#1) Launch Day: Part 1
Sol T is the heroic middle manager tasked with bringing the Sol Trip to life. Did Corporate really have to launch on election day?
Today: The mindful and ambitious Sol T is newly anointed as managing editor of The Sol Trip Newsletter. But things begin to go wrong the instant he gets approval to begin LAUNCH DAY.
Complete scene list available in the playbill
It’s Launch Day for The Sol Trip
The Sol Trip is the lifestyle magazine that Vice Lead of Innovation Sol T has poured months of his life and dozens of whiteboard markers into. This isn’t just another corporate launch at sct.xyz, an international conglomerate; it’s his redemption arc—a publication devoted to mindfulness, productivity hacks, and the dream of a fulfilling, AI-enhanced life.
9:19 AM: American Presidential Election Day
Sol leans back in his sleek, ergonomic {{Your Ad Here}}1 chair, savoring the sacrum-cradling support that provides him daily joy. After months of delays—and even a premature pre-announcement of a “Nov 1 launch”—his manager had sent him a midnight “good luck today 😉” Slack message.
Sol T knew that message wasn’t about the other big event today—the U.S. presidential election. At sct.xyz, the “NO POLITICS” policy was ironclad, beyond that of many other tech companies, with the restriction baked into every employee contract. As a result, internal communications avoided acknowledging Election Day explicitly least you be reported to HR—despite the abundance of excellent coverage Sol had skimmed that morning
Highlight of Sol T’s Morning Political Consumption
The Onion’s Election Touchscreen Skit (YouTube) gave Sol T a good chuckle
A Channel 5 Segment on Biden’s recent apology to Native Americans (YouTube) made him scribble a post-it note: How might we emulate the success of ‘Channel 5’ with the Sol Trip?’
Hamilton Nolan’s (Substack) article on increased unionization gave him pause. “I really can’t have a union organizing at the Sol Trip”
Sol T couldn’t ignore the irony: any content today would be buried under an avalanche of election coverage, so the impending launch metrics would almost certainly start lower than executives would like. No matter. He’ll take what he can get, and right now, he needs a win almost as badly as a failed politician. His career has been a graveyard of almosts and could-have-beens:
YouStay: A home-sharing platform that promised to “disrupt” but got out-disrupted
Wemix Club: An anti-networking networking club that spiraled into cult-like territory, where members cared more about custom business cards than connections.
Habla Habla: A pandemic-era Zoom competitor that gamified virtual happy hours. It did not inspire enough “habla” to continue.
But The Sol Trip is different. This is his idea, his creation—a project that, given his history, has now become his career life raft.
A notification pings. It’s go time.
SUBJECT: Strategic Launch Directive – The Sol Trip
TO: soltrip-leadership@sct.xyz; soltrip-exec-leadership@sct.xyz; innovation@sct.xyz; innovation-leadership@sct.xyz; content@sct.xyz
Team,
The Sol Trip has been greenlit for launch.Remember: Daily Launch and Iteration is the priority.
Leadership will be monitoring all metrics closely and will provide operational support as needed.
Be prepared to pivot at any sign of metric underperformance.
Sol T is in charge for now.
Best of luck. CoD.
— Central Ops
Sol rolls his eyes at the “CoD” signoff (shorthand for Change or Die)—a mantra only a free-market leviathan like sct.xyz could champion with a straight face. The Corporate Value behind it? Keep it Real, which everyone knew was shorthand for We’ll be passive-aggressive and cutthroat, and if you fail, you’re out before you blink.
He clicks through to the official press release, and…stops when he sees his quote. They’ve distilled his entire thirty-minute interview into a single, vapid quote: “I’m excited.”
“I’m excited.”
No mention of his vision, his exciting plans for “scalable merch,” or his unique takes on the content zeitgeist. Just a bland, disposable line, no credit, no acknowledgment. Sol’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t even bother reading the rest of the press release. This is his baby, and its future is already slipping out of his hands.
The First Sip of Clarity
He reaches for a tin of adaptogenic tea—ashwagandha-reishi based, part of a wellness system that promises “heightened focus and spiritual clarity.” Achieve what you deserve, the label boasts. The steam folds in on itself as he fills the mug with hot water from his Wirecutter-approved electric kettle. He sips the resulting sludge, grimacing at the earthy, musty taste. Disgusting.
But clarity has a price.
A new email arrives.
From: kage.luna@sct.xyz
To: soltrip-leadership@sct.xyz
Subject: FWD: The Sol Trip Launch
Press release is live. Good luck. And just so we’re clear: Sol T had better hit his v1 growth OKRs, or I’ll be pushing for that outside hire...CoD. -KL
Ah, Kage Luna—“KL” around the office—a pre-Series B hire and notorious loose cannon. With enough stock options to keep him “resting and vesting” indefinitely, KL was untouchable, his antics excused as “eccentric but effective.” And he once dated the Chief Legal Officer.
He almost certainly used the wrong email alias, as sct.xyz’s byzantine email system was a holdover from the pre-slack days. The “soltrip-leadership” group is just Sol and his manager; KL probably meant to send it to “soltrip-exec-leadership”—which, of course, Sol T wasn’t a part of.
A second email pings immediately after.
Subject: FWD: The Sol Trip Launch – {RETRACT}
Please disregard the previous message and delete without reading. Consider this thread confidential.
Classic KL, covering his tracks to sidestep any potential HR complaints. Find an outside hire. As if Sol’s job is already on the line, his success dependent on metrics that won’t even make sense for weeks.
And, as always, the unspoken rule at sct.xyz made complaining even more difficult: hit your numbers, and you have nothing to worry about.
A Vitruvian Power Pose
Maybe Sol T should’ve abandoned this whole charade years ago. He’s a humanities major responsible for corporate expansion, still grinding after 15 years without much to show for it. Hard work, head down, results will come, his father always said. The T’s don’t quit; they haven’t for 400 years—not since his ancestor fell off the Mayflower in a storm and swam back aboard. Adventure is in my blood, he tells himself. Surely, you can have both adventure and a corporate job, right?
Even if it meant relocating to Truckee, CA, working 16-hour days from his “remote work” outpost just outside Tahoe, he believes he can make this work. Work-life balance is possible, right?
He stands, stretching, and looks out the window at the California redwoods. Squaring his shoulders, he spreads his arms wide in what calls his “Vitruvian Power Pose”—a little ritual to channel the energy of Renaissance men who seemed to know what they were doing. Alright, Sol T, he mutters. Let’s freaking go.
He then grabs the dumbbells by his desk, knocking out a quick set of bicep curls—a ritual of strength and control. Five minutes left until his next call: a last-ditch effort to hire a TikTok-famous cooking influencer as the magazine’s food editor. Food and weed, as Kendall Roy astutely declared, were essential verticals for any lifestyle mag. But, Corporate hasn’t approved the cannabis section yet given regulation question, so food was his landing for a future expanding.
Ping. A text message.
Candidate:
Sry fam, but I don’t think this aligns with my journey rn. Wishing u all the best tho ✌️
After using ChatGPT to decode the Gen-Z lingo, Sol T slumps back into his chair. One of his last promising hires. Just…gone. No explanation, just a breezy rejection wrapped in slang. He takes a deep breath, mentally shelving his personal wellness goals for now. Time to deprioritize the self-care and redouble his focus on The Sol Trip.
Slack and Sanity
Determined to regain some momentum, Sol T fires off the official launch announcement on Slack, watching as emojis flood his screen—🚀, 💪, 🙌—and even a few “LFG!” messages from his team. They’re a strange crew, but he loves their quirks. Their weirdness might just be his salvation.
His anxiety lingers, so he begins box breathing. Four seconds in, hold, four seconds out, hold. Calm, he tells himself. Steady. He’s almost relaxed when a DM pops up from Oliver. Oliver was the “AI Tour Guide” responsible for The Sol Trip’s “General Interest and AI Usage” section. Oliver was the cornerstone of any potential success.
Oliver wasn’t happy.
Oliver:
Looking forward to our 1:1. Got some MAJOR CONCERNS. Sharing some material.
Why I love and hate AI #1 (Oliver's Concerns for Sol T)
This is the email that Oliver sent to Sol T in Launch Day (Part 1) before their 1:1 discussion.
Sol clicks on the document: a one-pager linking to 300 pages on AI ethics, societal collapse, and the philosophical implications of automation. skimmed the first line, already sensing Oliver's ambivalence bleeding through the screen. He glanced over the list, half-impressed with Oliver’s alliterative abilities, half-frustrated at this latest challenge.
Oliver:
Oh. And I can’t write anything till this gets resolved. Talk soon—the Tesla is FSD’ing me to you, be there in 5 minutes.
Sol’s shoulders slump. Box breathing isn’t working. The adaptogens are a bust. And now his AI columnist is on the brink of an existential meltdown. Fantastic.
For years, Sol has missed every major gold rush—the dot-com boom, the sharing economy, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs. The best economic years of his life feel like they were wasted in endless iterations of “launch, iterate, fail.” And now, here he is again, holding his breath, hoping this launch doesn’t turn into just another misfire.
He glances around his cluttered desk, past Post-its with scrawled reminders to Be Here Now and Trust the Process. But all he can think about are the words KL threw at him this morning: find an outside hire.
The HVAC hums to life, stirring the colorful Post-its on his whiteboard—each one a tiny prayer for control. Innovation. Disruption. Design. He watches them flutter, feeling a strange, hollow calm. This meeting with Oliver had better go well. The Sol Trip can’t afford another setback, and neither can he.
Sol took one last, grounding breath. Whatever happened with Oliver, he wasn’t letting this launch slip away. No doubters would get in the way of his career resurrection this time.
Oliver’s Tesla pulls up. Sol T prepares himself for the discussion.
To be continued…
Will Oliver get over his obstacles? Or is the Sol Trip’s AI section dead on arrival? Continue to binge in the next episode:
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