Seven Dwarfs: An Incompetent Board of Directors and a House of Cards

These stories are named for the Seven Dwarfs in Snow White, but that’s about all I’ve used.

Humour is fiendishly difficult for me to write; I don't understand timing, sarcasm, or one-liners. Maybe it means that I have no sense of humour. But here I am faced with Seven Dwarfs. Surely humour has to come into it. One of them is named Happy for heaven's sake. On reflection, Dopey should also be easy.

So, I’ve created a Board of Incompetent Directors of a small, reasonably successful company facing a crisis. Needless to say, they aren't entirely up to it and as we shall see, the company is really a house of cards.

Doc is the Chairman of the Board and founder. He has this great idea...everyone will love it. Really?

Happy, the Financial Director bumbles along keeping everyone on his side with jokes and cupcakes, but has a few things that need to be kept quiet.

Sleepy, the Health and Safety Director meets the worst crisis of his career and he has to keep it quiet too because he should have known better.

Dopey is the Marketing and Sales Director. Everyone keeps their distance from him or they open a window. Like his good friend, the Chairman, he is not an active Director. He has an office with staff who actually do the work. He's happy with his lot. It works well for him.

Sneezy, is the asthmatic Human Resources Director. All of a sudden, kindness in the past is holding her to ransom. Debts need to be paid.

Grumpy, the Operations and Production Manager is facing a massive hole in his personal finances that he is trying to fill. Does it change his loyalty?

Bashful, the Clerk and Legal Secretary wants the simple quiet life. She is terrified of taking any responsibility. Naturally it won't work out that way.

So, failing to make them funny, I thought it best to watch as they face their individual crises and see how deeply they dig themselves into more trouble. Dopey, Grumpy, Happy were reasonably straightforward, Doc and Sneezy but were a bit more of a challenge. Sleepy was the one who kept getting deeper and deeper into difficulty and that is very satisfying as a writer.

In the end, it was Bashful that was the most fun to write. Maybe I have a sense of humour after all.