebula, a stark contrast to his reality under a desk, sandwiched between stacks of files and a potted plant. Lunchtimes were a peculiar spectacle. Max prepared meals fit for a spacecraft in his miniature kitchen, the scent of freeze-dried meals mingling oddly with office air fresheners. “Taco Tuesday, space edition,” he’d say, mustering a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Days turned into weeks, and Max’s spirit waned. The RollPod, once a symbol of compact efficiency, now felt like a sarcophagus for his once boundless aspirations. The universe had shrunk, confined to the dimensions of his cubicle.

One day, amidst a haze of spreadsheets and deadlines, Max’s gaze drifted to the office window. He saw birds soaring freely, unconstrained, a painful reminder of his own clipped wings. He realized then that the vastness of space he yearned for couldn’t be replicated or replaced by a gimmick under his desk.

Embracing the absurdity, Max decided to make the best of his situation. He began decorating his RollPod with stickers from distant galaxies and photos from his expeditions. He replaced corporate memos with star maps and mission logs.

The RollPod became a mini-museum, a slice of the cosmos tucked under a desk. Colleagues started visiting his cubicle, not for reports, but for stories of distant worlds and nebulae. Max became not just an office worker, but an ambassador of the universe, teaching his earthbound peers about the wonders beyond.

In the end, Max Starblazer realized that while he couldn’t roam the stars, he could bring the stars to others. His RollPod, once a symbol of confinement, became a beacon of cosmic wonder amidst the humdrum of office life.

Max’s story, however, didn’t end with a grand epiphany or a triumphant return to the stars. Instead, it ended with a silent resignation letter left on a tidy, unremarkable desk. The RollPod was abandoned, a silent testament to a dream downsized and filed away.

Max walked away from the office that day, not with a sense of adventure, but with a profound sense of loss. The stars, once a playground, now seemed like distant, untouchable lights from the confining walls of his earthly existence.