Original Commentary

Long story short, due to things that will be talked about later, Terrence was far too busy with non-comic things to finish up writing today's comic. Fortunately on the way home from picking up some more expensive items for the stuff that will be talked about later, I came up with the idea for this comic.

At first, I was thinking the whole joke behind this comic was that the reader startled Brisbane and Kimberly's pet and made it run away... but then after looking at the finished comic, I could see how people could read... other things that might be going on with the little fella to make him run like that.

Which is the official answers? We'll let you make one up on your own. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
I'm pretty sure that the "things that will be talked about later" was us getting Momo, our second cat. And getting her vet stuff done, introducing her to Buttons, and such.- Terrence

Original Commentary

Brisbane refers to unproductive conversations with members of other departments. The original plan was to show those conversations, but that didn't work at all. So I figure if you have to force a particular comic, it wasn't meant to be. What would've happened? They would've asked if he was trying to sell him things, or vented for an hour about minor intrapersonal issues, or such. The other problem would be making three panels represent four hours of frustration - Terrence

Modern Commentary
My original notes for this storyline are:

Original Commentary

Yes, he's filed under "E" for "Eyck, Ed Van". It was hard to come up with a good name that can be plausibly alphabetized two ways. I mean, van Buren is obviously filed under V and van Beethoven is an obvious B. I came up with "de Silva", but only after the comic was already up.

The tough part was coming up with a task that was obviously non-productive but not ridiculous. In the early drafts, he was trying to get the company to switch to a smaller size of paper, but that'd be too silly - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Much like the phone system, Brisbane has no idea how to use the company intranet.

But as importantly, there was no succeeding at this task. Anything he did would have been too large or too small.

Is this a clever test or is Ms. Taylor just critical and difficult to please? Yes. Both. - Terrence

Original Commentary

I had to end it on Kimberly's reaction. And her reaction was, of course, shock and disbelief, both at the fact that her mother didn't choose her and that Brisbane didn't make the most of this situation. He doesn't think on his feet like Kimberly does. Originally, she was going to tell him he could've ordered a $49 lunch for them both, but last Friday's comic made that joke redundant - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Ok, the car would've been a little much. Hard to pretend that's under $50 value.

None of that would have stuck. Kimberly would have been demoted. Brisbane would have lost the corner office immediately - Ms. Taylor would have promoted somebody else just to make sure Brisbane didn't keep it.

But Kimberly has ideas. She knows her mother would never give her this chance. Because Ms. Taylor knows that Kimberly has ideas. - Terrence