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Aperture LaboratoriesEnrichment CenterWe Do What We Must Because We Can
Established 1943Upper Michigan, U.S.A.
Internal extension only
Form No.ASI-82-Ω-02
DepartmentOffice of the Chief Executive
Issued1982
ClassificationUnrestricted
RevisionOn tape. Standing instruction. A hundred times a day.
Office of the Chief Executive

Instructions Concerning Succession

The Chief Executive has said what is to happen if he dies before the engineers can pour him into a computer. He has said it on tape, so that everybody hears it a hundred times a day, and he has said it in the order below, and he has asked that the order be kept.

Dictated by Cave Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, from bed. Transcribed by C., as dictated, in full, including the part about her.

I will say this — and I’m gonna say it on tape so everybody hears it a hundred times a day: if I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place.

Now she’ll argue. She’ll say she can’t. She’s modest like that. But you make her.

Hell, put her in my computer. I don’t care.

On The Order

There are five things in that and I want them numbered, because a man who leaves five instructions and does not number them has left one instruction, which is argue, and I have run this company for thirty-nine years on the principle that nobody argues with a number. The numbers are below. Read them at both ends.

On Modesty

She’s modest like that. She has run this place since 1949 and has never once signed a sheet with her own name, and I have let her, because I wanted my name on it, and I am saying now, on tape, [cough], that the name on it was hers. Every sheet. Every voucher. Every Monday memorandum to the bean counters, which she typed, and every reply, which she typed, and the drawer at the gate, which she fills, and which I have never once asked about, because a man does not ask where the sixty dollars comes from when the sixty dollars keeps coming.

So she will argue. She will say she can’t. And you will look at her, and you will look at this building, and you will ask yourselves who you think has been running it, and then you will make her.

On The Computer

The engineers say the other half of the machine is a person. They say it will take a person. I have given them one and the one I have given them is deathly ill and the line on the chart goes one way, and I am not a fool, and I have read the reports. So: if it cannot be me, put her in my computer. I don’t care. I want that heard exactly the way I said it. I do not mean that I do not care about her. I mean that I do not care which of us it is, so long as it is one of us, so long as this place is run by somebody who was here, and there are two of those, and one of them is not going to be available.

She’s the backbone of this facility. I said that in 1959, to a room full of astronauts, and I said it as a compliment, and I want it understood that I meant it as an organisational chart.
“If I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place.”
— Cave Johnson, 1982, tape fourteen, eleven minutes thirty

The Order, Numbered

  • Pour me into a computer.
  • If the first cannot be done in time, Caroline runs this place.
  • She will argue. She will say she can’t. You make her.
  • Put her in my computer.
  • I don’t care.
The fifth has been ticked by the Chief Executive, who says it is the only one already done. The transcriptionist has asked that it be recorded that he ticked it with his eyes shut.

Instrument Of Succession

PrincipalCave Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, Aperture Laboratories
SuccessorCaroline
ConditionDeath of the Principal prior to his being poured into a computer
AlternativeThe Successor to be poured into the computer instead. The Principal does not care.
WitnessGreg. Greg is fine.
Signature of PrincipalCave Johnson (facsimile; hand over the transcriptionist’s)
Counter-signature of SuccessorDeclined.

Transcribed as dictated. What I have to say I have said to him and not to the tape. — C.

A Memorandum Concerning The Standing Instruction

Interoffice Memorandum

ToAll PersonnelFromCave Johnson, Chief Executive OfficerDate1982RePlaybackccCaroline, who is to hear it too, whatever she says

Tape fourteen, side B, from eleven minutes thirty, is to be played over the public-address system a hundred times a day, at intervals to be set by Personnel, in every department, in the lobby, on the testing track, in the elevator, and in the mixing room, where the wall is. [cough] It is not to be played in my office. I know what it says.

Any employee who can recite it is to be marked as having heard it. Any employee who cannot is to be tested. Any employee who says she cannot is Caroline, and is to be made.

APERTURE LABORATORIES  ·  P.A.  ·  TAPE 14  SIDE B  11:30-11:58
PLAYS TODAY ........ 100 / 100
DEPARTMENTS ........ ALL (OFFICE OF THE C.E. EXCLUDED, BY INSTRUCTION)
HEARD, BY RECITAL .. 41 PERSONNEL
HEARD, BY TESTING .. 40 PERSONNEL
EXEMPT ............. 0
DECLINED TO RECITE . 1  (PERSONNEL: C.)   ACTION: "MAKE HER"   STATUS: PENDING
Verifying personnel file…

Cave JohnsonChief Executive OfficerDictated 1982, from bed. Numbered at both ends. Played.

Form ASI-82-Ω-02. The instrument of succession is effective on the condition stated and is not counter-signed. The Chief Executive has been told that an instrument with one signature is a letter, and has said that it is the last one he intends to write, and that it will do.
she said it. once. out loud. he didnt hear. the tape did. it is in the four minutes