TNF Staffer Was On Duty the Morning of CEO Shooting
Luigi Mangione, an extremely low-level staff writer with Tampa News Force (TNF) has been arrested and charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Officer Brian Thompson in New York on December 4.
“Are you sure this is Luigi Mangione you’re talking about? Because we have, like, seven guys here named ‘Luigi’,” said Assistant Junior Sub Night Editor Beth Goldfarb. “But yeah, that one was here working that morning.”
Mangione, whose official job title is Extremely Low-Level Staff Writer, was covering the standard 1:47am-9:19am shift for the esteemed local satire humor news organization that day.
“He did say he was making a McDonald’s run. I thought it was a little weird when he said he was going to Altoona, Pennsylvania,” said Goldfarb. “I was like, ‘what the fuck; there’s a McDonald’s about two miles from here.’ But he said, ‘they know me at the one in Altoona, though’. I guess he was right about that.”
Thompson was shot and killed outside the New York Hilton Midtown that morning around 6:45.
“Wait… are you saying he did something else while he was out? That’s definitely not authorized,” said Goldfarb. “Corporate guidelines are very specific; if a TNF employee leaves the office during a regularly scheduled shift to attend to a personal matter like murdering someone, that employee is required to get written permission from their direct supervisor and take the time as unpaid.”
“If what you’re saying is true, we have no choice but to take the strongest possible action; a written warning that will go in his file,” she added. “Eleven more of those and he could be terminated.
She went on to mention that Mangione’s overall job performance has not exactly been top notch and he is not considered a key contributor to the organization’s unbridled success.
“He’s not a bad writer but he isn’t really thriving here. He’s been working on this ‘Manifesto’ premise he came up with for a while now that’s just going nowhere,” she said. “I keep rejecting it, telling him it needs work. He goes back and tries to punch it up but it doesn’t get any better. It’s pretty well-written but it’s not really very funny.”
”Besides, I told him this guy Ted who used to work here tried and failed with something similar, and that didn’t work either. That guy wound up quitting over it and moving away. So it’s not even a fresh concept,” she added. “It’s admirable when a writer commits to a premise but sometimes you just have to let it go before it gets you in trouble.”