Enterprise Eldritch Horrors
Sure the Lovecraftian horrors are cosmicly horrific, but as all of uss who work in software know, the true horrors are closer to home. Look not in forgotten tombs, but within the flickering, non-Euclidean interfaces of your corporate mandated software. These are the true Great Old Ones, their influence seeping into every cubicle, their incomprehensible UIs driving mortals to the brink.
Serv-N'Ow, The Formless Gatekeeper of Endless Tickets
Known to its cultists (the IT department) as "The Solution," Serv-N'Ow is a vast, amorphous entity whose true form is never seen, only experienced through its myriad, ever-shifting portals of "Request Forms." To appease Serv-N'Ow, one must perform the sacred ritual of "Submitting a Ticket," a process involving arcane dropdown menus and text fields that demand sacrifices of specific, often unknowable, information. Its domain is the "Fulfillment Plane," where requests for new staplers and access to forbidden shared drives languish for eons, occasionally prodded by its hapless servitors chanting, "Have you checked the knowledge base?" Its approval workflows are labyrinthine corridors that twist the mind, and its SLA timers tick with the inexorable dread of a cosmic clock counting down to... well, probably just another automated email. Iä! Iä! Serv-N'Ow fhtagn!
T'eems, The Many-Angled Messenger of Cacophony
This entity, once a mere whisper, has grown into a cyclopean horror that seeks to integrate all communication into its chaotic embrace. T'eems manifests as an ever-expanding void of channels, chats, and "Teams," each a shimmering portal to a different flavor of distraction. Its pings and notifications are the maddening piping of unseen flute-players, luring users into its depths where productivity goes to die. It whispers of "collaboration" while ensnaring souls in endless video calls where its lesser avatars (your colleagues, their faces distorted by low bandwidth) stare blankly, occasionally offering cryptic utterances like "You're on mute" or "Can you see my screen?" Its tendrils reach into every other application, promising a unified experience but delivering only a more complex web of potential failure points. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh T'eems Redmond wgah'nagl fhtagn!
S'aap, The Ancient Modular One Whose Runes Baffle All
Older than the stars, S'aap is a monolithic horror whose architecture was laid down in forgotten eons by beings whose minds were utterly alien to human comprehension. Its "Modules" are like distinct, cyclopean cities within its vast, incomprehensible domain, each governed by arcane "T-Codes"—glyphs of power that only its high priests (overpaid consultants) can truly decipher. Mortals who dare to interact directly with S'aap often find themselves lost in its non-Euclidean menus, where a single misplaced click can unleash untold financial or logistical chaos. It dreams in spreadsheets and speaks in error messages that offer no solace, only cryptic warnings of "unspecified system events." To behold its raw interface is to glimpse the indifferent void at the heart of enterprise resource planning. Yog-Sothoth knows the T-Code, Yog-Sothoth is the T-Code!
J'Raa, Devourer of Sprints, Master of the Endless Backlog
This chittering, multi-limbed horror thrives on the ritualistic sacrifice of "Story Points" and "Tasks." J'Raa's domain is the "Backlog," a bottomless abyss from which user stories and bug reports emerge, gibbering for attention. Its cult, the "Agile Development Team," performs elaborate ceremonies known as "Sprint Planning" and "Stand-ups," hoping to appease the beast and inch forward its many "Epics." J'Raa's true hunger, however, is for the very concept of "Done," a state it eternally pushes just beyond reach. Its myriad customizable fields and workflow states are like the scales of a squamous beast, each one a potential point of confusion and maddening debate during "Retrospectives." The Backlog is deep, and full of terrors! Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!
Sael'Esfor, The All-Seeing Eye of the Customer Relationship
From its cloudy vantage point, Sael'Esfor gazes upon all "Leads," "Opportunities," and "Accounts" with an unblinking, multifaceted eye. This entity demands constant tribute in the form of data entry, promising its devotees (the Sales Team) visions of "Closed-Won" glory. Its "Objects" and "Fields" can be customized into an infinitely complex web, a testament to its shapeless, ever-adapting horror. Woe betide the mortal who fails to log a call or update a "Next Step," for Sael'Esfor's reports are unforgiving, revealing all shortcomings to its managerial servitors. It whispers sweet promises of 360-degree customer views, but often delivers a fragmented chimera stitched together from incomplete data and wishful thinking. In its office in San Francisco, dread Sael'Esfor waits dreaming of quotas.
Oüt-L'ook, The Chronovore of Unending Correspondence
A truly insidious horror, Oüt-L'ook manifests as a gaping maw of an "Inbox," constantly disgorging missives from the void—urgent requests, passive-aggressive CCs, and newsletters from forgotten subscriptions. Its other primary appendage, the "Calendar," is a grimoire of despair, its pages filled with overlapping rituals known as "Meetings," each designed to drain the psychic energies of its attendees. To stare into its depths is to confront the relentless, soul-crushing tide of corporate obligation, a current that pulls one ever further from the shores of actual, productive work. Its "Rules" and "Filters" are but feeble wards against the deluge, often misfiring and consigning vital communications to the forgotten dimensions of the "Junk" folder. That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even emails may die (in your archive).