Working for Heat
Volume II
By Donovan Sotam
Edited by Susan Hocking
Copyright 2011 Donovan Sotam
Introduction
Working for heat is a direct translation of the Portuguese idiomatic expression - “trabalhar para aquecer” - which very roughly,
translates into working to no avail. For instance, imagine you have to travel a couple of hours to a part time job. Now think of the money you would earn from it and the money you would have to expend to reach your job. If you end up with a negative or a very small positive value that would be trabalhar para aquecer – or Working for Heat.
A more correct translation would probably be the opposite of the physics concept, – useful work – although more correct than my title, it surely isn't as humorous. At least that is what I was aiming for.
This is the second volume of the series, which I hope will have many more, for the inefficiency and, dare I say it, stupidity of people are infinite.
I do have to apologize for the historical, personal and the physics inaccuracies that may occur in the last story, and although it started out as a mere idea to explain a recurring character, it soon became a story on its own. Even though it’s not a true Working for Heat story, I found it truly gracious and humorous (if you don’t mind the self-pat on the back) and I hope the gentlemen depicted there can forgive me, for I know, they were truly the heroes of our times.
So, once again, without further ado, here are the stories for Working for Heat Volume II:
- The Amazing Discarder
- Board of Zombies
- To Teach is no Peach
- This is not an Epilogue
The Amazing Discarder
Mr Thomas Thompson felt awkward entering the building for his appointment. He had asked several times if they really wanted his services. First, let me clarify what ‘they’ are. ‘They’ is a public service company, more exactly a local tax department, and yes, they wanted him. They needed him, to be more precise; at least, that was what they told Thomas. He doubted it and he continued to question if they were really looking for someone like him, but they just answered, ‘we want you, Mr Thomas Thompson, no one else.’
He finally gave in, after sending his résumé which was also something he wasn’t used to doing. Sometimes he was asked for a contact number for one of his previous employers, but never for a curriculum vitae.
It was hard not to notice the other people, both workers and ordinary people taking care of their taxes or tax related businesses, staring at him, mostly perplexed, but one or two with fear in their eyes. It was getting very uncomfortable for Thomas as he approached the short haired receptionist, for he feared she would say there was no interview scheduled, and that this was all a joke perpetrated by one of his rivals. But all he got was a very simple, yet friendly, ‘you’re expected Mr Thompson.’
‘Oh, I see, so – ’
‘Please take the lift on your right, to the third floor,’ the girl smiled at him.
‘Thank you,’ Mr Thompson replied and went rushing, as fast as he could to catch the lift, as the doors were starting to close.
‘And good luck with the interview,’ the receptionist added.
This last phrase gave a bit of confidence to Thomas, but still he felt out of place. He exited the lift and heard an outburst of laughter, which had probably been contained for over two floors, by two young men in suits. He decided to ignore them, after all laughter is humanity’s greatest gift, or so he thought.
He sat down and looked around. It was quite a pleasant room; quiet and not too big, with some chairs, a water fountain and a desk near the door. The only door. He wondered why he was alone in the room. ‘Surely for a job like this there should be lots of applicants,’ he thought. And the truth was that there should, definitely, have been more people in there. After all, being head of a department is a very desirable job, at least for some.
He didn’t have to wait for very long. The receptionist from before stepped out of the lift and went straight for her desk.
‘Hello again Mr Thompson. You can go in now.’ After a small pause she added. ‘Relax Mr Thompson, everything’s going to work out fine,’ and she winked at him.
‘Thank you very much,’ he said and in a low voice asked, ‘is this… err… normal?’
‘Here? Yes, absolutely. Quite the normal day.’ She sat down and started typing on her computer and Thomas went for the door. He had a bit of trouble using the doorknob, but eventually he got it open and entered.
‘Do come in Mr Thompson,’ said a very jovial voice from behind a desk. And before he could even take a step forward another voice from a corner of the room, a very similar voice, very lively, added,
‘Come in, come in, but do close the door, please.’
‘Yes, yes. Please have a seat,’ said the person from the desk. The person in the corner was looking at a bunch of photographs, headshots of people, some with a black cross marked on them, others with lot of post-its attached to them. Eventually he turned around and grabbed the chair where Thomas was going to sit.
“Allow me,’ he let Thomas sit down and extended his arm to him. ‘It’s a pleasure to finally meet you Mr Thomas Thompson.’ The man behind the desk rose and also extended his arm greeting him in a very vigorous way.
‘Indeed it is, indeed it is Mr Thompson. My name’s Richard,’ he said.
‘And I’m John,’ said the other man, who was now seated next to Richard and was again extending his arm to Thomas. Thomas was baffled at this behaviour. It was weird enough as it was, but these two seemed even weirder, despite that, he shook John’s hand once again.
‘We are so glad you decided to come,’ said Richard.
‘We were afraid you might not show up, but we are definitely glad you decided to come, yes we are,’ finished John. Thomas decided to get it off his chest.
‘To tell you the truth, this all felt a tad strange. I wasn’t sure if I should have come.’
‘Oh! But we’re glad you did’ replied John immediately followed by Richard, ‘Yes, yes, so very glad.’
Thomas was now feeling a bit more comfortable, even though he was now in a formal interview with what seemed to be identical twins, finishing each other’s phrases. A real life Tweedledee and Tweedledum. They each picked up a sheet of paper and started nodding in approval.
‘We’ve been looking at your résumé.’
‘A very good one.’ interrupted John.
‘And we want you,’ said Richard putting a lot of emphasis on you. ‘To be our new head of department,’ finished John.
Thomas was again feeling uncomfortable; he had no idea why they wanted him to perform the role of a head department of a tax institution. He couldn’t take it anymore, he still felt mocked and finally he let it all out.
‘You do realize I’m a clown! I came dressed as a clown by your request and you’re offering me a job here? As head of department?’ said Thomas fairly angry.
‘Oh, yes! Quite so,’ replied John very calmly, while Richard nodded his head. ‘We did ask you for that, yes,’ he added.
‘Actually I think we insisted, don’t you think John?’
‘Yes, yes. I believe… insisted… is a better term, yes.’
‘And a very nice clown you are by the looks of it,’ said both of them, in unison.
‘Thank you… I guess…’ Thomas managed to say. He was no longer angry, just confused. This whole day seemed surreal to him, but he decided to go with it, after all, these two were really interested in him and, furthermore, the clowning business wasn’t going that well for him. He decided he would give them a chance.
‘And how is a clown going to help this department?�
�� asked Thomas.
‘Good question!’ replied John.
Richard stood up and walked to a little cabinet. ‘Care for a drink Mr Thompson?’ he asked.
‘No, I’m fine… Thank you.’
‘And for my good friend John, the usual, water!’ he was now standing behind Thomas with an empty glass.
‘Ah, how genuine! Just love it. May I?’ he asked Thomas.
‘May you wha–’ and before he could finish, Richard was squeezing his wrist and catching the water coming from the flower on Thomas’s vest, into the glass. He handed it to John who thanked him.
‘This is why we decided to hire you, Mr Thompson. You have passion for what you do.’
‘Yes, we can see it,’ Richard added.
‘And of course, you are a clown,’ said John.
‘But why a clown?’ asked Thomas.
‘Well…’ they both said, ‘the truth is…’ Richard was now seated again next to John and was looking at him. ‘The truth is we ran out of options,’ finished John. ‘You are looking at the worst public service in this country. And why? You ask.’ A brief moment of silence was interrupted by Richard clearing his throat and repeating John’s last phrase. Thomas either did not understand his part or was still baffled and did not ask, John tried again, this time a bit louder. ‘And why? You ask.’
Richard helped Thomas out by whispering, it wasn’t really whispering, it was more of a theatrical whisper, one that the whole audience must hear, from the front row to the last.
‘Ask him why.’
‘Oh… why?’ Thomas asked very shyly.
‘We’re glad you asked,’ they both said.
‘What was the question, again?’ John asked Richard.
‘I believe it was why this was the worst public service in the country, John.’
‘Ah, thank you Richard.’
‘The problem is people. To put it bluntly, our workers here are incompetent.’
‘Very incompetent!’ added Richard in a voice that showed concern.
‘And you think I can help people be more competent?’ Thomas asked.
Both Richard and John started laughing a bit out of control and it took a couple of seconds before John was able to talk, or at least speak in an understandable way.
‘God no!’
Thomas’s eyes widened. Seeing that, Richard pulled himself together and added, ‘Don’t take it personally, we believe no one can do that. We hired the best. And nobody was able to do it. It’s physically impossible.’
‘Mathematically, even,’ John added while nodding.
‘Philosophically, even,’ Richard continued.
‘Historically, even.’ John added enthusiastically.
‘I guess, that’s enough of subjects to be impossible,’ Richard said and continued, ‘We don’t want you to manage the workers here. We want you to see if you can get them to quit their job.’
‘Can’t you get them fired?’ Thomas asked them, seeing as it would be the more logical approach. Again, they burst out laughing, but this time they were able to compose themselves faster.
‘No, Thomas. We can’t. According to the central human resources department it would be like winning a lottery without playing,’ John answered. ‘They say it would be easier and cheaper if we killed them.’
‘Human resources said that?’ asked Thomas shocked.
‘Yes, but I believe it was said in a rather humorous tone,’ John looked accusingly at Richard, ‘isn’t that right?’
‘Oh, they did say it was cheaper paying for a murder trial than paying the severance packages,’ said Richard, excusing himself.
Thomas didn’t know if they were joking or not, and thought it was better if he just ignored these last remarks.
‘Why me then? Aren’t there professionals for this kind of task?’
‘Indeed there are, and you’re looking at two of them.’
‘Best of the class, we were,’ said Richard with satisfaction. ‘However the worst workers are also the most resilient, John’s PhD thesis was on that. For instance, Mr Al has worked…’ he finger quoted the word worked, ‘…here for as long as the service can remember and his only job is to move empty boxes from one place to another, and that’s when somebody is watching him, otherwise he just plays solitaire all day long.’
‘Really?’ asked Thomas.
‘Yes! It was even published. You can read the abstract on Pubmed.’ said John.
Thomas was referring to Mr Al and not John’s PhD. Still, they continued discussing the PhD.
‘Well, you can find anything on Pubmed these days,’ snickered Richard. ‘There’s an article there on how duct tape can be used to remove warts. A double blinded study, too.’
‘Genital?’ asked John.
‘Don’t know.’
‘Well, either way, it’s published,’ said John, still very proud, while writing on his notebook the terms ‘warts’, duct tape’ and ‘Pubmed’ and circling them many times.
‘At first we were successful at making people quit, we even had a scoreboard.’
‘I was winning by three,’ Richard again whispered very loudly to Thomas.
‘Two,’ corrected John, ‘the one that had a heart attack while you were talking to him doesn’t really count, does it?’
‘I thought it did. He never came to work, again, did he?’
‘True…’
And they sat there pondering for a moment whether Mr Kedrowski really counted or not, to themselves. Their reflection was interrupted by Thomas asking a question he had in his head since they started.
‘Am I to come in a clown suit every day?’
‘Of course not.’
The expression of relief on Thomas’s face didn’t last long, for John continued what Richard said previously.
‘Of course not. Don’t be silly, public services like ours don’t work on weekends, otherwise getting people to quit would be much easier.’
‘Now, let’s talk about what everyone wants to know, but nobody asks.’
‘Who farted?’
‘Don’t be rude, Richard.’
‘Your fee for your services,’ said John, and he handed over a napkin to Thomas.
‘This is a phone number… with red lipstick kissed onto it,’ said Thomas, a bit embarrassed.
‘Red! How clich,.’ said Richard.
‘Sorry, sorry, wrong napkin.’ He handed over another napkin, this time the real one, still smudged, but this time with coffee.
‘Wow.’ Thomas never thought he could earn that much in the clown business.
‘Plus bonus, of course, for every employee that quits.’
‘Or dies,’ added Richard, winking at John. ‘But you can’t kill them. That would be unfair.’
‘We want you to start, tomorrow.’
‘If you decide to join us, of course, no pressure. Just come in tomorrow and all you have to do is irritate people out of their jobs.’
‘No pressure, hun?’ thought Thomas to himself, ‘what can I do? Throw some pies? Wouldn’t that be considered a physical offence?’ he wondered.
‘And you can put pies on your expense account, of course,’ smiled John, as if he was able to read Thomas’s mind.
‘So, that’s it, then? No more candidates? No more interviews?’ asked Thomas.
‘No,’ both said in unison.
‘We did have one or two interviews before, yes,’ said John.
‘Unfortunately the first interview didn’t go that well. Too bad, he was a great mime too.’
‘Not very talkative, that Mr Andrew.’
‘And the other candidate stole John’s tie.’
‘Tsk, tsk. Pity, it was a good tie, too,’ said John. ‘That’s what you get for interviewing a magician.’
‘But now we have a great clown to add to our ranks,’ and they both stood up and once again extended their arms.
‘Hope you do consider our offer, Mr Thomas Thompson.’
Thomas shook their hands simultaneously and stood up
. As he was halfway across the room he turned around. ‘One final question, if I may?’
‘Yes, of course…’
‘Mr Thompson,’ John added.
‘Will there be a medical plan?’
John and Richard smiled. ‘It’s not an impossibility…’
‘Ok, thank you.’ He once again had trouble opening the door with his big white novelty gloves, but after a bit of effort, he finally made it.
The receptionist was smiling and as soon as he closed the door she asked him how it went.
‘Not bad, I guess. At least I didn’t steal anything from them, like the magician,’ he said smiling.
‘Them?’ asked the receptionist very curiously. ‘Mr John Richard wasn’t alone? He usually likes giving interviews alone,’ she said.
Thomas didn’t say anything. He looked at his big yellow wristwatch, it was almost lunchtime. He had lost track of the time. He went to the water fountain, took a flask out of his pocket and took one pill with water.
‘Are you feeling okay Thomas?’ the girl asked worried.
‘Quite so, yes.’
‘And will I be seeing you tomorrow?’
‘Probably not, probably not,’ said Thomas and he left.
Board of Zombies
Mr William Landis was what you could call a Bruce Wayne without the bat-cave, or perhaps more accurately, an American Psycho without the Psycho. Well, to tell the truth, he wasn’t American either, but after a couple of years of working, he definitely could have been psycho. Still not American. Young William was the sole heir to Landis Industries and, much like Batman, Bruce I mean, his parents had died when he was very young.
Time passed and when William was what the courts call ‘of legal age’, within a single second, he had joined the board of administrators for Landis Industries. He didn’t want to. However, that’s what being of legal age means: doing stuff you really don’t want to. So at the time, whether he liked it or not, it was going to be his first day of work. He didn’t feel like it but he was intended on doing it, as normally as any other worker on their first day. Except most people didn’t start with a fifty-one percent share of the stock of a multimillion dollar tech company.
He was in his underwear deciding whether he would wear the suit the company sent him, or his normal day-to-day outfit. He decided on both, packing a t-shirt and jeans in his backpack. He picked up his car keys and went outside. He went straight to the car and opened the door.
‘Ah!’ William was surprised to see a small portly man in his car. ‘Err… Hello there.’
‘Hello Sir. Didn’t see you there,’ the man said while taking off his earphones revealing that he was listening to ‘We are the champions’ by Queen. ‘I’m your driver, Ben Monroe. How are you doing this fine morning, Mr William?’
William was still a bit surprised. He had never asked for a driver. Usually he just drove it himself or better yet, he let Kathryn drive it. Also, the fact that the so called Ben Monroe entered his car while he was in possession of the keys was driving him insane.
‘I’m quite alright… thank you,’ he didn’t really know how to say it properly, so he just said it. ‘I don’t need a driver.’
‘Don’t be silly, Sir. We can’t have you driving a car.’
‘We?’
‘You.’
‘You?’
‘Yes!’
‘Yes?’
‘The company.’
‘Oh.’
‘Company’s policies,’ said Ben in a very happy tone.
William thought it was ridiculous and that it
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