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Man dies from severe case of the Mondays

> Memorial to be held next Monday

Klara Woldenga
Humour Editor

 

ack Frederick was just like any other

Vancouverite. He had a two-hour
commute both ways to his minimum
wage job and was always afraid of being
reno-victed. He hated rain even though
he chose to live in a literal rainforest.
However, last week Frederick was the
victim of a condition that had been seen
as harmless up until the very moment
it killed him: A case of the Mondays.
“I didn’t see it coming,” said Emily
Alden, Frederick’s boss at the local
grass store Green with Grass not Envy
Do You Get It. “Sure, Jack seemed
extremely depressed on Mondays, but
everyone feels that way on Mondays—
that’s just how it goes, you know?”
Ryan Halder, Frederick’s colleague,
worked with him on the floor counting
blades of grass for seven hours a day,
with the eighth hour of work reserved
for seriously reevaluating their lives.
“He always joked about having a
case of the Mondays,” said Halder.
“But when he started making those
jokes on Tuesdays, and Wednesdays,
then Thursdays, and even Fridays,
I knew something was wrong.”
Halder took the initiative by asking
Frederick about his mental health.
“I said ‘Hey loser, what is wrong with

Google Maps introduces next generation

your face?” Halder told the Other
Press. “Then I said, “You look like
someone sat on your dumb lunch,
stupid, But he didn’t even respond to
my questions. I was really worried.”
Halder then took his concerns to HR,
but his write-up was rejected, being told
by the head of the department that “His
report had too many profanities and
lewd drawings in it to be taken seriously.
Unsure what to do, and seeing
Frederick becoming more and

more depressed as the weeks went

by, Halder became desperate.

“I kicked the door down to the CEO

of the company and threatened her
with a Series X8-C Grass Cutting
Knife,” Halder told the Other Press

in an exclusive post-arrest interview.

“T told her “YOU BETTER ASK JACK
FREDRICK ABOUT HIS MENTAL
HEALTH RIGHT NOW ORI WILL
CUT YOU WITH THIS SERIES X8-C
GRASS CUTTING KNIFE! and then I
was dragged off by his goons—security
in the grass industry is tight!”

Laura Walden, the company’s CEO,
was unharmed but very concerned

for Frederick’s mental health.

“T didn’t know who this Jack person
was,” Walden said. “But I was
determined to figure it out. I was

also very impressed with our new
Series X8-C Grass Cutting Knife! ]
hadn’t seen one that close before!”

Free from her attacker, Walden

ran downstairs to the grass cutting
floor to talk to Frederick.

“Even though I had never taken a
single HR class, or any sensitivity
training, I knew exactly what to do,”
said Walden. “I walked right up to
him during his shift and yelled ‘Jack
Frederick stop being depressed right
now! Youre being a baby, and everyone
thinks you're being a baby!’ I find
tough love works with employees.”
According to multiple witnesses,
Frederick did not respond to Walden’s
words, choosing instead to leave and
take his fifteen-minute lunch break.
The next day he was discovered
unconscious in his home by the

local mail carrier (a man known

for breaking and entering into the
homes he delivered to). Frederick

was rushed to the hospital but
pronounced dead upon arrival.

Doctor Lesley Duban was the one

who on duty at the Vancouver

General Hospital that day.

“It was pretty crazy, we've never seen a
case of Mondays this bad,” Duban told
the Other Press. “When we opened him
up we found tiny tear-off calendars that
just had Mondays printed on them.”
The grass company was shocked by
the news, but Walden isn’t sure that
anything could have been done.

“We have a gg per cent quitting

of travel modes for modern user

> ‘Stumbling’ and ‘unicycling’ among the new options for Google Maps travelers on-the-go

Jacey Gibb
Distribution Manager

 

Go is changing the game once
again. Earlier this week, the search
engine giant announced they would be
adding a multitude of travel modes to
Google Maps, including “stumbling,”
“gallivanting,” and perhaps most
importantly “crawling on your arms
and knees like an army person.”

“We're thrilled to be introducing
so many new options for our users,”
said Google’s Director of Public
Relations, Paula Smith, during a press
conference last week. “People who
use Google Maps are a dynamic, ever-
changing population, and we hope to
reflect that with our new settings.”

Prior to the update, Google
Maps only featured four travel
modes: Driving, transit, cycling, and
walking. An additional 11 modes have
been added, with another 20 slated
for release over the next year.

Among the initial wave of modes

7

are “unicycling,” “walking but after
eating, like, a lot of a pasta,” and
“segwaying,” which Smith says users
have been requesting for years.
According to an insider source,
the travel mode updates spent years
in “development hell.” Reportedly,
thousands upon thousands of
hours of testing and trial runs
were conducted in order to perfect
the necessary algorithms.
“Nervously driving with your
mom in the passenger seat’ was one
of the more difficult modes to chart,
because there are varying degrees
of manic behaviours among moms,”
explained a developer who wished
to remain anonymous. “It took two
years of rigorous beta testing, but
we finally found a mean-average for
that manic-mom behavior, and how it
impacts someone driving with them.”
Similarly, the “stumbling” mode
also reportedly took an exhaustive time
to develop. Researchers kept running
into issues and variables such as “Did

the user break the seal, are rushing
home to use the bathroom?” “Is the
user contemplating a detour to hit

up McDonald’s on the way home?” or
“Did the user then stop to vomit up the

McDonald’s, and if so, how many times?
Just a one-and-done puke, or did it come
up in multiple, continuous waves?” These —

are the important variables researchers
had to consider during development.
So far, public response to the
updates has been positive, with
particular praise going towards the
“skipping” and “walking briskly, after
having just gotten laid” modes.
However, the company hasn't
been able to avoid criticism altogether.
Still missing from the travel modes
lineup is “riding a horse backwards
while singing a pitch-perfect rendition
of ‘Yankee Doodle,” which users
have been petitioning on foryears.
Google Maps was swift to release
a statement, claiming that particular
missing travel mode is expected to be
included in the updates later this year.

rate,” said Walden. “We were hoping
to reach 100 per cent by the end of
this quarter, but Frederick’s death
really messed up that goal.”

Walden then asked if we could send a
message to him beyond the grave. When
told him that we were a newspaper
and not a medium, she insisted we
tell Frederick that “He should stop
being dead and come back to work.
No one appreciates a quitter.”

  

Photo by Analyn Cuarto

   
 

Photo by Analyn Curato