This afternoon, in what can only be described as a fit of infantile rage, an unknown someone or someones rampaged through the Weazel News building, destroying everything they could get their tiny fists on.
In the lobby, graffiti screaming “GOVERNMENT SCUM, PAY YOUR PEOPLE BETTER” seems to try to give a clue as to the motive for the crime, however it seems the attackers may have been given the wrong address. While the Weazel News building is public and open to everyone thus owned by the government, it isn’t exactly a government body. Perhaps they meant to rip through the City Hall down the street? Perhaps they’re illiterate and cannot discern WEAZEL from CITY HALL or COURT HOUSE? Those keys are, after all, right next to each other.
According to the graffiti sprayed across our as-yet unused newsroom, it seems they think they have the right place, yet Weazel still is not a government organization nor is the Weazel Building a government building.
So, while it’s a cute attempt at pinning the blame on anti-government protestors, we’re unconvinced that this attack was provoked simply due to low wages. This attack WAS poorly timed, however, as Weazel finally received the keycards to our payroll system, and a parking place for our five new vans. In fact, I myself met with the Chamber of Commerce just an hour or so before this attack and received the ability to finally pay my reporters and photographers and interns properly.
I cannot imagine who would be so heartless as to be unhappy that others in town are getting properly compensated for their work.
Public Works performed a thorough assessment of the damage, and came up with an estimate nearing $500,000 which includes all of the destroyed computers, the destroyed cameras in the studios, the destroyed (and stolen) equipment in the music recording studio, and the smashed green screen.
The irony of that is that if this is an attack on the government for its perceived lowballing of employee wages, the assailants only made it harder for the government to pay people fairly, with that large of a chunk of money now having to go to replace the broken and stolen equipment.
Your question may be, “Why would they do that? Why would the replace all this?” The answer is simply this: Weazel News doesn’t use the building for much beyond clocking in and parking our vehicles. The real ones who lose from this destruction are those who have been given free use to use the building for their own attempts at businesses, such as the fellows who wanted to record their new song today in the recording studio and could not, and the small internet shows who broadcast from the talkshow stage. Those are the people the government maintains the Weazel building for, not us.
The moral of this story is, whoever this is, you’ve taken nothing from Weazel and everything from many others. Weazel is just fine and we continue our work uninterrupted, adequately paid, and capable of traveling the entire state flying our colors.