by Dave Eggers
“We are here today to insist that the Senate’s Antitrust Task Force begin an investigation into whether or not the Circle acts as a monopoly. We believe that the Justice Department will see the Circle for what it is, a monopoly in its purest sense, and move to break it up, just as they did with Standard Oil, AT&T and every other demonstrated monopoly in our history. The dominance of the Circle stifles competition and is dangerous to our way of free-market capitalism.”
After she was finished, the screen went back to its usual purpose, to celebrate the thoughts of the Circle staff, and amid the throngs that day were many thoughts. The consensus was that this senator was known for her occasionally outside-the-mainstream positions—she had been against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—and thus she would not get much traction with this antitrust crusade. The Circle was a company popular on both sides of the aisle, known for its pragmatic positions on virtually every political issue, for its generous donations, and thus this left-of-center senator wouldn’t get much support from her liberal colleagues—much less among the Republican ranks.
Mae didn’t know enough about antitrust laws to have an off-the-cuff opinion. Was there really no competition out there? The Circle had 90 percent of the search market. Eighty-eight percent of the free-mail market, 92 percent of text servicing. That was, in her perspective, a simple testament to their making and delivering the best product. It seemed insane to punish the company for its efficiency, for its attention to detail. For succeeding.
“There you are,” Mae said, seeing Annie coming toward her. “How was Mexico? And Peru?”
“That idiot,” Annie scoffed, narrowing her eyes at the screen where the senator had recently appeared.
“So you’re not concerned about this?”
“You mean, like she’s going to actually get somewhere with this? No. But personally, she’s in a world of shit.”
“What do you mean? How do you know this?”
Annie looked at Mae, then turned to face the back of the room. Tom Stenton stood, chatting with a few Circlers, his arms crossed, a posture that in someone else might convey concern or even anger. But more than anything, he seemed amused.
“Let’s go,” Annie said, and they walked across campus, hoping to get lunch from a taco truck hired to feed Circlers that day. “How’s your gentleman caller? Don’t tell me he died during sex.”
“I still haven’t seen him since last week.”
“No contact at all?” Annie asked. “What a shit.”
“I think he’s just from some other era.”
“Some other era? And grey hair? Mae, you know that moment in The Shining when Nicholson is having some kind of sexy encounter with the woman in the bathroom? And then the lady turns out to be some elderly undead corpse?”
Mae had no idea what Annie was talking about.
“Actually—” Annie said, and her eyes lost focus.
“What?”
“You know, with this Williamson investigation thing, it worries me to have some shadowy guy skulking around campus. Can you tell me the next time you see him?”
Mae looked at Annie, and saw, for the first time she could remember, something like real worry.
At four thiry Dan sent a message: Great day so far! Meet at five?
Mae arrived at Dan’s door. He stood, guided her to a chair, and closed the door. He sat behind his desk and tapped the glass of his tablet.
“97. 98. 98. 98. Wonderful aggregates this week.”
“Thank you,” Mae said.
“Really spectacular. Especially considering the increased workload with the newbs. Has that been difficult?”
“Maybe the first couple days, but now they’re all trained and don’t need me as much. They’re all excellent, so if anything, it’s slightly easier, having more people on the job.”
“Good. Good to hear.” Now Dan looked up, and probed into her eyes. “Mae, have you had a good experience so far here at the Circle?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
His face brightened. “Good. Good. That’s very good news. I asked you to come in just to, well, to square that with your social behavior here, and the message it’s sending. And I think I might have failed to communicate everything about this job properly. So I blame myself if I haven’t done that well enough.”
“No. No. I know you did a good job. I’m sure you did.”
“Well, thank you, Mae. I appreciate that. But what we need to talk about is the, well … Let me put it another way. You know this isn’t what you might call a clock-in, clock-out type of company. Does that make sense?”
“Oh, I know. I wouldn’t … Did I imply that I thought …”
“No, no. You didn’t imply anything. We just haven’t seen you around so much after five o’clock, so we wondered if you were, you know, anxious to leave.”
“No, no. Do you need me to stay later?”
Dan winced. “No, it’s not that. You handle your workload just fine. But we missed you at the Old West party last Thursday night, which was a pretty crucial team-building event, centered around a product we’re all very proud of. You missed at least two newbie events, and at the circus, it looked like you couldn’t wait to leave. I think you were out of there in twenty minutes. And those things would be understandable if your Participation Rank wasn’t so low. Do you know what it is?”
Mae guessed it was in the 8,000-range. “I think so.”
“You think so,” Dan said, checked his screen. “It’s 9,101. Does that sound right?” It had dropped in the last hour, since she’d last checked.
Dan clucked and nodded, as if trying to figure out how a certain spot had appeared on his shirt. “So it’s been sort of adding up and, well, we started worrying that we were somehow driving you away.”
“No, no! It’s nothing like that.”
“Okay, let’s focus on Thursday at five fifteen. We had a gathering in the Old West, where your friend Annie works. It was a semi-mandatory welcome party for a group of potential partners. You were off-campus, which really confuses me. It’s as if you were fleeing.”
Mae’s mind raced. Why hadn’t she gone? Where was she? She didn’t know about this event. It was across campus, in the Old West—how had she missed a semi-mandatory event? The notice must have been buried deep in her third screen.
“God, I’m sorry,” she said, remembering now. “At five I left campus to get some aloe at this health shop in San Vincenzo. My dad asked for this particular kind of—”
“Mae,” Dan interrupted, his tone condescending, “the company store has aloe. Our store’s better stocked than some corner store, and with superior products. Ours is carefully curated.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know the company store had something like aloe.”
“You went to our store and couldn’t find it?”
“No, no. I didn’t go to the store. I went straight to the other store. But I’m so glad to know that—”
“Let me stop you there, because you said something interesting. You said you didn’t go to our store first?”
“No. Sorry. I just assumed something like that wouldn’t be there, so—”
“Now listen. Mae, I should admit that I know you didn’t go to the store. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. You haven’t been in the store, not once. You—a former college athlete—haven’t been to the gym, and you’ve barely explored the campus. I think you’ve used about one percent of our facilities.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just been a whirlwind so far, I guess.”
“And Friday night? There was a major event then, too.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to go to the party, but I had to run home. My dad had a seizure and it ended up being minor but I didn’t know that until I got home.”
Dan looked at his glass desk and, with a tissue, tried to remove a smudge. Satisfied, he looked up.
“That’s very understandable. To spend time with your parents, believe me, I think that is very, very cool. I just want to emphasize
the community aspect of this job. We see this workplace as a community, and every person who works here is part of that community. And to make it all work it requires a certain level of participation. It’s like, if we were a kindergarten class, and one girl has a party, and only half the class shows up, how does the birthday girl feel?”
“Not good. I know that. But I was at the circus event and that was great. So great.”
“It was great, wasn’t it? And it was great to see you there. But we have no record of you being there. No photos, no zings, no reviews, notices, bumps. Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was caught up in the—”
Dan sighed loudly. “You do know that we like to hear from people, right? That Circlers’ opinions are valued?”
“Of course.”
“And that the Circle is predicated, to a large extent, on the input and participation of people like yourself?”
“I know.”
“Listen. It totally makes sense you’d want to spend time with your parents. They’re your parents! It’s totally honorable of you. Like I said: very, very cool. I’m just saying we like you a lot, too, and want to know you better. To that end, I wonder if you’d be willing to stay a few extra minutes, to talk to Josiah and Denise. I think you remember them from your orientation? They’d love to just extend the conversation we’re having, and go a bit deeper. Does that sound good?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t have to rush home or …?”
“No. I’m all yours.”
“Good. Good. I like to hear that. Here they are now.”
Mae turned to see Denise and Josiah, both waving, on the other side of Dan’s glass door.
“Mae, how are you?” Denise said, as they walked to the conference room. “I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since we gave you your first tour! We’ll be in here.”
Josiah opened the door to a conference room Mae had passed many times. The room was oval, the walls glass.
“Let’s have you sit here,” Denise said, indicating a high-backed leather chair. She and Josiah sat across from her, arranging their tablets and adjusting their seats, as if settling in for a task that might take hours, and would almost surely be unpleasant. Mae tried to smile.
“As you know,” Denise said, putting a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, “we’re from HR, and this is just a regular check-in we do with new community members here. We do them somewhere in the company every day, and we’re especially glad to see you again. You’re such an enigma.”
“I am?”
“You are. It’s been years since I can remember someone joining who was so, you know, shrouded in mystery.”
Mae wasn’t sure how to answer this. She didn’t feel shrouded in mystery.
“So I thought maybe we would start by talking a little about you, and after we get to know more about you, we can talk about ways that you might feel comfortable joining in a bit more in terms of the community. Does that sound good?”
Mae nodded. “Of course.” She looked to Josiah, who hadn’t said a word yet, but who was working furiously on his tablet, typing and swiping.
“Good. I thought we would start by saying that we really like you,” Denise said.
Josiah finally spoke, his blue eyes bright. “We do,” he said. “We really do. You are a super-cool member of the team. Everyone thinks so.”
“Thank you,” Mae said, feeling sure that she was being fired. She’d gone too far in asking for her parents to be added to the insurance plan. How could she have done that so soon after being hired?
“And that your work here has been exemplary,” Denise continued. “Your ratings have been averaging 97, and that’s excellent, especially for your first month. Do you feel satisfied with your performance?”
Mae guessed at the right answer. “I do.”
Denised nodded. “Good. But as you know, it’s not all about work here. Or rather, it’s not all about ratings and approvals and such. You’re not just some cog in a machine.”
Josiah was shaking his head vigorously, no. “We consider you a full, knowable human being of unlimited potential. And a crucial member of the community.”
“Thank you,” Mae said, now less sure she was being let go.
Denise’s smile was pained. “But as you know, you’ve had a blip or two when it comes to meshing with the community here. We have of course read the report from the incident with Alistair and his Portugal brunch. We found your explanation totally understandable, and we’re encouraged that you seem to have recognized the issues at play there. But then there’s your absence at most of the weekend and evening events, all of which are of course totally optional. Is there anything else you want to add to our understanding of all this? Maybe with the Alistair situation?”
“Just that I really felt bad that I might have inadvertently caused Alistair any distress.”
Denise and Josiah smiled.
“Good, good,” Denise said. “So the fact that you understand makes me confused, in terms of squaring that with a few of your actions since that discussion. Let’s start with this past weekend. We know you left campus at 5:42 p.m. on Friday, and you got back here 8:46 a.m. on Monday.”
“Was there work on the weekend?” Mae searched her memory. “Did I miss something?”
“No, no, no. There wasn’t, you know, mandatory work here on the weekend. That’s not to say that there weren’t thousands of people here Saturday and Sunday, enjoying the campus, participating in a hundred different activities.”
“I know, I know. But I was home. My dad was sick, and I went back to help out.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Josiah said. “Was this related to his MS?”
“It was.”
Josiah made a sympathetic face, and Denise leaned forward. “But see, here’s where it gets especially confusing. We don’t know anything about this episode. Did you reach out to any Circlers during this crisis? You know that there are four groups on campus for staffers dealing with MS? Two of them are for children of MS sufferers. Have you sought out one of these groups?”
“No, not yet. I’ve meant to.”
“Okay,” Denise said. “Let’s table that thought for a second, because that’s instructive, the fact that you were aware of the groups, but didn’t seek them out. Surely you acknowledge the benefit of sharing information about this disease?”
“I do.”
“And that sharing with other young people whose parents suffer from the disease—do you see the benefit in this?”
“Absolutely.”
“For example, when you heard your dad had a seizure, you drove, what, a hundred miles or so, and never once during that drive did you try to glean any information from the InnerCirclers, or from the larger OuterCircle. Do you see that as an opportunity wasted?”
“Now I do, absolutely. I was just upset, and worried, and I was driving like a maniac. I wasn’t very present.”
Denise raised a finger. “Ah, present. That is a wonderful word. I’m glad you used it. Do you consider yourself usually present?”
“I try to be.”
Josiah smiled and tapped a flurry into his tablet.
“But the opposite of present would be what?” Denise asked.
“Absent?”
“Yes. Absent. Let’s put a pin in that thought, too. Let’s go back to your dad, and this weekend. Did he recover okay?”
“He did. It was a false alarm, really.”
“Good. I’m so glad to hear about that. But it’s curious that you didn’t share this with anyone else. Did you post anything anywhere about this episode? A zing, a comment anywhere?”
“No, I didn’t,” Mae said.
“Hm. Okay,” Denise said, taking a breath. “Do you think someone else might have benefited from your experience? That is, maybe the next person who might drive two or three hours home might benefit from knowing what you found out about the episode, that it was just a minor pseudo-seizure?”
“Absolutely. I could s
ee that being helpful.”
“Good. So what do you think the action plan should be?”
“I think I’ll join the MS club,” Mae said, “and I should post something about what happened. I know it’ll be beneficial.”
Denise smiled. “Fantastic. Now let’s talk about the rest of the weekend. On Friday, you find out that your dad’s okay. But the rest of the weekend, you basically go blank. It’s like you disappeared!” Her eyes grew wide. “This is when someone like you, with a low Participation Rank, might be able to improve that, if she wanted to. But yours actually dropped—two thousand points. Not to get all number-geeky, but you were on 8,625 on Friday and by late Sunday you were at 10,288.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” Mae said, hating herself, this self who couldn’t seem to get out of her own way. “I guess I was just recovering from the stress of my dad’s episode.”
“Can you talk about what you did on Saturday?”
“It’s embarrassing,” Mae said. “Nothing.”
“Nothing meaning what?”
“Well, most of the day I stayed at my parents’ house and just watched TV.”
Josiah brightened. “Anything good?”
“Just some women’s basketball.”
“There’s nothing wrong with women’s basketball!” Josiah gushed. “I love women’s basketball. Have you followed my WNBA zings?”
“No, do you have a Zing feed about the WNBA?”
Josiah nodded, looking hurt, even bewildered.
Denise stepped in. “Again, it’s just curious that you didn’t choose to share it with anyone. Did you join any of the discussions about the sport? Josiah, how many participants are there in our global WNBA discussion group?”
Josiah, still visibly shaken knowing that Mae hadn’t been reading his WNBA feed, managed to find the number on his tablet and muttered, “143,891.”
“And how many zingers out there focus on the WNBA?”
Josiah quickly found the number. “12,992.”
“And you’re not part of either, Mae. Why do you think that is?”
“I guess I just didn’t think my interest in the WNBA rose to the level where it warranted joining a discussion group, or, you know, following anything. I’m not that passionate about it.”