Life Goes On (Vision of the Future) ch.10(a)

Calban arrived at work and, after keying in his personal password on his console, began to review the messages which were waiting for him. Some of them were outstanding ones from the last few days which he had not regarded as top priority and therefore had not yet been dealt with by him. Some of those were regarded as high priority by his managers and Calban ran the risk of being criticised for not dealing with them earlier. However to have outstanding priority messages was actually quite normal for all but the most efficient workers who set the standards for everyone else. Unfortunately his workplace had many workers who were far more efficient than Calban. Thus his targets were always too high for him to achieve, and he frequently received criticism for this. However, in what he sometimes regarded as a fine example of natural justice at work, the most efficient workers tended to be the ones who received, in return for their efforts, an additional burden of work, which, as was in the nature of that particular kind of being, they usually attempted to deal with in the same efficient way as their “normal workload” colleagues. Therefore, he generally concluded, it was better not to deal with all the memos and workloads which were presented. This policy meant that higher managers were then more likely to reduce than to increase his workload, to levels which were more realistic. It wouldn’t have made much difference whether he adopted a policy of “try to deal with everything” or not, because he would not have had sufficient time to do it anyway.

Memos came from different people, managers or colleagues in surrounding desks, in distant desks or offices, even on different floors, or in different branches, because his firm was a large one. It didn’t matter how far away they came from because at the instant push of keys he could be staring at the live image of the sender and talking directly to them through his console. He often wore a light headset so that he could do this quietly without disturbing others nearby. So at any moment, unless he was speaking to somebody through his console at the time, he could be rudely interrupted by any of the callers within the House or by external callers, sanctioned by switchboard. This happened frequently, but as the callers themselves were all busy on a multitude of matters they often contented themselves with sending memos or messages to him. If they really needed something to be done in a hurry, which was sometimes the case, then they were more likely to insist on intervening onto his screen directly. This made the decision about priorities a very delicate and diffficult decision, but he always attempted to judge priorities on the basis of how likely he was to get told off if he didn’t do the work. Much of the time it worked, but when it didn’t it made life even more unpleasant than it already was.

Calban, like most people, adopted a philosophical approach to the pressure of work and the criticisms and telling off by others. It was the only way to survive psychologically, but like many, if not most, people in the office it did get him down to the point where he found no satisfaction at all in his work, and hated most of his waking life. This was a pity, because as judged by the pleasures he could experience in those precious moments at the end of his day when he was at home in front of his Vidnet console, life could have been very good indeed, if only the stressful and irritating bureaucracy and effort of his working life could have been minimised to more “natural” proportions.

Calban keyed a menu choice, a memo to fill in some urgent forms. This was one of today’s new memos. His immediate boss must have been up early to send this request.

Calban picked up the fax sheet which had come off the Vidnet earlier in the day. It did not add up correctly. The reason was obviously that some of the numbers were not clear and the paper had scrunched a little in the machine. That was not supposed to happen in this office of perfect information, but he had found by experience that information was never perfect. There was always one fault or another with it, and why would you want it perfect anyway? Did it matter if a few credits went onto that account or this account, particularly when dealing with thousands or millions or on very large accounts billions? But his managers wouldn’t look at it that way. In the modern world everything had to be perfect, to the last unit or near enough. That was what the customer paid for. Perfect, of course, only applied to paper and monetary values and computer systems and gadgets of all sorts. Perfection, it seemed, was not deemed to apply to the lives of the human beings who worked in the offices or the laboratories and factories.

Then he realised that yes perfection did apply to the people, how could he forget it, he was subject to it himself. How could he forget the training courses, the examinations, the endless lectures he had been on for so many years, before that his general education which had also been rigorous. In fact how could he forget that his whole life had been designed for him, to turn him into that very thing, perfection, which he had almost forgotten could be applied to human beings. He was designed for perfection, but somehow he knew he had misfired and failed to make the required grade of perfection. Everything had been designed for him and yet it had not been enough to carry him through. When he had turned his back on examinations he had feared that the ground might swallow him up and he would live out his remaining life in a basement flat in a poor district or that skyscrapers and tramways would fall in on him in punishment. He might never have seen daylight again.

That had not happened thankfully, and he found he was able to continue to operate, albeit in a more lowly position in the same organisation, which had chosen him initially for his potential, and been disappointed.

The trouble with this job was that you couldn’t prove to anyone else that you were any good. The only people who might appreciate that might be your manager if they had done the job themselves and come upon similar problems in the past, and therefore appreciate the problems which you faced. But the manager might just as easily think you were too slow and blame you for the extra time, which always without fail exceeded target times. Nobody who did not do his job would appreciate its difficulties. They all assumed that everything worked like clockwork. Their job was difficult but Calban’s was easy, easy to those who did not have to do it.

It was dull work and perceived as such by many outsiders and workers with different office skills. However he realised that was his own perception of his occupation and he was in the habit of assuming that others shared his own perception. He realised there must be others who assumed the job was more exciting than it was. Perhaps they were people who found their own jobs dull and believed that other, possibly more highly skilled jobs were more exciting.

He sighed as he switched on the wall dispenser for another cup of coffee, which would wake him up and allow him to start the day. He didn’t want to do any more work this week. He was bored by it. Six days of it with no respite was too much. He wanted to allow his mind to escape and do other things, but whenever he started to relax it would be time to sleep again to prepare in a different way for the following day. Both the conscious and the unconscious hours of freedom helped to prepare him for the next day, but he never seemed to get enough of either. He wanted more conscious relaxation so he could do something different, something meaningful with his life, but he was often aware late in the evening of the tiredness crushing in on his freedom. Sometimes occasionally he needed to go straight to his bed after food and perhaps a brief pornog session. What else was there in his life? He had tried cutting back on sleep because he would rather be awake and thinking, being someone, living. But that did not work at all. A heavy head and more tired the next day just meant that things got on top of him more than usual at work and he wanted to give in there and then and sleep at his desk.

There was the boss worrying about accounts production schedules and targets and perfect efficiency and improvement and he couldn’t even get a girlfriend. His life was in ruins, had always been in ruins. His life had never even begun to take off, squashed out of him by the rigorous education system, followed by the rigorous training system, followed by lots of hard work in what they all referred to as the “real world”, which was accompanied by further study, training and examinations. His life had been bulldozed by the greater force of the system. He was just a worthless piece of flotsam in an ocean which cared not whether he sank or swam or whether he even lived or died. Certainly his happiness was not an issue with this system. Happiness was supposed to be automatic, the feeling of success as a man or woman passed through the educational and work stages of life, progressing naturally from level to level in his or her chosen profession, earning more money as increasing skills brought larger and larger remuneration. Money was presumably therefore considered to be a form of happiness, or perhaps, he thought, it was meant to replace happiness. If he was not happy he should be able to console himself with the fact of his own enrichment. True enough, it was comfortable enough in the monetary sense. After all, what purpose was there in him owning a larger apartment? He was alone when at home with his Vidnet console, which provided all his needs, informational, entertainment, psychological, friendship, companionship, literary, pornographical and sexual, communicational, shopping, interaction with other people.

He could use the Vidnet to issue letters, send his thoughts instantly to thousands and millions of people at a time, if they cared to pick up his messages.

He had a window to the city, without a striking view and a door to the outside world. Shower toilet, food dispensers and facilities, a bed, seats, some floor. What more could a single male like himself require? His life did not cost much. His earnings mainly stashed up his bank accounts and pension funds, insurance policies, expenses for running costs, unit trusts and fancy investments of all sorts, safely recorded and protected by Vidnet and his console. The only use he might ever have had for money would be if he could afford to retire. But the system was set up in such a way that he could not retire, few could unless they did something really useful or famous with their lives. Something which enabled them to monopolise a selling attribute, which might be a special skill or a feature which made somebody want to reward them highly, or perhaps winning on some tacky Vidnet game show or lottery. Everybody dreamed of that although many would not admit it. The system ensured that it only happened to the very few – who were growing in number over the centuries these had been operating. But there weren’t enough of them living on the proceeds of luck, while the majority slaved on, resigned to their dull existence but always hopeful, to dislocate the economy. No factory or office or agro complex or space station had complained of having insufficient manpower for decades, if not centuries, even if there were times when they complained bitterly about skill shortages.

The modern peoples of Marta and Gallanol don’t get many holidays. The state of constantly efficient economics and the demands of business don’t allow much leisure in the modern world. Progress, it seems, demands ever further efforts on the part of workers, professionals and students alike. The more we know about the world the more complex it becomes. The more efficiency we create the more new tasks we seem to find as rules and regulations and the growing legal and service demands of customers become more onerous.

However there are holidays, two or three weeks in every year for many people who work for large employers. This means that the ancient tourist industry of the past, which once caused so much economic growth, has not disappeared. It has merely shrunk under the pressure and growth of more conventional forms of work. It is however still substantial.

And Calban dreamed, disturbing dreams reflecting the visions inside. He hated the domination his employers held over his life. He felt the world around him was empty. There was no one to talk to, spend time, socialise with. You couldn’t talk to machines. His sleep became restless, a part of each night was filled with half remembered dreams, which meant he was awaking before his mind was able to replenish itself.