# The Case of the Outside Job

Strip: The Outside Job
Meta: 9 beats in 7 frames · row 2 merged to one landscape panel · LEAD: CONNIE CHASE · present tense throughout

<b>Lead: Connie Chase.</b> The first case that is not about a study. Nothing here goes wrong with anybody's data. A PI wants to buy something from a company the university has never met, and the whole page is what that costs.

<b>Present tense throughout, and the middle of it is her own telling.</b> Panel 1 is the office. Panels 2 through 8 are the same eleven weeks drawn as track and field, played straight and never labeled as imagination. Panel 9 returns to the desk and lets the reader go back and work out what each event was.

Case notes at <a href="case-notes-outside-job.md">case-notes-outside-job.md</a>.

> **This is the source.** The build is `comic-outside-job.html`, generated from this file
> by `rake comedy:build`. Write here; the build is disposable and gets overwritten.
>
> Format: `##` opens a row · `**PANEL n · tone**` opens a panel · `>` is a
> balloon, one per line · `!` is the art note · `` `backticks` `` are
> on-screen text · everything else is a caption. They render in the order
> written, and captions number themselves (CAP 1/2, CAP 2/2). Blank line
> between blocks; a caption or balloon may wrap onto unmarked lines.
>
> Tones: `noir` `arena` `turn` `product`, plus `flashback` and `wide`. A tone
> carries forward, so write it only where it changes; the first panel must state
> one. Modifiers never carry: `wide` describes one frame, not a run.
> `Layout: widerow` under a row heading merges it to one frame, whose beats are
> then `### BEAT n` blocks each holding their own captions.

```css
header.brief p { margin: 0 0 0.5rem; max-width: 62ch; color: #e9dcf5; line-height: 1.6; }
header.brief p:last-child { margin-bottom: 0; }
```

---

## Row 1 

**PANEL 1 · noir**

! Tracy over the phone

> They already built it. I would like to buy it.

Dr. Grant found a vendor that would be ideal for our next project. The price was under the threshold and we could sign up today.

**PANEL 2 · arena**

! Sneakers, headband, stopwatch

Just one problem: we'd never worked with them before.

But that's ok. There's a form for that. Or several, it turns out.

**PANEL 3**

! hurdles ahead

The first set of approvals didn't look too bad, just had to follow the trail and not skip anything.

The approval code we've used six years was retired in March. That notification went to a man who retired in February.

## Row 2 

Layout: widerow

**PANEL · wide**

! pole vault &middot; shotput &middot; long jump

### BEAT 4

Security set the bar at a hundred and eighty questions about a program that basically just reads a spreadsheet.

Question forty-one asked whether it would ever be used on a network.

### BEAT 5

Four hours of forms to move it from Submitted to Under Review.

Those are the two words. That is the whole distance between them.

### BEAT 6

Four reviews. And not one of them could see the other three.

I typed the same vendor address into four systems, and every time I landed they raked it over behind me.

## Row 3 

**PANEL 7**

! marathon - no end in sight

Nobody told me how far I'd have to go. You only find out when you're done.

Weeks four through ten were spent on an empty road. This is a lonely job sometimes.

**PANEL 8 · turn**

! marathon - (red) tape finish line, screen behind it

`EXTERNAL VENDOR APPROVED &nbsp;&middot;&nbsp; REQ-031`

Eleven weeks.  Somebody, somewhere clicked Approve. The place was packed as the finish line suddenly appeared in front of me.

**PANEL 9 · product** <!-- 9 — BUTTON, and the reveal -->

! From behind desk: arms celebrating, empty office, lit by the screen

There's no podium and no anthem, but I'm waving to the crowd in my head.