TICKTOCK, TICK-TOCK
Tick-tock, tick-tock. Counting down to five. Still, five minutes to five, not that it matters, as five is no longer the norm. Upper Management wants more, always more. Forty is not enough. Crush the serf. It is sixty or more now that they want. That way, Upper Management gets three workers’ output for the price of two. The others are recycled. Population decreases. Profits go up. Share prices increase. Rich get richer.
Still looking at the screen. Sixty-plus hours a week, staring at this display in a hive with a hundred more cogs in the wheel, doing the same. All the while, the overhead fluorescent lights buzz like the beating drum of a Viking master having his slaves’ row. If I listen carefully to the sound of the overwhelming no-longer-white noise, to those that have been here longer than a fortnight, it chants, “Code, code, code, return. Code, code, code, return.”
Billions of lines of code fashioned for a product that does not do a bit of good for humankind. No life-saving vaccines, no world-changing policies, no feeding the hungry nor clothing the naked. Nothing good nor bad of any sort. Just materials. Product. A new operating system with “new and improved” features.
“Code, code, code, return. Code, code, code, return.”
There is the sound, the constant hum. To think and ponder for one’s self is seen as a loss of productivity—a decline in profits for Upper Management. Maddening, typing away on a project that no one will even look at until Monday, but they want it “out the door” before a weekend of debauchery, as they call any time not making them more of the almighty dollar, I say to you.
Tick-tock, tick-tock. Still four minutes to five. All freedom is blocked. Liberties are forfeited at the door when you start and are received again when the check is deposited. And what can you do with so little a deposit before it’s all dried up by inflation out of control, rent for another master of a different sort, and goods and services not needed that we are brainwashed into needing by fellow office drones. All of them are watching God, the hand of the almighty clock.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
“Code, code, code, return. Code, code, code, return.”
They say we are free in this steamy capitalistic affair, but I say to you, yes, I very much speak to you, that it is all a charade. The lust of our capitalistic society is no more than the serf’s ability to choose their own master. Then, I say to you, you factor in something as poverty-stricken and the one percent’s ability to control you with a pretend notion that you need to serve them called unemployment. The fear of being unemployed and the stigma of it is so great that one chooses a master of harsh labor rather than to create. Some do, and at first, it is terrific, until they become one of the whip-cracking masters themselves. Thus, the serf is sometimes not even sufficient to serve, meaning they failed the interview. They did not get the job and are recycled and put to better use. Unemployment is now eradicated.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
“Code, code, code, return.”
One more minute left until five o’clock. My fingers run through my hair, resisting the temptation not to pull each strand out. Not that it matters, as Upper Management controls everything, I say to you, even when you leave. They rule. They abolished care for the old, the poor, and the unemployed. Their bodies are charred as a new form of sustainable energy to power screen time so marketers can have you consume MORE. It is called HUMAN RESOURCES.
If you are no longer productive, you are not wanted. Our democracy voted, and people cheered as taxes, and consequently, social services went by the wayside. As soon as you are unemployed and useful no more, you are recycled. Now famine and poverty are a relic of the past. You provide, and Upper Management takes. Do not even think about growing old, unless you are one of them or become one of the masters or can prove that you are not a burden on the state and are thus retired. As once you reach the vintage age of sixty and are no longer useful, no longer a cog in the wheel, the machine, then you are recycled. The resources saved will fuel them, Upper Management, as we Middle Management and the lowly chattels call them.
◆◆◆
“Paging Shirley from accounts receivable. Paging Shirley from accounts receivable … Please comply and follow the normal termination procedure. Undress, and HR will be up promptly.”
The announcement repeats. An announcement is a terrible death to die.
“Paging Shirley from accounts receivable. Paging Shirley from accounts receivable … Please comply and follow the normal termination procedure. Undress, and HR will be up promptly.”
HR, the not so secret police of Upper Management, are on their way up to terminate Shirley, a chattel, from accounts receivable. It is a standard procedure for the chosen individual to strip down and stand at attention while they wait for HR to see them for their exit interview.
HR reaches Shirley’s cubical. She is stripped naked, with her uniform folded up precisely in a bin outside her cubicle, as her replacement might benefit from the worn garment. Adhering to standard procedure, the two HR personnel are dressed in fire-resistant crimson red suits and ties, each with their renowned tool of HR, the flamethrower. Each one of them whips out their means, and with the precision and care of a carpenter with a hammer and nail, they fire Shirley. Her cubicle acts as a receptacle to transition her termination to electric power. The scene and the screaming and the smell of burning flesh does not so much as disturb her coworkers. It is just part of the job. Routine. Besides, they all have noise-canceling headphones on.
“Hey!” a fellow walking down rows of endless cornfields of cubicles said to one of the HR personnel as he was finishing up. “You caught that game last night?” he shouted over the remaining screams and scratching of Shirley from Accounts Receivable.
“Yeah, it was a hell of a game,” the HR personnel said nonchalantly as he and his cohort finished burning Shirley, the screaming had stopped. There was a specimen of a jawbone among the ash. “We won 17-14. I hope one day to referee to get the honor of terminating the losing team, and you get first dibs on their freshly retired uniforms.”
“Oh ya, can’t argue with that. It sounds like an enjoyable time. If you do get the chance, I will pay you a good sum for one of the uniforms and extra for any rings that you may find,” the office drone replied.
Then the clock buzzed five o’clock, and one-hundred Mid Management scuttled out of the cubicle fields and offices. On their way out, many waved happily to the two members of HR as they went along busily to terminate another two unproductive employees before the end of the day. The thousands of chattels had to stay longer. They had to be productive as it was their point. It was their sole purpose.
Only Mid Management earned the privilege to leave at five.
The chattel, lower-class workers, never saw Upper Management. All the conglomerates had exactly three members each. There were thousands of corporations in the Conglomerate States of America.
My name is Wilbur Rush. I am a member of Mid Management, and Human Resources no longer considers me useful. I will be recycled and turned into enough power to light a one-bedroom apartment for less than fifteen minutes.
Look around your cubicle. Most office dwellers already experience the nightmare that will unfold in the pages that follow. You already dread a visit from Human Resources. Resign while you can.
