Report: Last Time Anyone Actually Rose To The Occasion Was 2002

WASHINGTON—Noting that not one person over the past decade has succeeded in approaching a personal or professional challenge head-on and tackling it, a new study by the Pew Research Center has found the last time anyone actually rose to the occasion was in 2002. “Research indicates that the last instance of any person on earth actually stepping up and getting something done in a way that met or exceeded expectations was Mark Rubin in April, 2002,” lead author Dr. Henry Glosser said of the California man, who, when asked to the movies by a friend, proceeded to communicate travel arrangements clearly and accurately, purchase tickets to the correct show time in advance, and arrive at the theater with enough time to find better-than-average seats and use the restroom before the start of opening credits. “There have been a few occasions in the last 10 years when people have come very close to meeting the moment and succeeding on all fronts—including a local father who attended nearly all of his son’s baseball game, a local fundraising organization that raised about 70 percent of their goal to buy new school textbooks, and a few actors whose performances were slightly more entertaining than movie reviews had indicated—but aside from that, we haven’t found a single instance in which someone actually carried out a task from start to finish in a way that wasn’t, ultimately, somewhat flawed and underwhelming at best.” Researchers added that in corroboration of their findings, they documented a record 32.5 billion occasions of complete and utter fuckups in the past two weeks alone.