Ok so let me see if I understand this correctly. Mr. Levy accepts responsibility for a laptop in order to review it for his employer, Newsweek. He does this knowing full well that he's a sloppy and disorganised man. Then he loses the computer with which he's been entrusted. And the manner in which he loses the computer is of course irrelevant though it is telling that he cannot even think of how it happened. Then he tells the story in his employer's newspaper as if it were funny, which it is not but rather makes him look all the more like a total moron. Moreover, it also makes his employer, by extension, look idiotic for trusting such a man. Then, in telling the story, Mr. Levy says "can you blame a guy for losing something called Air?" and further that it "makes sense that one could lose track" of something that is thin enough to fit in an envelope, light enough to sit on your lap for a couple of hours without discomfort and so compact that it doesn't even bulge in an airline seat-back pocket." Both statements are, of course, without any merit in respect of his responsibility for losing the computer (and, certainly, they do not even make logical sense, though I guess that doesn't matter in Mr. Levy's world). But I suspect he added them, and some further similar remarks regarding the size and capacity of the Air, in order to give at least some sort of "review" of the laptop, which, of course, he has not been able to write since he lost it. To add more juice and make his employer look even more embarrassingly stupid, he says that he has managed to get Newsweek to cough up the money for the lost computer. At some point here, were I responsible at Newsweek, I would start questioning my decision to have hired such a klutz. And I would certainly not have "ponied up" any money "for the loss" but would have taken it out two-fold from Mr. Levy's payslip.

 

Mr. Levy, you are not only sloppy and disorganised, you are also stupid and seemingly without capacity for respect of your employer or even yourself. I am sure there are lots of other people who could do your job.

 

It all reminds me of this:

 

"What is the modern world coming to when a gang of thieves arrive at the place they are going to rob in a taxi?" Justice Morris asked the defendants in a robbery case at the Auckland High court. "I despair of the future for our country when a group of louts like you lack the intelligence to take even basic precautions to avoid detection." Before sentencing Singeli Senivuga and Veileba Jobesa (two illegal Fijian immigrants) for their part in the robbery of 5 protective helmets and 400 puncture repair kits from a Mt Eden bicycle shop, Justice Morris continued: "It has been put to me that the reason you were so easily apprehended after the robbery was that you had no getaway car. According to your defence counsel, that is because you forgot to ask the taxi to wait for you while you committed the crime. But even more stupidly, you had telephoned the taxi service in the first place and asked to be picked up at your home, so even if you had got away it would have been a simple matter to locate and arrest you later." The judge then added: "Why couldn't you steal a car beforehand, like everybody else? You tell me it's because you don't have licenses, but I preside daily over cases involving professional criminals who don't care about such trivial matters. You are imbeciles. I hereby sentence you both to five years imprisonment."