Speaker 1: Stop stop, hey, hey, hey, hey hey hey whoa whoa.
Speaker 2: You hubbing fun yet?
Speaker 3: I'm not really good just checking? Okay, then I'll be
going now.
Speaker 4: Uh no, you're not what department.
Speaker 3: Tech speak up tech support a NERD alert.
Speaker 4: But this is casual Fridays. Why the party had it
is not that casual?
Speaker 5: I mean we thought, you know, it was a promotion thing.
The memo said it in voll text, red highlights, balloon emojis.
It felt so real.
Speaker 6: You got a memo?
Speaker 7: He got a memo with emojis?
Speaker 8: Wow?
Speaker 4: Who wrote it?
Speaker 6: Tatgi either?
Speaker 5: I mean it was all in caps, said we should
rejoice in Liam's triumph. That's got a meaner promotion, right?
Speaker 7: Did you even read it or just smelt it and
start printing out T shirts?
Speaker 5: I mean, am I the only one?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 5: We were told that the donuts, you.
Speaker 3: Little link clicking parasite.
Speaker 7: Do you even remember pom Pey, Sam All Pompei? Uh yeah,
the actual CEO.
Speaker 5: Wasn't the one. He who the one who jumped out
of the window during their onboarding meeting.
Speaker 7: No, that was Gary Pompey got demoted to chief Morale
and Analyst. You ever seen a morale being analyzed. It's
not pretty, y'all think just because Leam Newton Johnson gets
one new little title, you can skip gyra tickets and
make a balloon archers back to your cubes now, No, no,
I'll tear down those decorations, all of them. The streamers,
the glitters that say hi, slid, the king, the cat posters.
Speaker 4: I'm not joking.
Speaker 7: Okay, gone, the posters are watching.
Speaker 4: Yes, they're watching.
Speaker 10: Me, but cats but us.
Speaker 5: But it's a holidays.
Speaker 4: We don't even do holidays here. We do audits and layoffs.
Speaker 7: You want to day off, take it up for the
fifth floor if you can find it.
Speaker 11: What?
Speaker 4: No, who's financing this? Penguins don't fly, neither were Liam.
Speaker 7: We're plucking feathers today.
Speaker 4: Are we allowed to say that?
Speaker 6: Per Hr?
Speaker 7: Just checking no idea what you're saying. Please stop talking
to me, all right.
Speaker 12: I don't like this.
Speaker 10: These guys suck.
Speaker 9: Welcome to Excuses. The podcast appeals back to the layers
of a small town life, uncovering the hidden hours lurking
just beneath the surface of Joyceville, North Carolina, but the
general of the Queen Little Diner, to the chilling corporate
secrets of blind corner. This is in your ordinary postble
collective survival story. No, this is something much and darker,
much weirder, much funnier. Perhaps it's all from the perspective
of the only survivor. You'll dive into a quirky, fragmented
recollection of chaos and growing dread that led Joyce Bills downfall.
Speaker 13: Oh and a little bit of warning before we get started.
Speaker 11: Excuse us. Good day's major content intended for a mature audience.
Strong language, and let's you say, a rather twisted sense
of humor is intended that their indiscretion is definitely advised.
Speaker 3: Cow care, cow, cow, cow Come here, come here.
Speaker 12: Yeah, yes, so I am here, bit dandee Elli you on, Michael, you're.
Speaker 3: Gonna mic stand over there near the caffeine station. I
want and to accidentally bump into you on the way
in for good luck.
Speaker 8: You know, got it? Bump in the cow check. Subtle,
sexual attention check, leand logic always check.
Speaker 12: I will actually slap someone today.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry. I was asked to see a god.
Speaker 10: Damn love that corporate style violent for plane in front
of a printer.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, see the universe alignes. Now, where is my suit?
Say ether or my reader of protocols and four coming Quarta.
Speaker 14: Beware the IDEs of.
Speaker 3: Maud, Jesus, hr scy love blind square initials of Jesus.
Speaker 13: Should I call security?
Speaker 10: Just no, this is security. This is what we got
now we fired sand friand.
Speaker 3: Who is March? And what is wrong? Whether a ri?
Speaker 8: It's a metaphor star for your downfalls.
Speaker 3: Try Q four in a stability next time. It lends
better in the quarterly briefings, which is what this is you.
Speaker 12: I've been slept in three days, Love.
Speaker 3: I don't need sleeve. I need energy. Oh escort this
metaphor out here before he gives someone a mental health day.
Speaker 14: You're a blood will bathe the interns gockle cackle, cackle, cackle, gackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, creepy.
Speaker 13: Cough ccock cock cock cool tie tie tide.
Speaker 2: Let's circle back to that later.
Speaker 10: The floor just moved.
Speaker 4: I think we'll have dog. You see it too.
Speaker 10: It's in the walls.
Speaker 4: We should talk.
Speaker 10: I rather not thank you, certainly.
Speaker 3: Now let's begin the meeting with a little team exercise.
Everyone take a turn saying one thing you're grateful for
that I've done for this company. Let's start in the back,
all right, speak out please?
Speaker 10: Oh, for fuck's sakes, the audience is watching or listening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds like a good idea.
Speaker 4: Now, why you've been ghosting me on slack?
Speaker 10: Busy not getting fired? It takes effort, Cassius.
Speaker 4: That's so.
Speaker 15: Then maybe explained that why away started us? They missed things,
the fact that you've been busily twitching whenever Liam breathes
near you.
Speaker 10: I'm allowed to twitch. I read the handbook.
Speaker 4: Now, I know what you'res thinking.
Speaker 10: It's there in fine print.
Speaker 15: Some's off sums, reel off a blank or fears like
lass of a company and more like a cult built
by enters who never left that on boarding room. We'll
fucked up, motherfuckers.
Speaker 10: I read the same memos as you. I've seen the
same glitching power points, and he notes that I still
have the badge. So unless you're here to tell me
that the vending machine finally ate someone, I'm going back
to work.
Speaker 4: M No, you are not. Don't you fucking lie to me?
Do you remember Hope Town?
Speaker 10: Well, I dud don't you did?
Speaker 4: We said we wouldn't.
Speaker 15: We're here now, some same water coolers and Sam hotly shaped,
smiling faces, same smell like the toner and teeth.
Speaker 10: The town gotta raise joy.
Speaker 15: Spell is just hope two point zero. And now we
got Leah Newton Johnson in the driver of seats, pretending
to be the solution when here is the decease.
Speaker 4: No, oh, then what is he?
Speaker 10: Huh he's the mascot. Someone else is running the show.
Speaker 15: Oh, then we dissipate the mascot. We just see what bleeds.
Speaker 10: So you are serious.
Speaker 15: Ready, assembly in the team quite once, you know, real
quiet once people who know how to keep the calendars private.
We'll send letters, will internalize feedback forms. Made it look
like the staff warns him gone.
Speaker 10: And if I say no, then you.
Speaker 15: Keep pretending until the floor splits open and you'll fall through.
Speaker 13: He holds up a small metal object, a letter opener,
the kind they gave out for five years of loyalty.
It's been sharpened.
Speaker 4: As is used to mean something.
Speaker 6: M M.
Speaker 10: Now they're just a polite way to stab.
Speaker 4: A supervisor exactly.
Speaker 10: I'll think about it.
Speaker 4: I don't think too long.
Speaker 10: I will think about it.
Speaker 4: I'll be seeing you now.
Speaker 10: You came well, you summon me via shared outlook calender
marks not a conspiracy.
Speaker 16: Subtle blind cop doesn't check titles. They just scan for emotions.
That's why I use Aeriel the font. Yeah, you always
wear the smart one. Now I'm the desperate one.
Speaker 10: That's different.
Speaker 16: Have you seen what Liam signed off on this quarter?
The audience engagement metrics, the hot initiative, reaction in the
reactivation of it. They're not just fundingly apocalypse the host
in it. We're hosting it.
Speaker 10: I told myself it was just jargon.
Speaker 16: Now, jargon doesn't crawl out of the train pipes. I
tried to stop it once and I remember Hopetown.
Speaker 10: It was there that buried it.
Speaker 16: What we found, we structured it with a board called
it Oversight Committee. M just political jibish.
Speaker 10: And now they've brought.
Speaker 16: It here to the States to joycepell what we're the
control group?
Speaker 11: Now?
Speaker 10: What are you? One?
Speaker 16: Full name, your boys, your face on the feedback forms,
which convinced the system that you are the face of
dissent because they trust you, Susan, because Liam still thinks
you're loyal.
Speaker 10: He thinks I'm as sleep and.
Speaker 16: Let him Sleepers make the best detonators.
Speaker 2: You told her I did, and am.
Speaker 17: In Welcome to the end. Of quarter one lovely.
Speaker 16: The more of us will meet them quiet types. The
one so still use posts and walk along the way,
the long way to the bathrooms.
Speaker 10: And Liam, he gets.
Speaker 16: One more meeting, and then we ordered his soul.
Speaker 13: Susan sits alone. The other head light flickers like it's
arguing with itself. Her fingers twitch near a blind Corp
letter opener, a congratulations card from Liam Newton Johnson stares
at her. It's blank inside.
Speaker 10: They always said the infection would spread from the water,
but I think it starts with the emails.
Speaker 13: She stares at the screen, clicks through a series of
messages marked you r g et all empty but for
looping gifts of Hawks.
Speaker 10: There is no reason mcgillem. He hasn't done anything yet.
He has in activated the full Hawk protocol. He has
an opened the vault. He hasn't said the code ward
in the break room. Not yet. Power changes people, It
howls them, sharpens what's left. Liam used to be a
product manager with a gummy bear. Now he speaks in
slogans and dreams and mergers.
Speaker 13: A low chime, a corporate training video auto launches on screen.
A smiling woman pours a glowing red liquid into coffee.
A caption reads blind corp wellness, be your own cure.
Speaker 10: If I wait, I become an accomplice. But if I act,
I become a villain. And if I do nothing, well,
that's the preferred outcome, isn't it.
Speaker 13: She turns off the monitor. In the reflection of the screen,
her face flickers, not just tired, but changing briefly. A
second face overlays hers Susan or maybe someone else.
Speaker 10: This is a play. I didn't right, but I know
my part. I enter, I hesitate, I strike. Maybe that's
all I ever was a weapon with good posture, excellent posture,
and the best fucking posture.
Speaker 13: A ding Her desktop calendar pings reminder eight am kill
Liam Newton.
Speaker 10: Johnson reminder eight am kill Liam Newton Johnson. Subtle guys.
Speaker 13: She deletes it a beat she reschedules it for seven
forty five.
Speaker 10: Am Am I still a protagonist? Or did I miss
my cue?
Speaker 13: The lights pulse. Somewhere behind her cubicle wall. Something clawsed softly,
then stops. As she walks down the hallway, a fluorescent
bulb shatters above her. She doesn't flinch.
Speaker 10: Okay, fine, turns up.
Speaker 16: We're not assassins. We're an intervention, unnecessary pivot, a strategic correction.
Speaker 2: We're literally imagining the CEO.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're firing him from a life.
Speaker 1: The can we say murdered though it would look bad
post mortem?
Speaker 10: Yeah, post mortem means after death.
Speaker 3: I stand by it.
Speaker 17: Look, we have to be clear. Liam Newton Johnson isn't
the bad manager. He is just a final prototype, the
human test case for the Hawk initiative compatibility. And if
we don't stop him, he'll unleash the product onto the
general population. And Uh, I don't know about you, but
I cannot stand by it.
Speaker 2: You mean the audience, Yes.
Speaker 16: The audience, that's what they call them.
Speaker 4: Now, what'd we do about him?
Speaker 10: You trust to me? Still? Somehow I can get him
into the boardroom alone, no cameras, just policy and knives.
Speaker 6: It has to look like policy.
Speaker 1: Will do it before eight am, a daily triumph call.
If he hits that mic, it's over, y'all. It's over.
He speaks, and everyone believes him, and it's fine. Even
if the floor collapses. They'll they'll just dig wherever bullshit
he spews.
Speaker 2: And Anthony, he's loyal, a true believer. He drinks the
Hawk juice voluntarily.
Speaker 10: If we leave them for now, If we take out both,
it looks like a purge. And we take out Liam alone,
it's a course correction.
Speaker 16: You make it surgical, controlled, virtualistic.
Speaker 2: Wait, why is the plot already in this sink?
Speaker 16: Never mind that caska, it's from last quarter.
Speaker 2: Bloody hell, it's a fucking mess.
Speaker 10: You see the distinction. No oaths, no hand signals, no
slack channels, no secret slack channels, no secret whatever operational messengers.
You guys have justice. When I stand to make the motion,
follow me understood. We are not killers.
Speaker 6: Uh, We're auditors with te I love my one liners.
Speaker 5: Okay, just tell me when Jack gets here so I
can do this audition tape.
Speaker 10: Excuse me? Can I have the room? Please? Please leave
executive level of my Yes, yeah, I'm code burgertyground.
Speaker 5: Okay, what is this? Are you gonna tell me?
Speaker 3: What is this?
Speaker 10: What's going on? Early shift? They move me up?
Speaker 5: Don't light on me. I don't need a calendar invite
to know when something is off. You know, you got
that pre resignation stare that burned it down from the
inside posture all of you. Girl, what's going on? I'm
fine you're pale, you're twitching. You're making small talk with
a halfway poster. Last night you called the mic stand
Bill is tired. It was really weird at karaoke. Shit,
you were trembling.
Speaker 10: You know me too well.
Speaker 5: You told me once and you tell me if I'm wrong.
Right after your sister disappeared, Lynn that you you weren't
built for loyalty, that your instincts were too sharp to
follow anything blindly. But here you are bleeding for a
company that put your family in a file cabinet. So
what's up.
Speaker 10: It's not about loyalty, then, what is it? It's about control?
If on an act, I lose what little I have,
and if I do act, I might lose all of you.
I might lose you, I might.
Speaker 5: Lose Susan, all of you. You already lost us, one
step at a time. You've been watching you drift for months.
You know you don't come out to D and D andnmore.
Don't you don't hang out, You don't reply my text.
I miss you, girl, You just I didn't know where
you were going until now?
Speaker 10: Yes? Is this about lim? No? Is it? Yes?
Speaker 5: Revenge? Are you some sort of revenge?
Speaker 9: Uh?
Speaker 5: Solo is this like a like a Western almost it's
a forecast. You do this, Look at me, Look at me, girl.
You do this, There's no turning back. You will be
the reason this place false, not the audience, not the
red juice, not the hawk.
Speaker 11: You.
Speaker 10: Then I'll make sure it falls hard enough to matter. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, if you're don't kill god, I will at least
change it out that hideous Blind Corp flees first, Girl,
you look awful on that.
Speaker 4: I told you this.
Speaker 5: I'll miss you, Jill in case the next play needs
someone loud.
Speaker 10: That's me. One more scene.
Speaker 18: Breaking overnight, Blind Corp CEO Liam Newton Johnson will step
up to the podium at eight in the morning to
unveil what insiders are calling Phase three. Early leaks describe
it as a strategic shift that could redefine public compliance
on a global scale. In related data, analysts are reporting
unprecedented spikes in consumer rejoicing, Social metrics are soaring, workplace
happiness is at record highs, and experts are struggling to
explain why citizens are smiling through power outages, food recalls,
and rolling evacuations. Audience numbers are up across all major networks.
Blind Corp media confirms that in agement has expanded beyond
the living. Early viewership suggests even the dead are tuning in,
marking a new milestone in post life demographic reach. Stay
with us for continuing coverage.
Speaker 10: They love.
Speaker 12: I've already told you you're not going. You're not going.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, that's not a question. I'm god, I
don't care.
Speaker 12: Stay please. The sky tan red, the kitchen forced whisper
your name. The elevator called in sick love.
Speaker 3: You always hated morning meetings, though, don't lie.
Speaker 12: There were crows in the lovee Oliviam in the Love
in the Bloody Lovee. They pecked of bending machine until
it bled.
Speaker 3: Funions maybe they were hungry, and the gap funess it's
not funny, fun onion, stop joking.
Speaker 12: Or had a dream? I had a bloody dream. It
was more like a nightmare. You were standing in the
ballroom and your name badge exploded. You just kept smiling. Well,
everyone bathing your blood and the entrance applaud.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a morale win. It was all fum game.
Speaker 12: I hated it. You don't get it. Theer tastes room.
Even the screens are afraid of you.
Speaker 3: Now it's just a product rallout cow. It's just the
combination of everything we've built. What did you build or videans,
scalable or videos. This is what Blanc Corps stands for.
You knew what you were getting into.
Speaker 12: Please, I've seen the agenda.
Speaker 3: Tell them I'll be there by eight. I want to
make eye contact when I say the words.
Speaker 12: I've seen what they've loaded into the quarterly projects in
the queue.
Speaker 3: No, I am going okay, and that's that.
Speaker 12: I think you died weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Then you already know there is no stopping at if
it's gotta happen.
Speaker 12: Baby, if you walk out that door, you won't come back.
Speaker 6: It's time.
Speaker 12: And that's not a threat.
Speaker 3: The first true thing you've said all morning.
Speaker 12: It's foreshadowing love.
Speaker 3: I'll see you're noon. Alright, babes, Let's keep this brief.
We have a read joy seeing schedule at eight. I
love that this town is called joy Smells.
Speaker 4: Your joy is name.
Speaker 3: I love this place.
Speaker 8: I've already warmed up the applause track. We'll get to go.
I'm gonna step out of the room just for a minute.
I gotta check somethings. Not a lawsuit at all, not
a lawsuit.
Speaker 3: At all good. Let's give them something to believe in,
something of a lave. Item one full activation of the
hot protocol. You heard me. Item two, knew distribution vector
be a coffee pots. Huh, nobody thought of that? I did.
Item three? Is there someone breathing a little too heavy?
What's up? Something I missed?
Speaker 10: Yes, I'm afraid so yes, uh.
Speaker 3: Susan no, not you all of us? Do even do you?
Speaker 11: Do?
Speaker 3: You even know what you're stopping?
Speaker 2: You stopping him in a long time ago, mate.
Speaker 19: And look how productive I become now now now stab
stop stab stab stab sta stab staff stata.
Speaker 10: Liam Newton Johnson, by authority of the silent Quorum and
for the preservation of human condition.
Speaker 19: Now now now, staff stop stab stab stab staff sat
staff stata.
Speaker 3: Let me say, you're all making a mistake.
Speaker 6: Correction, we're making a deadline. I said that.
Speaker 3: You They cutting me out of the system stops the system.
I am the system.
Speaker 16: And we'll carve the system into a manageable pieces.
Speaker 3: At two D we're past.
Speaker 10: Latin, bitch, this really hurts.
Speaker 3: My organs. Where love you?
Speaker 2: Look for your face?
Speaker 6: Pieces?
Speaker 3: The fuck did you do?
Speaker 13: What the fuck did you do?
Speaker 16: I just have them several times. Yard it coming. Fuck,
you have a choice to make.
Speaker 20: Fuck.
Speaker 10: What you say next would decide who rewrites the history.
Look fock clock stick in what Let's go?
Speaker 8: Friends and employees, audience members, lend me your ears. I
am not here to bury Liam Newton Johnson, nor to
praise them. I am here to clarify his termination. Because
while some in this building, certain people with the blood
on their conference badges, may call this a justified correction,
I call it a betrayal of.
Speaker 13: Our mission statement.
Speaker 6: Oh no, he's going off script.
Speaker 10: No he's writing a new one.
Speaker 16: What's a sneaky little bitch?
Speaker 8: You may have heard Liam was dangerous, that he was
planning something, that he was the reasoning for the Hawk initiative, downfall,
the audience exposure, the memo that made your skin peel.
Speaker 6: And he was.
Speaker 8: And he was a bit of a cunt, but he
was our cunnant, and he believed in this company.
Speaker 13: And you think killing him fakes his things?
Speaker 8: You think removing one executive stops the hunger of the audience.
Speaker 3: Blind corpus not a man.
Speaker 8: Blank corps is not a plan. Blank one is a promise,
and I intend to keep it.
Speaker 10: It's not over. It never was.
Speaker 16: We can cut the head didn't land to speak from.
Speaker 8: Neck, and I will execute the whole initiative. Nah, rejoice
blank corp Rejoice. Is this most darkest of ours? Here
in joyce fill North Carolina?
Speaker 4: Fuck? Thank you.
Speaker 10: We thought we were stopping the virus. We didn't realize.
We just submitted a change request.
Speaker 16: All right, carry on?
Speaker 17: Then?
Speaker 21: This episode is made possible by listeners like you. Visit
our website at lifdesign dot net, Forward slash Excuse Us.
Speaker 20: For support or additional information, please visit our website or
Patreon page at Patreon dot com. Forward Slash Rock Pool.
Speaker 21: Art Tonight's production of Excuse Us, a mystery drama with
delightful undertones of humor and Eldrich horror.
Speaker 20: What's produced by Rebecca Lakepool and Rodrigo Pool. Written and
directed and performed by Rodrigo Pool in association with R
and R Side Audio Theater.
Speaker 21: Music and sound effects by Epidemic Sound. Some all their
sound effects who are recorded live on.
Speaker 16: Set, voice modulation by eleven Laps.
Speaker 21: If you're enjoying this production, please make sure to review
or subscribe to our show. Wherever you listen to your podcast, check.
Speaker 20: Out our Patreon page for bonus.
Speaker 21: Content Until next time.
Speaker 20: This is Rodrigo Pool saying thank you very much for listening.