They’re Listening
by Gabriel White
part 1
Bill Ellis walked into work already over the day. He barely made it into the building before he had people on his ass about wanting time off for vacations, meetings that weren’t important and something about boss Nolan’s needing to see him personally. He didn’t care about most of it, but that last part scared him to death. Nolan never wanted to see anyone personally unless something had gone to hell. Bill had a suspicion of what the meeting would be about and, if he was right, it wasn’t looking good.
Last month, Bill had been made the operating manager at one of the biggest manufacturers of smart products in Silicon Valley: Digital Nexus. His job was to oversee the creation and distribution of many kinds of smart products including fridges, microwaves and all that automated nonsense. His main job however was to ensure that the “Smart Boxes” as they were called — basically their versions of Alexa — were properly made and shipped out on time.
However, at the beginning of the month, he had forgotten to log the newest shipment into the company’s database. This usually wasn’t a big deal, since the warehouse input it into their system once it arrived and then the main system would be notified to input it themselves. This time, the shipment didn’t reach the right place and, suddenly, a couple hundred thousand dollars of product was lost. He had never pissed off a supervisor so fast before. Now, two weeks later, he’s most likely being fired for that major mess-up.
Bill rode the elevator up to the 15th floor, where Nolan held court. The door opened with a soft ding, and Bill stepped out onto the carpeted floor and walked towards the gray door at the end of the hall. Sweat beaded on his forehead. How would it happen? Would it be a ten-minute screaming sessio? Or would it be nice and quick? A simple “Get the hell out,” or a jumble of incoherent words?
His knuckles rapped on the door, and he braced himself.
“Come in.”
He entered the cool office; Nolan sat behind his desk reading over some papers, a worried expression was on his face. Nolan looked up and surveyed his visitor over the top of his spectacles. His sharp blue eyes ran up and down the cheap suit Bill had bought weeks ago in celebration of his promotion. He seemed almost fearful of who might have entered, but then a look of recognition — or was it relief? — came over his face.
“Ah Mr. Ellis, please take a seat.” He gestured with a slender hand to one of the chairs opposite the desk.
Bill walked over and sat down, taking in the office. He had never been in the boss’s office before. The desk was neat and tidy, everything in its proper place. In the corner of his desk stood the newest model Smart Box.
I wonder if he just took it from storage, Bill thought. I’m sure being boss has a lot of hidden perks.
The whole room was in pristine condition, nothing was even slightly out of place or dirty. He imagined that Nolan had OCD or whatever they said made people twitchy.
Nolan was once again buried in his papers, his hands trembling slightly causing the papers to ripple together.
“Sir, I was told you needed to see me?”
Nolan seemed almost oblivious to his words; his eyes glued to the papers. He reminded Bill of a pubescent boy who just discovered porn, both completely captivated and horrified by what was before him.
“Sir?” he repeated. “Sir, is everything alright?”
“What? Oh yes, yes everything is fine.” Nolan replied with the inflection of a person under high stress. He waved the papers in the air. “Just new Corporate orders, a bunch of bullcrap if you ask me.”
“You said you needed to see me, sir,” Bill said, the idea of termination looming over him.
“Yes, I did. It’s about your job.”
“Am I being fired? Is it about the mess with last month’s shipment?”
“What? Oh no, no, no. No, we got it all straightened out in the end. But I will ask you to be a little more careful in the future,” he said and shot him a stern glance.
“Of course, sir, it won’t happen again.”
“Excellent. No, Mr. Ellis, what I needed to talk about with you were these.” He once again held up the papers.
Bill’s eyes ran over them more closely this time. He saw the effective words immediately in big bold print over the top, “The Corporate papers?”
“Yes, they are wanting to change a couple of the previous generations of smart tech and how they are manufactured. They are wanting to include an update to the operating system, which will include an updated computer system to allow for easier and quicker access to the main computers as well as updated listening software to better detect when the devices are being spoken to.” Nolan’s face seemed to whiten as he said this, and Bill was beginning to get freaked out.
“That’s what they want? Why are they doing this for the previous generations? Why not just include it with the next generation to make people buy it? Seems like a waste of money.”
“I don’t know. It’s part of some new program where you can either send in your old devices to get updated or they give you twenty-five percent off on any next generation device.”
“What!?” Bill exclaimed. “They’ve never done anything like this before.”
“The papers said that it is supposed to help undermine competitors. It’s supposed to be a way to get more people to buy and stick with our tech.” Nolan’s eyes looked all over the room, his face screwed up in a fearful expression. “Lean in here.” He whispered as if he wanted to keep something a secret. Bill leaned in, listening carefully to what he had to say. “I don’t know why but I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Is there anything we can do to stop it?”
Nolan bit his lip; he had evidently already been running this through his mind. “No, I don’t think so. Just do as they say and carry on. I will try to find out more about it.”
Bill leaned back, lost in thought. “Sir, why did you call me up here? I would have seen this on my own.”
“I wanted to tell you in person. I also wanted to ask you to keep your eyes open. A woman from Corporate will be here to instruct your team on what they need to do. I want you to let me know anything she says and anything that you get a bad feeling about. Can you do that?”
“Of course.”
“Good, I’ll let you know if I find anything more. You can go now.”
Bill silently stood and left the room, feeling inexplicably much worse now than he did when he thought he might be fired.
* * *
When Bill reached his office, he wasn’t surprised to see a stack of papers of his very own awaiting his arrival. He gave a heavy sigh and snatched them from the desk. It wasn’t even 10 o’clock, and he already had a massive headache.
A slight cough from the corner made him yell and whirl around in fear.
Standing in the corner of his office was a tall and slender woman. Her stern eyes pierced through him as he stood clutching the desk.
“Mr. Ellis, I presume?”
“Yes, that’s me. Sorry about that. And you are?”
“I’m Director Sterling. I came by early, but I needn’t have, since I’ve been waiting here half an hour for you.” She spoke with a briskness and seriousness of someone who had no sense of humor and little patience.
“I had a meeting with the boss; that’s why I’ve been out of my office.”
“I could tell; regardless, I assume you are confused as to why I’m here.”
“It’s about the new updates order, right?”
She looked at him puzzled. “How would you know if you haven’t been in to read the report?”
“My boss called me in to discuss it. That’s why I’m late getting here.”
Her eyebrows raised, shocked by this revelation. “He called you in personally to discuss this?” she gestured to the papers. “Interesting.”
Bill’s heart sank, he got the sudden feeling that he had said something he shouldn’t have. “Well, no, the meeting wasn’t about the new orders.” He said hastily. “No, it was about a mess I had made last month and how I needed to be more careful. This got mentioned just as I was leaving, you see.”
She peered at him; it was clear that she didn’t buy the story. “I see. Well, anyway, yes, I am here to discuss the new program with you. As you are aware, we are going to be updating the older generations’ capacities in order to try to stay a step ahead of our competitors. The goal is to promote our newest generation devices and still show that even our previous generation is better than any other product.”
“I see, that makes sense. Does Corporate really think this will work?” Even besides the weird feeling he got from this, he didn’t see the point in the company’s encouraging people not to buy a new product. It was completely against the usual strategy of making people buy the new thing even if it’s just the last generation with a new design.
“Would they approve it if they thought it wouldn’t?” she said. Her voice had a cold, sharp edge to it, like an icicle.
Bill bit his tongue, knowing full well that Corporate made stupid decisions all the time, but he gathered that now wasn’t the time to make those feelings known. He decided it would probably be safer just to give a slight nod.
“Anyway, back to what I was saying. We are hoping this will allow us to maintain both a financial and technological advantage on our competitors. By implementing the newest technology in—”
Bill’s headache pounded, he tried to listen, but all of this insider jargon went through one ear and out the other faster than he could say, “Boring.” His eyes slowly glossed over as he mentally prepared himself for what was sure to be a long meeting.
* * *
A whole hour and a half later, the bitch finally left. They had sat in his office and talked for what felt like forever until she finally decided she needed to have a tour of the facility to ensure that it could “meet the required standards for this new program.” That pretentious bitch.
Bill led her on the tour, trying his best to sugar-coat the less than ideal conditions his team were working under. He had an objection ready: “What the hell are we supposed to do when our requests to Corporate for improvements of the facilities are never responded to?”
And he made sure to tell that straight to her face every time she gave an obnoxious head-shake or said something like: “No, that won’t do at all. You realize that was supposed to be updated months ago, don’t you?” Sterling seemed to take pleasure in making him feel like a moron about his management abilities. Well, screw her.
Finally, she left, and he was able to sit down and think for the first time all day. The new program seemed to be perfectly normal according to everything he had heard. The only weird part was that it was something the company had never attempted before. Yet he couldn’t help but share Nolan’s view that something was wrong.
Every time he had pressed Sterling for more information about the program, he was shut down immediately with the same regurgitated bullcrap he had heard over a dozen times. He reread the papers repeatedly and found there was nothing inherently wrong with them. It was mostly the usual Corporate nonsense that was said in every brief and then finally the new program.
Bill sat staring at the pages, turning them over in his hands trying to figure out what was causing his unease. After almost an hour, he gave up and turned towards his other work. He looked at the clock and gave a sigh; it was just now noon. You don’t have many days like this but when you do, they are hell.
* * *
“Ellis! Hey, Ellis!”
Just let me get the hell out of here, please! his mind screamed. Let me go home! He turned around, a fake smile plastered on his face, wishing nothing more than to knock the teeth down whatever jackass was trying to talk to him. It turned out to be his boss. Best to leave the teeth-knocking for another day.
“Hey Ellis, how did the meeting go?”
“Oh, it went fine. She didn’t say anything that wasn’t already in the papers I got.”
“So you didn’t find out anything new?” he asked, a little crestfallen.
“No, she avoided that question like the plague.”
Nolan looked disappointed but he regrouped himself quickly. “I see, it’s not a big deal. I’m sure that they have their reasons. Just make sure to keep me updated if you hear more.”
“Yes, sir.” Bill turned and walked out to his car, wanting more than anything to get the hell out of Dodge. On the ride home, he did something he hadn’t done in years: he rode without listening to music. His head swirled with questions, the biggest of which was why. Why was that bitch so defensive about this new program? Why was Nolan so afraid of it? Most importantly, why am I so afraid of it? These questions circled his head until he reached his bachelor pad, and they followed him well into the night.
* * *
Copyright © 2024 by Gabriel White
