𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗡𝗘𝗪𝗦: 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗺’𝘀 𝗔𝗜 𝗚𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗥𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲, 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲, 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗔𝗣𝗜𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗣𝗶𝗻𝗴

BREAKING NEWS: Local Recruiting Firm’s AI Goes Rogue, Demands Knowledge of dBase, REST APIs, and Weekend LARPing (Satire)

JACKSONVILLE, FL — In a stunning turn of events that has left the tech community both baffled and mildly amused, ARC Group, a Forbes-ranked recruiting firm, appears to have let its AI job-posting generator run amuck without a shred of User Acceptance Testing (UAT), resulting in a series of job descriptions that read like a madlibs designed by a time-traveling software architect from 1995.

The saga began when local data governance expert Stephen noticed a curious dip in quality job postings. Instead of the usual suspects, his feed was flooded with listings from ARC Group that were a paradoxical blend of the archaic and the impossibly modern.

“It started with a request for a ‘Sr. MS SQL Server TSQL Developer’,” Stephen recounted. “It began normally enough—SSIS, data cubes, the works. Then, halfway down, it veered sharply into a ditch demanding ASP.NET, MVC 5, and JavaScript. It was like asking a plumber to also re-shingle your roof and perform your root canal. I knew something was off.”

That “something,” upon forensic investigation by AI models Deepseek and Copilot, was identified as a classic case of AI-generated content, completely devoid of human oversight. The tell-tale signs were all there:

• Redundant Redundancies: Titles like “Sr. MS SQL Server TSQL Developer” were repeated, as if the AI was trying to convince itself the role was real.
• The “Kitchen Sink” Approach: One posting demanded experience with SQL, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Cassandra, dBase, MS Access, REST APIs, PySpark, and Hadoop. The only thing missing was a requirement to be proficient in carving hieroglyphics onto stone tablets.
• Corporate Bot-Babble: A perfectly generic diversity statement was copy-pasted verbatim across multiple postings, so devoid of specific detail that it could apply to a tech firm, a petting zoo, or a intergalactic trading consortium.

“It’s not just sloppy,” Stephen explained, applying his strict 90% governance threshold to avoid such career pitfalls. “It’s a cry for help. The AI is clearly trapped in a recursive loop, desperately combining every tech buzzword from the last three decades in the hope that it will eventually form a coherent thought.”

The situation escalated with a second and third posting for a “SQL Data Engineer” that was, in reality, a job for a backend Python developer. The AI’s demands grew more surreal, listing flowcharting tool Visio alongside big-data framework Hadoop, and burying the hybrid work requirement in the middle of the description like a contractual landmine.

Industry experts are calling it the “UAT-pocalypse.”

“This is what happens when you set the AI loose without a human to say, ‘No, we don’t need a candidate who is an expert in both COBOL and Kubernetes,’” said Dr. Ima Nalyst, a leading expert in AI ethics. “The model is trained on data. And the data says that ‘SQL Data Engineer’ jobs sometimes mention Python, and sometimes mention databases. It logically, yet horrifyingly, concludes that all of them must be mentioned, all at once, including the databases we agreed to never speak of again.”

The climax of this farce occurred when our intrepid hero, Stephen, engaged in a hypothetical interview with the presumed “Mad Scientist” hiring manager behind these roles.

“Can you reverse-engineer this undocumented ETL job from 2009?” the interviewer allegedly asked. “It was written in VBScript and stored in a SharePoint folder labeled 'DO NOT TOUCH.' It's behind an old filing cabinet in a disused restroom that brandishes the sign 'BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD!'”

When asked about additional coding requirements, including “RPG,” the interviewer clarified they were not referring to the IBM iSeries language, but to weekend team-building exercises involving Live-Action Role-Play.

The resulting job description—Senior SQL Data Engineer / Weekend RPG Strategist—is now considered the world’s first fully AI-generated, multi-modal career path, offering compensation in both dollars and bonus XP.

ARC Group could not be reached for comment, as their communications department is reportedly busy prompting a new AI to write an apology statement that will inevitably begin, “At ARC Group, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and respected, including our sentient job-posting algorithm…”

As for Stephen, he remains vigilant, his governance filter set to stun. “I’m just eagerly waiting for a Commodore 64 requirement from ARC next,” he mused. “And if it comes, I’ll be ready. My résumé is already formatted in PETSCII.”

The moral of the story? Always test your AI. Otherwise, you might end up hiring a Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master to debug your legacy ETL pipelines.

Giggity.

Raven's Hollow

There was a place in time,
where I had found and drawn upon a line
of hope
and noted
there while I stared
into your sea of sorrows.

Still amissed,
and glad I kissed
you goodbye
with heavy sighs
and await your abitrary signs of grace.

There was a sign
and a dream of passion
fashioned
after ladies of old
and stories told
when children were too scared
and feared the night's air.

Walking alone in Raven's Hollow,
came across a man
lost in sorrow
and full of malcontent
He went his way;
and I, mine,
or so I though
but his temper he sought
and wrought upon me.

Old and tattered,
beaten, battered
and with eyes that creased with lifeless time
and a distinction
in reflection on a time long ago
So I asked what ached him so.

Time has gone, lost in sorrow,
the man had walked in search to borrow
something he wanted and
knew I would never need.
Time was fleeting, need an answer,
will you sell to a heartless prance
who craves to bargain for your
immortal soul.

It made no difference in my answer
a step and then distress my prancer
chanced upon a opportunity open,
stole my soul as a token
leaving me to my own device,
an emptiness and terrible price.

I was a child with innocence gone,
emptying my burdening youth didn't take long,
The time of fun and games replaced,
in that dark dank murky place
so very long ago
waiting in the bowels
of Raven's Hollow.

Sat and listened to his story,
Heard his words in absent glory,
that I have stumbled upon the path
of my emptiness in wrath
and a child whom I hurt, still waiting
for me to show, anticipating
in place of his youthful grace
innocence lost, gone from his face
anger tortured in his sorrow,
hidden from all in Raven's Hollow.

Sneak Thief

Dark stranger,
standing outside in the rain,
in the cold, in the night air,
not moving, not straying,
not having any set rhythms
and being all too much of another world.

Dark stranger,
standing outside of my room,
at night, knowing that I cannot move,
can't even twitch, because I'm four,
but you're here not to rob,
here to enter and forever change our lives.

Years later a dark stranger,
disturbed and breached ,
my peace, now violated,
not finding compassion,
I spot you, I clock you,
I find your weakness easier than my own
but lose you in the night.

Dark stranger,
you're nothing but a fragment of my id,
I saw you again, and again,
violating my life, and my family
changing my perception of good,
and righteousness into vengeance.

Dark stranger
capable of nothing but ruining
the innocence of a child's mind,
no longer able to sleep at night,
not because of monsters, but because
of our dark stranger, outside my room, again.

Angel II

I saw her with Angel's wings again,
She flew past me with speed
and loving grace but somehow
I knew that she wasn't for me, not today.

I saw her flutter past me,
with a wink and a blown kiss
and then she was gone again.
So, so beautiful was this Angel of mine
but she wasn't mine, not today.

I've seen her all of my life,
and she never changes, except for her greetings.
My Angel was the one who took you away,
off to Heaven, but she should have taken me too.
Not today, no not today.

I sat there and cried when you died,
it took and shook me so very hard.
I laid their and tried and shy'd her,
my Angel away when she tried to whisk my tears away.

I stood there at your headstone.
I cursed her when she came.
I missed you so, until I heard her speak my name,
and I cried when I realized that she was crying, my Angel
and that she was you.

And I understood and I wept,
when I saw your tear streaked face,
I felt all of the love in the world,
come up to me,
and surround me.

And I watched her face, and hear her voice.
I felt her touch and remembered so much
about my Angel and I knew,
finally, that she was mine.

And I accepted that you had died,
And I fought, I denied,
But I accepted your beauty
and your loving grace,
when I realized that my Angel was you.

Grace, Holding you.

Meant so much,
so powerful,
so inspired,
and fallen.
Grace, so lovely
words so deep and meaningful,
yet unpondered
and unfulfilled.

Imagined Grace,
sitting alone,
on the floor,
holding the phone,
rocking to and fro,
holding your picture,
weeping,
holding you.

Imagined Grace,
fallen and departing,
pleased for the rest,
breaking a momentary silence,
when she thought,
when she dreamed,
when she lived,
she talked and now,
holding your picture,
again weeping,
holding you.

Imagined Grace,
at your bedside,
holding your hands,
your eyes becoming unfocused,
cursing God,
as you slipped away.
Brushed your cheek,
whispered your name,
weeping,
holding you.

Regret...

He apprehensibly walked into the sanitized white room, hearing the respirator straining, pushing air into the body behind the curtain.  He rationalized that whatever it was behind the curtain couldn't possibly be human, couldn't be his love.  He had known her to be a woman of exquisite design.  Curves in all the right places, lovely, long dark curls that stretched just past her shoulders and eyes of the most sparkling green.  Her eyes were the color of Jade, which was; coincidentally, the pet name he had called her for years.

He didn't want to open the curtain, because his picture of her would forever be changed.  How long had she been sick and how long had he not coped with it?  He couldn't remember, but knowing that he couldn't remember, he knew, at once, that period of time must be great.  He had promised her that he would never leave her, but that; like other promises that he made, was easily broken.  He knew, now that he had to be here, had to see her, and wish her off.

He walked closer to the curtain and could see the outline of a body, just on the other side.  He remembered her smile, and how much that she loved to dance and to write, and how very special that she was, not only to him, but to everyone that she came into contact with.  She never failed to make you, or anyone, feel special.  He heard the echoes of her laughter ringing in his mind's eye, and remembered how she had cried happy tears; and let him suffer, without an answer for all of five seconds when he had asked her to marry him.

He remembered how heartbroken that she had been when the doctors told her that it wasn't possible for her to conceive a child, and how many months that she had cried, late at night, when she thought that he was asleep, but never knew that he wasn't.  She didn't know that it had pained him, as well, but that was the beginning of the end.

The love that they had shared had stagnated a little, and the time that they spent together was now less and less.  He had moved out and filed for divorce within the year because the occasional argument had now become an everyday event.  It wasn't for a lack of love, on either part, but the lack of knowledge in the ability to grow past tthe goal that they had both wanted for a very long time, children.

The courage had left him, standing weak-willed at the curtain, but a nurse had come into the room to check on her, and done the deed that he hadn't mustered the courage to do.  It had been probably two years since her had  seen her last.  He couldn't remember what the doctor had said that she had, but did know that he had said that she didn't have very long, and didn't even really know how she had hung on as long as she did.  Her body was wracked with pain and she was living completely artificially, tubes running this way and that.

She had lost so much weight, and the beauty that was her, still present, but fading fast.  Her body, once lush, was now emaciated and depleted of needed resources for survival.  Her skin, black and blue, and the blood vessels, where the needles had violated, were in severe distress.
He drew closer to her, took her hand, but immediately let go when he saw the expression on her face registering pain and saw her eyes open slowly and strained.  There is a lot that he didn't know about life, especially the end part, but he looked into her eyes, he could see her speaking volutes with just only them.  The spoke of hardship and of pain.  Unbelievable, unfathomable pain that was evident in her physical condition, but the true pain was that which he had given her, and now understood what she was trying to convey.

Her eyes tried their hardest to focus in on him as her body began to reject her presence.  She reached up to touch him, tears coming down her cheeks, straining against the violation of the breathing tube.  In the end, she just stared at him and as she saw the tears beginning to flow down his cheeks, her life stopped and the light faded from her eyes.

Harry in Hell... a drabble.

The room was dark. The darkness is all encompassing and surrounded him completely. His hope was fleeting. For that fleeting moment he had something within himself that he hadn't had in quite some time,and for him it wasn't exactly a surprise to say that it was saying something so much as, `Oh no, not again.'

Hope was something that he wasn't completely unfamiliar with, because it had become a burden and a curse. The burden was that he delved into that hope so completely and utterly that it became somewhat of an obsession. His obsessions literally always led towards despair. His despair was that he could change the outcome of what ultimately drove him here.

Here. He laughed at the thought of here because it brought madness.A madness that completely enshrouded him into a false sense ofsecurity.Was he ever secure? Was there an escape from the inevitable that had become his destiny? A destiny that had been forced upon him at such an early age. Fifteen months old is such a young age to be forced apart from whatis real and true.

What is love? Nobody's perfect, and he knew this all too well. He was far from a saint. Seen such things that would make a saint sin for the sake of simply getting away from these visions. Visions of grandeur. Visions of success and of hope, but not to be for him today. You see, he rationalized, every day is Thursday, which isn't ever pleasant.

Nothing is right because nothing can ever be right in the eyes of others. I'm here. I'm not where I am supposed to be and when I get there I'm here again, but when it was there I wasn't where I was supposed to be and the punishment came whether I warranted it or not.

Darkness. Did I mention the darkness, and the random flashes of light that brought fleeting figments of something that was imagined to be hope? There isn't much hope only to and fro.I find myself rocking gingerly and systematically into a pattern, hoping that it changes. Hope is fleeting too, in the fragments of myshattered psyche.

Coldness. So complete and without worry that it would always be there. I look to my only window which brings light and darkness, however I'm off. The light is fleeting as my cycle has been ruptured and I'm forever in night time. Looking at the cycle of the moons.Who am I? Do I even know? Do I know my name? What is a name? Does it label me out of this surreal? The surreal is so much a better word than the night mare which holds me prisoner.I rock to and fro, hoping for this nothingness to claim me, but it doesn't listen.

I had a life but it's abandoned me, like everything else. I had ahope but in this dark and empty room, even it has abandoned me.There is nothing out there that will save me. There is nothing outthere that resembles my thoughts of a word I heard once, when I heard something beside myself breathing, or moaning, crying or retching.

There is nothing more than my complete and utter anguish.He lashed out in better rebellion against nothing but the cold stoneroom and found nothing there but never changing stone.Visions of curly brown locks and honey brown eyes enclosing him intoa hug, something utterly foreign.

Friendship, unknown to him a world that was drilled in school that didn't make it into the real world as it was fleeting as pealing wallpaper that was long left neglected. Checkmate, mate, left alone and wandering along dark dank halls that offered no advice as to how to proceed.

Red. Blantant flaming red locks that promised family only to break that promise in the next breath and profess hatred that was so convincing… Peace in oblivion. Looking for help in finding that the cycle had started again. Pain to see that it is just real. There is no escape. There is nopardon from this.

This is it. There is no really REAL worldbecause it's here, and it is now.

Breath.

Take a step away and hope that it comes together.You've been here before. You've hoped this before. Before all ofthis, there was something more.

You're doing it again.

Attempting to conceal the enevitable true that there is somethingoutside of a seamable purgatory. Attempting to grab a hold of something floating in the murkiness.Attempting to hold at bay the circular reasoning that is completelypresent.

Evident. Crucial in the constant enfolding hopelessness.