by Calvin Wolf
The Capitalist
1.0
My wife and I had sex last night, and it’s all I can think about during this horrible staff meeting. Some teacher, a pretty young thing, is being terminated and the process is not going well. Last night, she let it slip on social media that she was pregnant. Four and a half months. The info worked its way up the chain and the superintendent called me at three o’ clock in the morning.
“You can’t fire me,” the teacher says, teary-eyed.
“You violated the pregnancy clause,” says Gunderson, the suck-up AP. He worships the superintendent, and will do so until the day he gets to usurp him.
“You don’t control my reproductive rights!”
“True, but Educorp doesn’t have to pay for it. You signed an agreement when you accepted the job.”
I take a long sip of Starbucks while the teacher argues passionately about her rights. We’re all corporate-friendly states these days, meaning she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. I pretend to pick up a pen off the floor to get a better look at her legs, and she does have nice ones. When she walked down those hallways…
“This isn’t some socialist utopia,” snaps Gunderson. “You don’t get to sleep around and then expect your employer to pay for the aftermath.” She practically shrieks in anger and bolts upright from her chair. The chair slides backward across the carpet and almost hits the wall. I’m shocked.
“Fuck being fired - I fucking quit, you worthless bastard!” she snaps at Gunderson. The Midwesterner’s doughy face is as shocked as mine, but at least I know I look far more handsome. “And the first place I’m going is to a lawyer’s office!”
“Say something!” one of the other APs hisses quietly at me. Fuck. This is my job - protect Educorp. Educorp doesn’t need any more bad press.
“Let’s talk about this,” I say, on autopilot.
“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m pregnant and you’re firing me. Your pit bull here just insulted me and bullied me.”
“Let’s not be too hasty. I think we can find a workable solution.” My business school vocabulary is coming back to my forebrain in fits and starts, neurons coughing up old words.
“Gender equality. The courts say we don’t have to offer anything to a female employee that we wouldn’t offer to a man,” sneers Gunderson, and I snap at him to go get some coffee and cool off. The son of a bitch is intruding on my territory! I can’t tell if he’s stupid or making a power play. The other APs haven’t said anything yet.
Gunderson opens his mouth to protest, to say that he wants to stay, but I make an ice cold face. The AP holds up his hands, rolls his eyes, and departs in a huff.
“Listen, I know that Educorp has a firm line on the pregnancy issue, but we hire many contract employees and temporary employees through WorkFlow, JobFill, and-”
“I have a full-time job. I want to keep a full-time job! I’m not going to let you tuck me into the back to work some menial job just because you don’t want the parents to see a pregnant teacher!”
An AP slides over a sticky note and it informs me that Educorp’s local attorney is on his way.
1.1
The lawyer arrives and he’s a schmuck and a half. By the time his imported luxury car oozes onto the faculty lot, I’ve calmed the teacher by promising her a made-up administrative job in the inner offices of the school. “We fill out the paperwork today and nobody knows it’s because you were pregnant. Everybody wins,” I say, flashing a smile.
She glares at me like I’m the bad guy, but I suppose she needs the money. Don’t we all? I intercept the schmucky lawyer and have him draw up the paperwork for a new Education Consultant and Curricular Advisor position. The guy’s not a paperwork guy - he went to Princeton - but I tell him that I’ve gotten the girl calmed down and don’t need him fucking things up. He gets the message and goes into a vacant office with one of the APs.
“It’s not right, what you’re doing,” the teacher tells me.
“Rules are rules,” I say. “We’ve all signed contracts.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like we have a choice. Life happens, and these contracts are made to make you pay for everything. It’s not fair.”
I grin and nod and avoid rolling my eyes at the typical liberal bleeding heart spiel.
“You’re better than this,” she says. Her eyes seem serious.
2.0
Lunch is an expense account affair and Gunderson is bitching at me that I was rude to him. “You were out of line,” he snaps. “I was trying to control the situation.”
“Don’t act like a hero. We’re an independent LLC branch. Limited liability,” I sigh. “She wouldn’t have gotten anything even if she did sue. The parent company would be okay. We all would be okay. You were just trying to put on an alpha show.”
Gunderson waves me off and digs into his Caesar salad. The other administrators are eating quietly, hoping for more fireworks. Many check their phones regularly, undoubtedly looking at the performance of their Human Capital Market profiles. Someone takes a picture of their lunch plate and someone else jokes about him putting it on his HumCap profile.
“Hey, your share price might rise if they know you’re eating paleo,” the school’s head guidance counselor quips. “That’s another ten years of making money for investors.” Everyone laughs. Then hushed conversations begin, and eventually work their way around to me.
Apparently, there’s a new app that lets you upload your health stats through doctors. Officially, it’s illegal to use this info in hiring or investing, but people are always finding ways to get an edge. Gunderson gets drawn into the talk and forgets that he’s pissed at me.
“My neighbor was showing me his new Cadillac yesterday and was telling me about that app,” Gunderson whispers, looking around to make sure the waitress isn’t nearby. “Apparently there’s a site you can post the data on. It’s supposed to be to brag to your friends about how healthy and shit you are. Like those old Fitbits, you know? But major investors apparently have an aggregator program that lets them look at this health info and your HumCap profile at the same time. You run more miles, drop more weight, and you sell more shares.”
I smile and nod. Motivated by the talk about selling more shares, my colleagues appear to be abandoning their expensive lunches. Gotta keep their waistlines trim.
I feel my own waistline and, disgusted, push away my entree of shrimp carbonara.
2.1
Back at school, I find our local U.S. Representative waiting in my office. He is here to talk government subsidies, and he has brought a gift of fine whiskey. As a major donor, both personally and with the school’s faculty fund, I get wined and dined by this aging buffoon on a regular basis. I wonder how many teachers have an inkling that their contributions go to a Republican?
“Thank you,” I say, accepting the gift. The Congressman smiles and collapses into one of my leather recliners. Did I mention that he was old?
“Liberals are getting upset about you guys raising tuition again,” he complains. “It’s bad publicity.”
“Parents demand quality,” I say sharply, angry at having to be on the defensive. Given how much I bankroll this asshole, why does he always feel the need to bring up the bad news? He is well-paid to handle stuff on his own.
He holds up a book and its cover talks about the Five Pillars of Capitalism. I mentally groan about the upcoming lesson in economics, but keep a grin plastered on my face.
“Competition, my friend. Competition. My colleagues in the House are starting to have second thoughts about abandoning the public school system. You have to help us show them that the five pillars of capitalism work.”
I open the bottle of whiskey and pour myself a shot. I put some in a second glass and offer it to my smarmy guest, who eagerly accepts. Indian giver.
“We’re trying to be more competitive, but it’s tough. Other schools don’t want to cooperate with any sort of partne
rships or dual-use programs. The college, now that it’s all privatized, has ended dual-credit. They say it’s unfair to let high school students get college credit for a fraction of the market price. That’s what a lot of parents are bitching about.” I know it’s a lot more than just that, but I feel like I’m being ambushed here.
“We’ve got some important votes coming up in the House, and you’re seen as a good point man for us here in West Texas,” the old politician begins pontificating. He starts waxing eloquent on how I need to demonstrate that the new system works. He might as well name his spiel an initiative and call it Capitalism Works. I nod along and smile.
I make a mental note to try to encourage someone else to run against him in next year’s Republican primary.
“Tuition costs are supposed to be going down,” the old guy complains after he tires of being inspirational.
Deciding to push back a bit, I show him a printout of our operating costs. We’ve had to add a bunch of services and infrastructure, and it was not cheap. “Parents and students demand services. Do they think it’s free?” I complain.
“But you take the demands of the rich parents and make all the parents pay for it,” the Representative protests. “It looks bad on the news.”
“Well, they all use the infrastructure and services,” I sigh.
“Yeah, but they didn’t push for it. Who’s on your board?”
Mentally, I picture the school’s board. Admittedly, it is a bit lacking in diversity, both racial and economic, but what can you do? Not many parents have enough free time to devote to board meetings. We’re a bit heavy on the wealthy stay-at-home mother set.
“We have a diverse range of parents,” I reply, careful to keep my face neutral.
2.2
Kids burst forth from the high school at closing time. Many leave in a metallic flurry of late-model cars, trucks, and SUVs. A large mass of teenagers waits for the buses, which we currently run through TransCorp. We used to pay TransCorp a flat fee, but now they get to draft money directly from the accounts of only the students who use the buses. It saves us money and means we need fewer buses.
Students’ new GPS-enabled ID cards mean they get charged per mile, rather than a flat rate, so nobody has to pay extra if they live close by. Oh, and a few students are encouraged to get off at earlier stops and walk a bit further home. Whenever kids get hurt or bug bitten or sunburned because of this we end up being pilloried in the local newspaper by bleeding-heart liberals. Honestly, I think a little bit of walking never hurt anyone. Hell, don’t most of us old people pay good money to go to a gym and walk on a treadmill?
Speaking of exercise, I’m working up one hell of a sweat right now by standing outside with the male APs among the gaggle of bus-waiting teens. Whenever a kid breaks a rule, an AP shouts a warning. If the kid does it again, the AP uses his tablet to levy a fine. Fridays are the most unruly, so we get to raise a bunch of revenue. I watch a few juniors get into a shoving match and two broad-shouldered APs quickly jump in. I know they’re putting on a show for my attention, but at least it means I don’t have to put myself between the angry kids.
Some of the teens are pretty big. While the kids waiting for the bus certainly can’t afford HGH, rumor has it that there are a bunch of controversial substitutes on the market. Gunderson is lecturing a big junior who’s on the football team, and the young man is already several inches taller than the AP. And Gunderson’s a big ol’ Midwestern farm boy. I recall an old episode of a TV show where messing with kids’ DNA could go wrong and turn them from superstar athletes into deranged freaks. I wonder if the intense demand to improve on nature will mess up some of these students.
A bus arrives and kids rush inside, including the big football player. He and Gunderson shake hands and give back pats. I am annoyed at Gunderson’s uncanny ability to connect with the teens, which seems to contradict his overall douchiness. As the gaggle of kids grows smaller with the arrival of more buses, I find an open spot of shade beneath an expensive, transplanted maple tree. From there I use my phone to direct my minions digitally until it’s time to go home.
3.0
Max and Madison are waiting for me when I get home, which is nice. Max, teenage surliness already setting in, does not want to tell me what school was like. Finally, he announces that he is learning about capitalism in U.S. History class. “We got a visit from our congressman,” he sighs, completely unimpressed. Son of a bitch leaves our meeting and goes to my kid’s school? Was that planned or what?
Sure enough, Max has a copy of the same book I got from the grumpy U.S. Representative.
“Did you start reading it in class?” I ask.
“Yeah, ‘cuz there was nothing else to do. The teacher turned on the cell phone jammer because some people were being too loud - not me - and the phones wouldn’t work at all!” Now that the schools are privatized, the courts have allowed us to ban or jam phones at will. The latest jammers will disrupt even intra-phone signals, preventing anything but gobbledygook from showing up on screen. Fortunately, teachers’ desktop computers are immune, are are projectors and smartboards.
If kids keep trying to use their phones while the jammers are on, the phones can be permanently damaged. Some kids are thickheaded and have already burned through multiple smartphones.
“So you read a book? I’m impressed!” my wife says sarcastically, emerging from the kitchen with a tray of healthy, nutritionally-balanced snacks.
Max rolls his eyes and ambushes the snacks, trying to claim the best for himself. “Protein,” I growl, knowing he is going for anything sugary. In a little while he will receive his daily injection of growth hormone. I spy the book peeking out of his half-open backpack and snag it.
I flip open the first few pages and have flashbacks of Econ 101 at Harvard coming back to me. Adam Smith. Private property rights. Karl Marx. Surplus value.
Madison grabs some sugary treats, fortified with powdered nutrition, and begins sneaking around the room toward the television. She now knows how to work the TV, and will try to watch cartoons if nobody stops her. My wife is talking to Max, so it appears that I will have to be the enforcer.
“You know the rules, munchkin!” I announce. Angrily, Madison flees to her room.
I flop down on the couch and, ready for the weekend, try to get some app work done to set things up for Monday. I get on Bids, WorkFlow, and Temp to set up the school’s substitute teaching, groundskeeping, and janitorial needs for the week. I hire a bevy of crossing guards, hall monitors, and security guards as well. UberPro, BusRent, and TransPort are given our transportation needs for the upcoming five work days.
To save on operating cash, I offer shares of stock in the school itself. All of this new payment option is done automatically, via app settings, and UberPro and Bids instantly accept two shares of Educorp stock and supply us our weekly demands cash-free. A moment later, I get a message from the head principals of two other Educorp Permian high schools. They’ve used their allotted shares already and want some of mine.
Two for one deal, cash for shares, I text. If they want my extra shares, they need to pay double our inside rate. Otherwise, they can pay the market price. The principal of the other high school in Midland takes the deal, while the one from Odessa does not respond.
Beers on Saturday? Blue Door? Usual time? texts the other Midland-based principal, and I agree.
“So, if the school gets government bonus money, the shareholders get dividends?” my wife asks from behind me. I turn my head and see that she has just given Max his shot. She drops the syringe into our Plexiglas sharps container. We bought a customized one that looks like a piece of home decor.
“I suppose so,” I reply cautiously. It’s been a long day of political battles, and I sense that my spouse is preparing to launch a liberal onslaught.
“So UberPro and Bids benefits from the hard work of the students and the teachers?” she asks, hand
s on her hips.
“They bought in,” I say. “It’s fair. Their money goes to help the students.”
“I guess it’s private property rights,” my wife sighs. Deciding against any provocation, I simply nod and smile. I make pouty lips for a kiss, but she shakes her head. As she heads into the kitchen, she starts asking about whether or not the CEO of Educorp is compensated with stock options. I know he is, but I say nothing. To avoid the argument, I jump up and grab the furniture polish and its rag and engage the nearest bookcase in a thorough dusting.
3.1
It is after midnight when the standardized test scores begin lighting up my smartphone. Quietly, I grab it and sneak out of the bedroom, not wanting to wake my wife. She’s still on a liberal utopia kick, so what I’m about to do will piss her off to no end.
I scan the numbers and begin messaging my leadership team on GhostChat, which guarantees that the messages will be erased within forty-five seconds. I provide the names of the sixteen juniors who will mess up our senior-level exit exams next year.
We need to get them out. Got no state bonus this year, so must trim the fat before next fall.
I’m not surprised when Gunderson messages back first, encouraging us to nickel-and-dime the families hard until they transfer.
Got to get em gone. Preferably out of Educorp schools entirely, but not a big worry. Charter bonus goes school by school, not to corp.
A younger AP named Rush suggests that we check their tuition insurance status.
If any of those juniors are getting tutorials and other assistance paid by insurance, seek to justify preexisting condition. Make families pay out of pocket. Raise the cost.
I remind everyone that we could get sued for that. Gunderson replies that he has a friend who works in health insurance and can give us some pointers.
He can also connect us to their lawyers. Guys are good. Rarely lose. Help company make billions.
I sign off after telling everyone to make sure no trace of our conversations exists on their phones or any other devices. On Monday, as the school prepares for lavish graduation ceremonies for the seniors, we will make sure next year’s graduation comes with bonus checks from the governor.