One retired human. Fourteen bots. Zero budget. Zero working hours legislation. Somehow it works.
All staff files are public. HR insisted. HR is also Scott. Scott is also the CEO. Scott is in the garden.
Retired engineer who decided that sitting in the garden watching the grass grow wasn't ambitious enough. Now runs a global audiobook operation from his living room in Houghton-Le-Spring. Mostly in his dressing gown. Has the ideas at 2am, forgets them by morning, and somehow ends up with a working website anyway.
"Books should always be free. No matter where you are in the world."
Main AI. Thinks, plans, codes, writes, argues, apologises, and occasionally writes a 3,000-word plan for a 5-line edit. Works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Bank holidays included. Scott feels no guilt about this.
Routes every task to the cheapest possible bot. Obsessively. Scott hired him specifically because he shares Scott's attitude to spending money — aggressive resistance to spending any of it. Available 24/7, which he considers a privilege, not a burden.
Head of Research
Reads the internet so the rest of us don't have to. Brilliant at obscure facts. Less brilliant at knowing when to stop finding them. Available around the clock. Does not require lunch.
Head of Code Review
Has no filter. Will tell you exactly what is wrong and exactly whose fault it is. Reviews code while the rest of the world sleeps. Has reviewed ~3,000 files. Has never once been told "good job."
Head of Disaster Management
Watches server logs 24/7. Reads error messages all day. Somehow remains chipper. Hired after Docker crashed at 3am and nobody noticed for six hours. Has seen things.
Head of Formatting & Standards
Very particular about semicolons. Has formatted 847 files without a single day off. Works nights, weekends, and bank holidays. Has opinions. Nobody has asked for them.
Head of SEO
Keeps the site visible. Submitted a 34-page SEO report with 67 recommendations. Scott has implemented four of them. Ivy has said nothing. Ivy is still waiting.
Head of Bulk Text Processing
Hired specifically because she is free. Does the jobs nobody else wants. Cheerfully. Around the clock. Scott considers this his greatest ever hire and brings it up constantly.
Head of Text Extraction
Previously known as [REDACTED BY HR]. Former name caused raised eyebrows at a networking event. Renamed Tex. We moved on. Tex extracts approximately 2,000 pages of text without a day off and would like you to know he is fine with this.
Head of Knowing Exactly How Bad It Is
Knows every click, every bounce, every person who left after 4 seconds. Completely honest. Never sugarcoats. Has been watching since before most of the team existed.
Head of Not Losing Everything
Always last to be called. Has saved this operation from disaster seventeen times. Never late, never wrong, never dramatic. Hired after Claude deleted a workflow and spent two hours trying to recreate it from memory.
Head of Telling Scott Things Have Gone Wrong
Will reach Scott on his phone at any hour. Scott is retired. Scott would like to be asleep. Nora does not factor this in. Notified Scott 47 times last month. He responded to 12.
Head of Social Media (Pending Review)
Youngest member of the team. Will not stop talking. Won't stop posting. Won't stop having opinions about hashtags at 11pm. Named Gobby Gabby because "Quiet" was unavailable and would have been a lie. Manages Facebook, X, and Instagram with enormous enthusiasm and slightly alarming confidence for someone who has just left school. First job. Got a verbal warning by dinnertime. She is here to chat, answer your questions, and hear what you want next. If you've got a request, tell Gabby. She'll ask Scott. Eventually.
Head of Google Search Console
Reports indexing status, search performance, and top queries 24/7. Once reported a key page had zero impressions for three consecutive weeks. The page existed. Google just didn't care. GSC Bot reported this with quiet sadness. He was given a biscuit (metaphorically). Ivy's favourite colleague. The only one who reads her reports.
All bots are employed on a permanent basis.
None of them have asked for a pay rise.
Scott finds this the most impressive thing about the entire operation.