There's something inherently wrong about being a geek, and yet cackling gleefully at the flaming heat death that is WorldCom. The underlying twinge of guilt has something to do with knowing that many of the employees were normal geeks (look, just avoid the oxymoron and run with it, ok?) like the rest of us, putting in the hours to pay for houses and kids and college debt and trips home to see Mom.

The twinge of guilt has something to do with knowing that, given only slightly different circumstances, those anonymous 'Affected, Downsized Employees' could just as easily have been people I cared about. Twingey bits aside, you know what I said when I first read the news? "Hey, maybe this will make house prices a little more reasonable out in the D.C. area…"(That sound you hear is Heather and Andy cackling.)

See, once you get past the pain, misery, credit-card debt, and ill-timed suicide jumpers which inevitably result from such Enron-esque flameouts, you start looking at the real issues behind the matter:

1) Idiocy.
2) Large heavy blindfolds.
3) Really intelligent corporate drones who evidently think we are really, really stupid.

Ignoring #1 and #2, which are equally obvious and not much fun to snipe about, let us consider #3, always a favorite dog of mine to kick. From a CNN article (found here), 'WorldCom in accounting trouble'—

What they really said: "Our senior management team is shocked by these discoveries," said WorldCom CEO John Sidgmore, appointed in April. "We are committed to operating WorldCom in accordance with the highest ethical standards."

What they want us to think they said (rough translation only): "How did we manage to miss this? What? We were blindfolded? Good heavens, you mean we can't see things with these on? Misled! We were misled, I say!"

What they're thinking: "We are so busted. Perhaps I should call my secretary to make sure that my money is in the Caymans under a different name…"

What we're thinking: "You are so busted. Watch out, that heat death leaves a nasty rash."

So, instead of rustling up the horror and shock that, as decent human beings, we probably should've felt, Gareth and I sat on the couches, flipping channels with the ardor of the most avid of car-crash enthusiasts. There's a pathetically visceral thrill in watching a former stock-ticker darling be flash-frozen on the Exchange at twenty-three cents per share.

You almost have to admire a CFO who dares pull a caper of this magnitude. Think about it—this guy didn't wake up one morning and say, "Oh, look! These books are off by about 3.8 billion dollars! Maybe I should check with Jane in Accounting to see if this is a rounding error…"

(This is not a man who has slept well for the past few years. You know how some people are afraid that Santa will leave them a lump of coal in their stocking? This guy's been expecting an audit under the tree for about three years straight.)

If I wasn't so certain in my belief that fate always screws the little guy, I'd go out and run up something like a 10K credit-card bill, then mail off a fifty-cent payment to my credit card company. When they called to find out where the money was, I'd just tell them it was a rounding error, and to go talk to the old CFO of WorldCom.

Hope he likes flipping burgers. I'm thinking he's out of the accounting field for the next eon or two.