Takes me a sec or so to get my shit back together. Dillon-ness, manliness and Mummy’s diaphragm drills. Cos fuck it, this round is gonna be different. Tell the two old men I’m flattered by this whole stalking thing, but I’m a little too old for paedophiles. Tell em to go suck each other’s haemorrhoids. That faeces will be kinder on their dentures.
“Depends on dietary fibre, Dylan.” Botched-Botox man offers me an oatmeal cookie like he’s busting out some magic trick. “Or is it Dillon this evening? Or maybe Dhilan?”
I tell them they can call me Dildo for all the high-in-fibre shits I give – anyway, they can’t for serious expect to scare me just by knowing all my usernames. “So you been scoping me out on social media. So what? You, the NSA and every self-respecting digital business.” This basic entry-level bollocks actually seems to throw them, so I try coming out with more of it. Tell em that with the amount of time I spend online, it’d actually be weirder if they didn’t know everything about me. Tell em if they’re trying to shit me up by telling me things I already revealed to Facebook, then I’m afraid they picked the wrong bloke. That privacy is for pussies. That ain’t no such thing as the “cloud”, it’s just some big corporate’s computer. Crunching up all the data from my clicking and searching and posting and sharing and recording and screenshotting and liking and emailing and hovering and hesitating and whatever the opposite of hesitating is. Tell em I actually feel more privacy when I’m online cos the biggest infringencies ain’t coming from no tech companies but from my mum being all up in my shit. I tell em every idiot knows that social media’s just some Trojan soap opera – a gateway opiate for turning all us dopeheads into hard data. That surveillance is the digital economy’s basic business model. Fuck knows why I’m now busting out word-for-word lines from our Advanced Data Analytics module – I just get psyched by the need to shut the old men down, take the initiative, control the situation. Show em that I know someshit. “Data is the new oil and so on.” “We get to use the websites and apps for free cos we’re the product being sold.” Ain’t even just fronting now – this shit’s fully immersive, 360° interactive exam revision. Start dropping some Economic Science about ad-funded digital businesses. How scoping out your customers is the whole point of online ads – allows you to micro-target the ads better. Deeper and deeper you scope, the more personal info you can suck out, the more valuable the ads. “Anything less than total surveillance is a missed opportunity to generate more revenues.” I tell them reason ad revenues are the default digital business model is cos it’s piss-easy – “You just focus on maxing your user base and the ads will take care of your cashflow.” And the more I shoot my mouth, the more the corridor we’re standing in seems to get emptier and quieter and longer – and so the more space I got to shoot my mouth. Older-looking man has to hold up his hand mid-flow to stop me chatting about data-mining optimisation techniques.
“Dylan, shut the heck up. Please, for just a minute. Just hush up for one minute. Why would you think we’d even want to know everything about you, let alone claim to?”
“I ain’t give a shit what you claim to know. End of the day, any idiot with a fone can do basic due diligence on anyone.”
“Due diligence, eh?” His eyeballs stay locked on me while he turns his head a little to the right. Exact same head-neck-and-eye position I slip into whenever I watch TV. (Mum used to worry there was maybe something wrong with me but the doc said it was just a default position from when I was a baby being breastfed.) “Dylan, did someone warn you we’d be talking to you? I mean, were you tipped off about this?”
“I ain’t even know what this is.”
He holds out his flabby forefinger, leaves it juddering in my direction. “Might as well just fart the beans, kid. Won’t be hard for us to find out ourselves. I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. I mean, you might as well just fart the beans.”
I tell him I ain’t farting nothing – firstly cos ain’t nobody told me nothing and, second, cos I ain’t some gassy old man like him with flatulence problems.
“Well, if nobody told you nothing, it follows that they must’ve told you something. You see that, don’t you, Dylan? Not nothing, so something.”
Figure this is probly my one window to bail. Could outrun these fogeys, easy. All them times I hear alarm bells in my head and I reckon it’s just a ringtone. Or when I clock the beat of the countdown and reckon it’s just the beep of an alarm. Be as easy as changing the channel. Easy as clicking or swiping away.
“No one’s warned him about anything,” goes the other man. “The kid’s just trying to cut out the foreplay. After all, he does have more urgent things to attend to. Back in west London.”
And, boom – shit finally clicks into place. Problem with my different definitions of homesickness is that the cure is the cause of it.
“For fuck’s sake. My family sent you guys here, didn’t they? My masi?”
“Your what?”
“My aunt, my mother’s sister.” Just like Eskimos got different names for different kinds of snow, we got stackloads of names for different categories of aunt. “So what’s the play here, then? You gonna escort me back to Acton? Is that what she told you to do? Or was it someone else in my family sent you?”
“Your family?” goes the blankpage-Botox man. “Now why would you want to bring your family into this?” Offering me another biscuit or cookie or cracker or whatever – like as if boosting my blood sugar’s gonna help me answer.
“Dylan, we don’t give a constipated geriatric crap whether you go back to west London or if you stay exiled here in your student halls. We don’t care what you do with your mother’s remains or with what remains of your mother’s time.” Lays some proper heavy hand on my shoulder – ain’t running nowhere now. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re just ahead of the curve. All children end up mopping up their parents’ mess. Even before they go senile, they need to be weaned off greasy fats and xenophobic nationalism. Prevented from walking into polling booths and crapping all over the country – I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. Even before they go senile. So, no, we don’t care about your mommy issues. We don’t care about your mommy’s son issues. Would you like to know what we do care about?”
As a general rule, I try not to respond to rhetorical questions. If you actually met my family, you’d understand why.
“What we care about is this: you have no business with your business.” And in case I didn’t clock the pun, he then comes out with another: “It’s time to stop your start-up, Dylan.”
The silence is shot by a bunch of those loudly-proudly posh boys approaching from the top of the corridor. Just the sound of them, though, cos ain’t nobody actually appears – like as if the corridor’s been blocked off with one of them “Cleaning in progress” traffic cones. Or that police tape that says “Crime scene: Do not enter”.
“What’s wrong, kid?” goes the younger-looking old man. “This isn’t the fight you thought you were in? Even though apparently you’re a budding young tech entrepreneur.”
The botched-Botox man drops a snort then sparks up an old-school cigarette – keeps fat-fingering the whole procedure, though, cos of his sumo-sized hands. I tell him there ain’t no smoking allowed.
“Seriously? Not aloud? Well, then I’ll smoke it silently.” Reaches into his double-breasted biker jacket all slowmo and badass like he’s gonna pull a gun silencer. Turns out he’s packing a small plastic thermos flask. Uses the lid for an ashtray. I look for the “No Smoking” signs along the corridor, but it’s like they all on loan somewhere.
The old men then tell me they know my corporate net cashflow is positive and so I’ll have no trouble returning the upfront payments some of my clients have already made to me: “And then you can fold your silly little student start-up without any outstanding accounts.”
This is when I clock that all the noticeboards along the corridor are empty. No jokes – not even them ads for student debt problems.
“It isn’t a
s if your fledgling little business will be missed, Dylan.”
Not even them ads for Class-A drug addiction.
“After all, you’re more a consultant than an actual company.”
Not even them ads for STDs.
“Just a jumped-up freelance data-enterer.”
Not even them ads for self-harm, sexual assault, suicidal thoughts.
“So you understand what we’re asking of you?” goes the blankpage-Botox man. “We’d like you to fold up your business.”
“We mean your start-up,” adds the botched-Botox man.
“Your enterprise.”
“Your wholly owned venture.”
While all three of us wait for my dumb ass to respond, there’s a thud from somewhere behind us. The noise coming from inside a shower room – like some jumbo bog roll just dropped off the wall, dead magpie-style.
“Oh come on, Dylan, here we are presenting you with a serious business proposition and you want to go chasing after things that go bump in the bathroom.” Blankpage-Botox man LOLing as he says this. Laughter without the lines.
The botched-Botox man tags himself back in: “Little man, look, if you think we’ve come all the way here just to deliver comeuppance or reset your moral compass then, frankly, I don’t know whether you need a little more imagination or a lot less. Our business with you, it’s just business.” His eyes locked double-latched on mine like he’s trying to figure out if I’m buying this. “Besides, if you people could actually see your moral compasses you wouldn’t call it a compass, you’d call it a clock – I mean if you could actually see it.”
And then another big-ass thud from the shower room. Only this time I’m like, allow it, it’s just a thud. Not a crack. Not a fracture, or a rupture. Probly weren’t even the shower room – more like the laundry room two doors down. Or the photocopier room. The X-ray department or intensive care unit. Anycase, most rooms along here are en suite.
“Dylan, how the pigfuck are we supposed to do business if you act as if we’ve come here to punish you? You won’t appreciate the deal we’re offering you. Either you’ll think you don’t deserve this windfall or you’ll assume it’s some sort of penalty – as if we’ve come here to punish you. And apparently we can’t even disabuse you of that assumption because in your own little twisted head, not being punished is a punishment in itself.”
He stubs out his cigarette in the lid of his thermos flask then pours out the capful of ash onto the floor. The ash is white, bright white, whiter than crushed-up paracetamol. And just like the man’s dandruff earlier today, it falls neatly between us like some line of salt.
“You know, kid, it’s actually been pitiful having to watch you. All your sillyfuck self-chastisement. As if you’d rather have remained a little boy with a clear conscience. In fact, it’s actually been pitiful having to watch you. Trying to be a diligent and well-behaved schoolboy but always secretly hoping for class detention. Staying in the office late even when you don’t even need to. And all those evenings at your desk doing Google searches about Oedipus just because you attended a few relationship counselling sessions with your mommy. I mean what the hellfuck were you hoping to find?”
Starts fiddling his fingers like he needs another cigarette. Goes for his trouser pocket and pulls out a string of wooden beads. I’m guessing they for meditating and mindfulating rather than post-surgery massaging. (Pro tip: never, ever, ever order massage beads online if you’re squeamish about anal stimulation safety manuals.)
My eyes to the floor while he fat-fingers his stress beads, like as if I’m giving him privacy to pray or something. Even the plug sockets along this corridor have buggered off somewhere.
“Listen,” he says when he’s done with his beads. “I mean, really listen to what I’m going to tell you, Dylan. A few moments ago you stood there trying to impress us with some spiel about social media and search engines turning their users into data. Well, as a professional data-enterer, surely you appreciate that all that data is neutral. It doesn’t matter if one person clicks on the vilest pornography and another person clicks on a saintly charity. Both actions generate equally valuable data and therefore their data is equal. Same goes for the actions of Dhilan and Dylan and Dillon. I mean, surely as a professional data-enterer, you appreciate this.”
My nod stops midway so once again I end up gormless-like, looking at the floor. Protein stains on the carpet again. Mainly by the laundry room.
“So if all those clever algorithms that power the social media feeds and search engines haven’t cared all that much about whether or not something is moral – or even truthful – if they’ve only cared about whether something gets clicked on or liked or shared, then how the hell would we care? So, you see, the things that you’ve done, Dylan – we really couldn’t give a dry or dribbling fart about them. Same goes for all the twisted poop that’s been running through your brain since you were, what, nine years old? We don’t care. We don’t care a damn. You see that now, don’t you? You know this now. It’s known that you know this. You know it in the marrow of your morally decayed bones.”
Forget my bones – this is the sound of my brain untwisting.
The sound of headfucks slowly starting to unfuck.
Cos, thing is, I way back lost track of all the times those quick-fix counsellors and therapists tried telling me something similar – how you shouldn’t feel guilty cos you was just “Being Yourself”, “Being Truthful To Your Own Emotions”, “All Emotions Are Valuable”.
“Just Acting According to Your Own Internal Reality.”
“Because Feelings Are Never False – how you feel about something is as real as the things that are actually happening.”
“Emotions Have the Same Weight as Facts.”
“You Can Change a Situation Just by Interpreting Things Differently.”
That kinda thing.
Problem was, it always sounded like a mashup of bollocks and bullshit. Until right now.
All your clicks are valuable cos they’re clicks.
Clicks = emotional data.
Emotional data = truth.
The botched-Botox man grins like he’s just pumped out a gallon of water to butt-cleanse my conscience. You can water down paint and eventually it’ll switch from cloudy to crystal clear. Trouble is, you can’t do that shit with milk or other protein-based fluids. Not even if you use holy water made from Evian.
“So now you fully understand we haven’t come here to punish you, you’ll also understand that what we’ve offered you here is a brilliant business deal.”
“The hell you chatting about? You ain’t actually offered me jack.”
“Are you high on your mother’s morphine again? We’ve offered you a fantastic deal. We’re proposing that you fold up your upstart start-up. Just fold it up, wash your hands and walk away.”
Botched-Botox man somehow nods without actually moving his neck. “And what’s more, when we met you earlier today we also proposed that you switch from having pseudo-sexual relations to masturbation. You can treat that piece of advice as a kind of divestiture bonus.”
“Besides, kid, like we said before, you’re more of a contractor than entrepreneur. I believe the correct term is a ‘data temp’. Little boy stuck somewhere between start-up culture and the gig economy.”
“Start-up founder, my wrinkly ass,” goes the botched-Botox man. “More like floundering fucking foundling. You lack the one key ingredient for launching a start-up – thick, creamy lashings of self-belief.”
“What’s more, your business doesn’t even have a proper name – you still call it ‘Company A ’. ”
“And just because you operate at the manual end of the data-entry market, that doesn’t mean you have a unique niche.”
“So why not do yourself a favour, kid, and just focus on finishing your studies. On being a student. No more mad antics from client to campus to Acton fuelled by caffeinated drinks and wasted cunni-juice.”
“And then afterwards you can find yourse
lf something more lucrative in a less crowded market.”
The old men carry on like this for another ten minutes. Busting out lines from my balance sheet to prove they really have been running their slide rule. Also some broader sectoral analysis that’s pretty much bang-on about the wider market. Cos the data-entry business ain’t no longer just about entering shit into databases. It’s now part of the whole digitising game – which means everyone wants a piece of this pie. Executive summary: when clients with shelf-loads of printed stuff wanna convert it into online archives, they gotta digitise the originals. We’re talking every single species of dead tree: documents, journals, libraries, filing systems, ledgers, deeds, books, newspapers, magazines – plus enough rolls of microfilm to bandage the planet. To put all that crap up online, clients normally hire specialist digitising firms that got these superfast, superfat scanning machines. But sometimes those machines make mistakes – either cos of the speed, smudged printing or crap handwriting. That’s when those scanning companies subcontract to data-entry plankton like Yours Truly – so I can correct the mistakes manually and type up all the unscannable crap from scratch.
“Something amusing you, Dylan?”
I tell them I just figured out what’s really going down here. And now that it’s finally hit me, I feel like the dumbest dumbfuck in the classroom for not wising up before. After all, I’m supposed to know how this shit works – “Dylan” is the founding friggin president of this London students’ entrepreneur society (though, full disclosure, there’s probly, like, 2,000 different student entrepreneur societies so that everyone can stick “founding president” on their CV). Sooner or later, all big bad corporates realise they ain’t nimble and creative enough to keep having new ideas and new breakthroughs. So what do these big, badass corporates do? They go round strangling start-ups at birth, is what they do. And when they can’t strangle them, they try to scare them or sue their asses for patent infringement – or they just open their big sweaty arms and buy them. My dopey, dipshit stupidness notwithstanding, I know exactly how to play this. Fuck knows I’ve organised enough networking events with self-stroking scumbuckets invited as keynote speakers – and we ain’t just talking tech entrepreneurs, we’ve also hosted angel investors, early-stage venture capitalists, start-up incubators, expansion-stage venture capitalists, private equity ponces, strategic-stage venture capitalists, plus this one slicked-back dickwad who called himself a Disruptive Value Creator. Handing out copies of some bullshit business book he’d wrote like as if books were the new business cards. Right now, I basically do my own mashup of all these keynote speeches – kicking off with some bog-standard stand-up-for-yourself stuff. For instance, I tell them I’m very flattered by their efforts to snuff out the competitive threat that I will one day pose to them or whatever the hell big corporate they work for, but if they want to influence my business then they’ll have to invest in it. And if they want to full-on alter my strategic direction, then they’ll just have to buy me out outright.
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