Welcome To Shrinkonia

 

I didn’t recognize Hannibal at first. Although the dinosaur suit and the cigar should have triggered some alarm bells. I was going to hire the A-Team.

Some things needed to be taken care off. Some would say “projects”. But the A-Team isn’t going to show up for “projects”, so I said I had a Big Adventure for them.

Hannibal said they only worked with the best people. And they always needed a helicopter, cars, welding equipment and machine guns that never shoot anyone. They could handle every situation. As long as they could weld old cars into tanks and fly away in the helicopter.

“The A-Team is adaptable.”, Hannibal told me, “You just need the best people. And make sure you have set up the environment in such a way we can do our best work.”

His first estimate for the fee was a couple of million dollars. Having no funds or authority what so ever I asked him what I could get for hundred bucks.

He suggested I talked to MacGyver.

MacGyver just has his Swiss army knife. His solutions are not sophisticated as those of the A-Team. But they seem to work. And he is cheap.

MacGyver entered the building with a big sign that said “Welcome To Shrinkonia. Population: 1″.

Mac explained: “Shrinkonia is my kingdom. I have full authority over it. It is so small that this sign hardly fits in it. I am the only inhabitant at this moment. But the cool thing is that every one who sees the sign, my Swiss army knife and thinks “wow. cool!” will join in. Shrinkonia is a very dynamic state. In size.”

I looked puzzled. “Why would you want to do that?”, I asked.

“Well,” Mac paused, “in that way I get people into my team that actually want to work with me. It is a way to attract people with the “best fit”. For free. Heck, I could charge them money for just being near my Swiss army knife.”

“But what if people are just assigned to your squad?” You see, Mac The Swiss Army Knife wasn’t going to dazzle me with just his cool talk.

“Ah!” the 80s TV hero yelled, “That’s the neat thing about Shrinkonia. You can change the culture just as much as you want. If Moleskine notebooks is your thing, you can introduce the use of these way too expensive Italian design notebooks. You can ask the team members what they like about the host organization and copy those elements.”

How did he knew my love for Moleskine notebooks? I wanted in! I wanted to be a Shrinkonian! Being a Project Shrink I MUST be a Shrinkonian!

“I want in!!!!” I screamed from the top of my lungs.

“You see how this works? I just added one element and you are already drooling to get in. It’s the David Copperfield solution to problems: if you cannot move the mountain, just change the angle of the camera.”

“Wow.”

“I can get you David Copperfield for $10.” Mac offered.

Bas de Baar is a Dutch writer who draws. Documenting a world in transition. He loves to make inspirational cartoons, travel guides and other story-telling structures for the collaborators of our brave new world.