AI with a Smile
The policy that lived in a drawer
5 min read · Updated 2026-11-08
Satire — a fictional story
The printing
The fictional consultancy Bright Margin spent a month on an AI usage policy. It had headings, a version number, and a sentence about tone at the top. People said it was thorough. Someone printed it on thick paper so it would feel lasting. The paper went into a drawer under a charger and a single cufflink.
New starters received a link to a folder called "Governance — final — FINAL." Inside were four files with the same name and different dates. The drawer copy matched none of them.
The paste
An analyst needed to summarize interview notes before lunch. The policy, had anyone opened it, allowed summaries in one named tool and banned raw interview notes in all the others. The analyst used the tool already pinned in the browser. The notes included a candidate's phone number. Lunch was on time.
In the afternoon, Bright Margin's leadership reported that the policy had been "rolled out." The drawer remained closed. The cufflink did not object.
Put the rule where the paste happens
They later pinned five lines inside the tool's own instructions and on the team's channel: which account, what never goes in, who to ask. The thick paper stayed in the drawer as a cautionary object. New starters stopped inheriting a folder of finals.
This story is fiction. It is general education, not legal advice, and not a report about a real consultancy.
What Businesses Can Learn
- A policy works only if the people doing the work can find it.
- Put the rule next to the tool, in the words those people use.
- A document nobody can locate is not yet a control.
This article is general education, not legal advice. ComplianceEU Alliance is an independent private initiative, not a regulator or certification body.