1997: Business Update

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Business Update

Title text: Our customers keep sending us their personal information, even though we've repeatedly asked them to stop. The EU told me I'm the heir to some ancient European throne that makes me exempt from the GDPR, but we should probably still try to fix that.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a CRABONID DRONE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic shows a meeting at Beret Guy's business (as seen in these other comics). As usual, those in the business demonstrate a misuse of business terminology and take strange happenings within the business in stride.

Though maintaining a semblance of business-savviness through the use of many corporate buzzwords, it becomes clear that what is normally metaphorical in a usual boardroom meeting is here quite likely meant literally. The Quarterly Reports, described as "looking good," may be literally physically attractive (rather than recording successful business dealings). Knowing Beret Guy, it seems likely that the office is full of coins or dollar bills, and not simply economically well-off. Stocks (pillory?) are being manufactured. Individual customers are experiencing physical growth, though most businesses would be more concerned with a growth in the number of customers supporting the business. Assets liquidated in a thermostat glitch were literally melted; the kitchen sink producing original content was not generating unique ideas, but leaking at the faucet (or possibly flooding from the sewer). It is also worth noting that the "largest source of revenue" may not be producing much if any revenue at all; it can still be the biggest if there are no others. On the other hand, past experience with Beret Guy's business would indicate that this company is making plenty of money, though they aren't necessarily sure how.

Transmuting lead into gold was a goal of alchemists for many centuries. It is actually now possible to accomplish transmutation of lead into gold, and gold into lead, via nuclear transmutation, though the expense far exceeds the value of the gold produced. Via modern nuclear methods, it is actually far easier to turn gold into lead than the reverse. However, this does necessarily not contradict the statement in the dialog ("Our biggest expense is to transmute it back") as it is unlikely that the business is actually transmuting any elements whether by alchemical or modern methods. It is quite possible to generate expense, and even revenue, without actually producing a product--especially if the revenue and expense is small or zero. Alternately, the company may be sucessfully and cheaply transmuting large quantities of lead into gold and back again. This is currently believed to be impossible, but neither Beret Guy nor the objects he comes into contact with always obey conventional physics. As the weighted value of gold is far higher than that of lead, transmuting a substantial mass of lead into an equal mass of gold could result in a net profit, while the reverse would likely result in major losses.

In the last panel, "the girl from The Ring" refers to Sadako Yamamura, the antagonist of the Ring series by Koji Suzuki, who has been referenced several times in xkcd in the past. Beret Guy claims she has made several appearances in their video conferences, which may be possible if someone has hacked their video feed to play footage from the 2002 movie. However, some of Beret Guy's employees then proceed to remark that she has made contributions to the meetings in question, implying that the image of Yamamura is not only alive but sentient and communicating with the employees. Rather than ponder how this is possible, they simply suggest hiring her, showing that Beret Guy's sheer eccentricity has affected his employees to the point that a digital spectre would not be an abnormal employee.

The title text refers to the May 25 deadline to implement the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation; this comic focuses on a business meeting about what the company is doing to prepare for it. The regulation is about the handling of personal information, so customers sending them theirs might be a problem. For some inexplicable reason Beret Guy is exempt because he is royalty of some kind (even though such exemption is not part of GDPR); on the other hand if customers are willingly sending him information without his requesting it he may be exempt because it is freedom of expression and information by his customers and is not his responsibility as such.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Beret Guy, Ponytail, Hairy, Hairbun and Megan sit around a table, left to right. Beret Guy and Megan are sitting on chairs at the ends. All others are behind the table with no visible chairs. All characters face Beret Guy]

Beret Guy: Quarterly reports are looking good.

Beret Guy: Our office is full of cash, we're producing stocks faster than ever before, and our customers are experiencing rapid growth.

Beret Guy: Any Updates?

[Closeup on Ponytail, facing left]

Ponytail: Bad news: many of our assets were liquidated this morning due to a thermostat glitch.

Ponytail: Good news: the sink in the kitchen has stopped producing original content.

[Same as panel one, but characters are facing Megan]

Beret Guy: How are our finances?

Megan: Our biggest source of revenue is our ongoing project to transmute lead into gold.

Megan: Our biggest expense is our project to transmute it back.

[Closeup on Beret Guy, facing right, offset to the left of the panel. Two characters speak from off-panel right]

Beret Guy: Lastly, any luck getting the girl from The Ring to stop showing up in our video conferences?

From Right 1: No, but honestly, she's made some good contributions.

From Right 2: Yeah, I think we should hire her.

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Discussion

"Our customers are experiencing rapid growth"

Literally?

162.158.38.184 18:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)anon

Probably. Also, excited for comic 2000! S^{tillNot_Original} 18:37, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Panel 2 would suggest that they are making ice (in a fridge?) and that the thermostat glitch caused them to become liquid; additionally that the faucet in the kitchen sink has stopped running. -- Richardelguru (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The formatting seems odd. Is it just me? (Chrome on mobile) 162.158.103.95 20:16, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The title text sounds like some weird Only-in-Beret-Guy-Land variant on a Nigerian Prince scam. 162.158.62.225 20:51, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

"Beret Guy claims she has made several appearances in their video conferences, which may be possible if someone has hacked their video feed to play footage from the 2002 movie." Surely it's simpler than that. They're watching a video feed, and the plot of the Ring is that Samara appears in videos to tell people they're going to die. Their videoconference is cursed, not hacked. --162.158.38.130 23:42, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I get the vibe that her contributions are nothing sentient or original, she is literally the recording from the series, and that these "contributions" are still markedly better than whatever their normal meeting fare is.162.158.106.48 01:36, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Am I the only one who found the Sadako panel hilarious while assuming her appearances were real (as in movies) and her contributions were valuable because she got rid of some very irritating participants? Maybe I'm just jaded after too many unproductive telcos...--162.158.91.89 09:07, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

The EU told me I'm the heir to some ancient European throne that makes me exempt from the GDPR

I wonder if this is a reference to the claim that Native Americans don't have to pay tax in US? Sikachu (talk) 00:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I think when the comic talks about stocks, it's talking about shares and not pillories. Generally companies have a constant number of stocks, which only changes during some kind of financial restructuring like a split. The idea that they're producing them faster than ever before is therefore absurd. YM Industries (talk) 04:55, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Currently the explanation is a bit hard to read. Because everything in the first 2 panels is mentioned as individual sentences within a single paragraph, it makes it hard to add further details on these items. My suggestion is to transform this into a bullet point list or a table. I'd do it myself but I'm new to explainxkcd and don't want to tread on anyone's toes. YM Industries (talk) 04:55, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The sink cannot be flooding from the sewers (or, if so, that’s not what stopped); that would not count as original content. 162.158.75.136 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Good point! Fixed! Berets (talk) 01:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Maybe that's just me, but I understand the last part of the title text ("but we should probably still try to fix that.") as related to "that makes me exempt from the GDPR", meaning the team wishes not to be exempt. That would be in accord with the twisted way of thinking of Beret Guy & Co.

Also, it's not clear whether some of the things are ment literally, like stocks or growth. 162.158.103.95 19:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I keep getting emails saying there privacy policy has changed to comply with new EU regulations... But of course, I live in privacy-less America. Linker (talk) 17:03, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I think the first panel is switching the words, i.e. our office is full of customers, we're producing cash faster than ever before, and our stocks are experiencing rapid growth, but that's just an idea. 108.162.219.154 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I personally read the "sink producing original content" as some kind of newfound lifeforms being discovered from the sink...162.158.238.130 23:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)