Experts Report: American Productivity Down 83.4% Today

by Jack Solowey

Writers Junction productivity analysts made a startling discovery upon entering the office this morning.

"I opened the door and there were reams of dot matrix paper all over the floor. You know, that old printer paper with the perforated edges and holes on the side," reported Junction intern Colij Stoodint.

The Junction's Level of Activity Monitoring Equipment, or L.A.M.E., had been working in overdrive to churn out new graphs since 9 am EST. At that time, Americans on the eastern seaboard were clicking onto their Google home-pages and noticing the interactive Les Paul "doodle."

L.A.M.E. is a remote monitoring station that records the average national level of productivity in a continuous line graph similar to a Seismometer or EKG. It is financed by the federal government, and located in Santa Monica California.

"It was game over as soon as the first laptop was booted up. By 9:15 am EST the graphing pins were already recording in the bottom quartile of productivity. At noon, the national activity level was down 83.4% below the daily average," Stoodint reports.

From Boston to Richmond, right when the workday began, Americans could not help but spend hours trying to record 30 second ditties on the digital mini-guitar Google provided. A New York Times columnist who chose to remain anonymous states, "I was about to email a source in Lybia when I discovered the doodle. When I looked at the clock again I realized that Paul Krugman and I had been riffing nonstop for 3 hours!"

While the national productivity level fell to its lowest point since the Rebecca Black video was released, there were some positive developments to come out of the Les Paul doodle. Apparently, if you type ddfggfdsaasddss on your keyboard the guitar plays "Ode to Joy."

Nevertheless, when Stoodint and his colleagues first saw the daily L.A.M.E. reports they thought their worst fears had been realized.

"Ever since the internet was developed, The Pentagon has feared that an enemy of the state might release an app. or flash game so distracting that it would cripple the US on the eve of war. So, as soon as I walked in this morning I got Sec. Def. Robert Gates on the horn. Well, I should say that I called him up after struggling to play "Smoke on the Water" on google for 45 minutes..."