[Editor's Note: On Saturday evening, February 22, billionaire White House advisor Elon Musk sent an email (from OPM, the Office of Personnel Management) to 2.3 million US federal employees, telling them to send "approx. 5 bullets" describing what they accomplished at work last week, and to respond by midnight, Monday, February 24. Musk later said if they did not respond, their non-answer would be taken as their resignation. There was absolutely no reason for Mercury editor Wm. Steven Humphrey to respond to Musk's email at HR@OPM.gov, since he doesn't work for the federal government. But... he did it anyway.]

To: HR@OPM.gov

Subject: RE: What did you do last week?

From: steve@portlandmercury.com

Dear Mr. Elon Musk,

How are you? Fine, I hope. Per your request to send “approx. 5 bullets”  of what I accomplished last week, here are “approx. 5 bullets” of what I accomplished last week. I am sorry to say I did not buy “approx. 5 bullets,” or any bullets for that matter, because I do not own a gun.

That said, I did accomplish quite a number of things, and actually, I'm very excited you asked! My dad (who's been dead for many years now… it’s okay, we weren’t that close) NEVER asked me what I did all week—though I have to admit most of the things involved sneaking beneath my high school bleachers to smoke “ciggies” (a clever teenage code for “cigarettes”) or pulling hilarious pranks such as climbing into the trunk of my neighbor’s car while they were unloading groceries in the dark, and screaming “RAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” at the top of my lungs when they reached in to grab a bag and grabbed my leg instead. Pretty funny! I can sense, Mr. Musk, that you would appreciate my teenage sense of humor. 

ANYHOO, here are the “approx. 5 bullets” you asked for, so please don’t fire me. I have a wife, two children, and an expensive mortgage that I don’t think I can pay off because my neighbor just bought a Cybertruck which immediately caused my property values to plummet. 

• Approx. bullet #1: LAUNDRY! Oh my god, it’s the worst, amirite? I did loads and loads of it. And why does my wife own so many articles of clothing that can’t go through the dryer? And don’t get me started on my teenager. She’s got this horrible Kanye West sweatshirt she insists on wearing practically every day, even after I told her he’s clearly an anti-Semite and Nazi lover!! Wait… do you like Kanye West? If so, forget that last part. I do love that “Gold Digger” song. Anyway… where was I? Oh yeah… SO. MUCH. LAUNDRY!

• Approx. bullet #2: ATE A FEW EDIBLES. Not like, all at once… like, over the entire week. But I only ate them at night, NEVER AT WORK, and it’s a good thing I don’t, because whenever I am on the “weed” (a clever teenage code for “cannabis”) I think entirely too much about “space stuff.” Like, the expanding universe and black holes and how our Milky Way galaxy contains roughly 400 billion stars and that if I wanted to cross the Milky Way at light speed, it would take roughly 100,000 years. And if I wanted to traverse the entire observable universe, I would NEVER get there because the universe won’t stop expanding! Maybe that’s a problem you could fix at SpaceX if you can figure out how to stop your rockets from blowing up.

• Approx. bullet #3: ATE A LAMB GYRO. I was not high at the time, but I really shouldn’t eat lamb gyros because I’m gluten free! Are you gluten free? You seem like the type to be gluten free. You also seem like the type who would be very lactose intolerant… I don’t know why I think that. I guess it’s because you always have this strained look on your face which I interpret as tummy trouble. My wife says your face looks like someone wrapped your head in Saran Wrap… which is NOT funny. It’s a little true… but NOT funny.

• Approx. bullet #4: OH YEAH, ALMOST FORGOT… I FIRED THREE EMPLOYEES! 🤣 I am a boss at a newspaper in Portland, Oregon, and while these three people were doing a “pretty good” job overall, I was inspired by your not-exactly-real federal agency DOGE (cute name! 🐶) to be a “chainsaw for bureaucracy” (as you put it) at our company and “expose any waste, fraud, and abuse” (as you also put it). IT WAS PRETTY COOL. Sure, they were angry (and one cried), but I followed your lead and told them exactly why I was firing them, once again using your exact words: “You were not performing your job properly.” That means legally, I’m in the clear, right? They can’t, like, sue me or anything, right? I didn’t think so. Anyhoo, I was pretty psyched until a majority of our advertisers informed me that they don’t want to put an ad for their business next to a story or news article that doesn’t exist. And I was like, “LOOK, SALT & STRAW, IF THAT IS INDEED YOUR NAME… I just fired THREE employees! How am I supposed to have time to write a bunch of stories that my former employees refuse to write because I fired them??” Can you please talk to our advertisers and convince them that I am right and they are wrong? Apparently not everyone is a business genius like you!

• Approx. bullet #5: And you're going to like this one... I APPLIED FOR A JOB AT DOGE!! Now before you say, “YOU’RE TOO OLD!!” or “YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH ACNE!!” or “YOU HAVE A MODICUM OF REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE,” hear me out! You are the owner of three wildly successful businesses (Tesla, SpaceX, and the formerly fun site formerly known as Twitter). But you’re also the CEO of a not-completely-real federal agency as well? That’s too much work! So I’d like to leave the newspapering business and become the “hatchet man” for DOGE. From what I can tell about your organization, there is a LOT of “waste, fraud, and abuse”… which you really hate, right? In fact, I think you should turn over the personal information of EVERY employee from ALL your businesses, so I can “cut the fat” (AKA thousands of workers)… after all, if I can fire three people, I can certainly fire 30,000, right? For absolutely no reason at all, I think I’ll start with the Cybertruck division.

Thanks for writing and asking what I did last week! I would ask you the same, but I can read newspapers. I’ll write you again next week to let you know what I did this week… which will include writing this letter telling you what I did last week. 

Busily yours,
Wm. Steven Humphrey
Editor-in-Chief, Portland Mercury
(And perhaps Future-Hatchet-Man-in-Chief, DOGE? 🤞)