Humancorp Incorporated Read online

  “But I don’t see what more I can do, Mom,” Sean said. “Maybe I should just bite the bullet and become an adjunct sociology professor at UC Riverside.”

  “Now, that’s loser talk,” his mother said sharply, her eyes flashing. “I won’t have it in my family. There must be something more you can do. Anything! Maybe you should write your congressman and complain.”

  “No, he said in a speech today that he doesn’t care,” Sean said. “I’ll have to think of something else.”

  “I’m sure you will, dear,” said his mother, now slightly distracted by the sharp implement that her husband was brandishing. “I have to go. There’s a little bit of a - eh - gardening emergency - here and I don’t think I can fight off your father one-handed for much longer. Say hello to that girlfriend of yours for me, won’t you Sean?”

  Sean winced and absently fiddled with the golden pin on his lapel.

  “Mom,” he said. “My girlfriend and I broke up. You must remember that!”

  “Oh, that’s right,” his mother said kindly, and with some embarrassment. “I do remember now. She dumped you because you’re unlovable.”

  “That’s right,” Sean affirmed.

  “Well, say hello to your television for me, then. I have to go now. Wait, your father ought to have a word. Say hello to Sean, Rodney.”

  “F$%k begonias!” his father screamed insanely, writhing into the view of the camera in a fit of hysteria.

  Pearl slapped him on the forehead with a newspaper.

  “No swearing in front of Sean, Rodney,” she insisted. “Anyway, goodbye, dear. I’m sure things will turn around for you if you put your mind to it.”

  And with that encouragement, she hung up.

  Sean stood there stock still and reflected on his status as an only child for a while until he finally collapsed down onto his couch. His mother had made him feel a whole lot better but he still didn’t know what to do, and so he remained unemployed.

  Unemployment is, of course, the social condition of joblessness, and if left untreated its psychological effects can become extremely serious fast. During unemployment, the jobless person often has no formal income and sustains himself by spending savings, receiving government benefits, or, potentially, through contributions from friends and family. The government also begins to count them in the unemployment statistics, a series of official figures that bear no working relationship whatsoever to the actual number of unemployed people in society, but are helpful for making unemployed people feel bad or good as the case may be, by reassuring themselves that they aren’t (or are) the only ones to be sadly stricken with this condition.

  In most cases, the jobless person will eventually find new employment and re-enter the productive workforce as an upstanding, tax-paying, wage-earning citizen, but if unemployment draws on for a very long time, it becomes long-term unemployment. Eventually, an expectation of unemployment starts to haunt the jobless person like a curse. Prospective employers start to think that the reason the person has been unemployed so long is because there’s something wrong with him, a ridiculous and obviously absurd assumption in Sean’s case, but the employment process often isn’t particularly rational. The unemployed person becomes discouraged. His benefits start to dry up. He falls behind on his bills. His loved ones desert him. He turns to drugs, and thoughts of suicide, and then, in the ultimate stage, finally, tragically, becomes an adjunct professor of sociology.

  Before long, Sean had reached the final stages of this psychological downwards spiral and was just beginning to entertain thoughts of adjunct professorship when finally, an idea occurred to him. He was watching the daytime news when a human interest story about the local post office came on. Sean sat up and paid careful attention, because it was about mail delivery. He didn’t have the volume up on the television, but he got the gist of it all the same. The story was about undeliverable mail. The post office famously employed a crack team of persons to try to figure out what to do with undeliverable mail because, amazingly, rather than burn it or dump it in a river like most of us would, the post office tries very hard to determine how to deliver it. It doesn’t matter if the letter is addressed to someone imaginary like Santa Claus or Sherlock Holmes or me; they still treat it with the utmost seriousness and respect. If the intended recipient is real, the post office will go to extraordinary lengths to find that intended recipient and deliver it. Or at least, they do some times, in some places. Other times they burn it and dump it in a river.

  But this particular story was about a successful delivery, an event so noteworthy that it had made the local news. Sean’s understanding was that someone had tried to send a letter with an improperly labeled envelope with no clear recipient, so, with only the odor and fashion sense of the intended recipient to go off of, the post office had made the delivery. They had employed a specially trained team of bloodhounds to critique the fashions of the persons in the region until the correct address was found. It was a tale of postal heroism, and the newscasters reporting on the story appeared very sure that the recipient would enjoy his spam fashion magazine.

  Seeing all this gave Sean an idea.

  He scooped up an envelope and stuffed his cover letter and CV into it, and quickly scrawled on the top of the former:

  “To the Illuminati or the Lizard People or the Carlyle Group or whoever it may concern,

  I am currently unemployed and would like a job. Could you please find me one?

  Thanks very much,

  Sean Gregory Woods.”

  Then, in the recipient field on the envelope, Sean wrote, “To: Whoever Runs The World.”

  He sealed the envelope, slapped on adequate postage, and sauntered down to the corner of the street, where there was a mailbox, and slipped the letter in just in time for the last pickup of the day. Then, Sean waltzed back home and turned on the TV, smiling happily because he felt like he’d accomplished something.

  He smiled even more when, four days later, he got a response, too thick and heavy to be a summary rejection or a mail bomb, like Sean had gotten from the other companies. Trembling with anticipation, Sean looked it over carefully.

  The sender’s name on the response letter read, “Humancorp Incorporated.”

  Chapter 3

  Sean plopped down on his couch and carefully slit open the letter. A neatly printed message on corporate letterhead spilled out onto his couch. Sean scooped it up and peered at it. It read:

  “Dear Mr. Sean Woods,

  I am most impressed with your resumé. I particularly liked the part where you drew a cartoon of yourself beating up your superiors and co-workers from your previous job with what would appear to be a crude depiction of a table with spikes sticking out of it. That got my attention.

  A position recently opened up at my company when one of our employees tragically went insane and quit. I’ll tell you what! I take it upon myself to manage many of the headcounts directly, so I’ll interview you for the job personally. Please come to my office at 11:00 AM Tuesday for the interview. Knock loud; I might be sleeping in back. Since I know you haven’t heard of my company before, I’ll arrange to have the company shuttle bus stop at your house during its regular route on Tuesday morning.

  Sincerely,

  Richard Dinero

  Owner, CEO, Chairman of the Board, and Grand Wizard of Humancorp Incorporated.”

  There followed a stamped signature so messy that it might have been caused by an explosion in an ink factory. Strangely, more text followed the signature. The text read:

  “Dictated but not read. Now, once you’ve got that down, stick it in an envelope and send it to this stupid bastard. No, don’t take down this part. What are you doing? What do you mean you’re not a secretary? You’re a secretary if I say you are! Do you have any idea how rich I am! No, I am not an idiot. How dare you say that to me? I’ll kill you!”

  Then, a mish-mash of random letters and what might have been a blood-splatter followed.

  Sean looked at it happily, a
buoyant sensation filling his chest, making him feel thirty pounds lighter, like Clarence had been before his goldfish had started feeding him cookies. Sean’s feeling of hopelessness almost entirely vanished. He had a job interview! Admittedly, Sean didn’t know what job the interview was for, or indeed what Humancorp Incorporated did, or even what part of the world it was located in, but it didn’t matter. Sean was desperate. At this point, he would have gladly travelled to Siberia, or Chernobyl, or the Congo, or even UC Riverside to find employment. Whistling and smiling with his habitual grin, Sean quickly went about preparing for his Tuesday interview.

  One of the funny things about money is that people say it can’t buy happiness. This is a lie. Of course money can buy happiness. If you don’t believe me, try giving a few hundred dollars to a homeless person or a member of the working poor or an independent author some time. When you do, you will notice this homeless/poor/literary person will suddenly become very happy, whereas you just as suddenly experience a strong sense of unhappiness and remorse for having just parted with your money. This is because money can buy happiness. It might actually be more accurate to say that money is happiness, because merely the possession of money - rather than spending it on any particular item or service - has the power to make people happy. The only exceptions are in the enormously, ruinously rich, who have so much money that they’ve developed a resistance to money-based happiness, like an addict developing resistance to heroin, and are therefore foolishly misled into experimenting with other, harder drugs, like philanthropy or humanitarianism or patronage of the arts. In fact, the relationship between money and happiness is so strong that Sean, merely experiencing the prospect of the possibility of maybe getting a job with which to work to earn money, suddenly felt a strong rushing urge of happiness. This was because of the effects of an even stronger narcotic than money: hope. A devastating hope epidemic has been sweeping the country recently, and despite the best efforts of certain media figures, politicians, and Wall Street bankers to put a stop to it, the epidemic continues unabated. Whatever you do, don’t get started on that hope stuff, because it’s a gateway drug to optimism.

  Sean, hopped up on hope and financial earning potential, rose off his couch and started to get ready. Over the next few days, he had his grubby jacket and slacks dry-cleaned and pressed his shirt. He showered, combed his hair, and washed his face in anticipation of the job interview. He reviewed his key credentials so he could be certain not to miss talking about any of his strong points in the upcoming job interview. Then, with Tuesday fast approaching, he finally sat down at his desk and opened up his dramatically outdated laptop computer, and went to Google.

  At first, Sean searched for information about his would-be employer, Humancorp Incorporated and Richard Dinero, but strangely, he couldn’t find any information about any of them. Since Sean didn’t use social media because he didn’t have any friends, there was no need to institute any sort of widespread purge of Twitter and Facebook accounts to eliminate posts that might be held against him during the interview. Instead, Sean decided to prepare for his job interview by looking up an online guide of how to interview well. By the time he’d found a really good one, it was already late Monday night, and he decided to turn in to get a decent night’s sleep before the big interview and actually read the guide on the bus trip tomorrow.

  So Sean turned in for the night, and had a good night’s sleep where he dreamed about the possibility of employment and all the things he would be able to buy with the money he would make that he otherwise would have had to steal. When he awoke early the next morning, he pulled on his pants and jacket, not necessarily in that order, brushed his teeth and his hair, ate a light breakfast of nothing, and then waited for the arrival of the bus. The letter Sean had gotten from Humancorp hadn’t said when the bus would arrive, nor did it contain any contact information, like a phone number, perhaps, that Sean could call to inquire. There wasn’t much traffic on Sean’s street, so Sean imagined he wouldn’t miss the arrival of the bus as he perched himself on his off-blue couch, facing some of his front windows. Even if he couldn’t see the bus, Sean imagined he might be able to hear it, as they would presumably at least honk or something when they arrived.

  He was therefore surprised and a little unnerved when a loud, sporadic clacking sound caught his attention at 8:00 AM sharp. The clacking sound suddenly died and was replaced with an animal whine, then a loud thud at Sean’s door.

  Puzzled, Sean rose, slipped on his least tattered shoes, and opened the door.

  Sitting outside was a donkey cart. A big, gray donkey was braying and stamping its hooves impatiently as a short man in an equally gray cap and uniform tried to reason with it and stop it from bolting. The brown cart was wooden and had rubber wheels, and though it was large enough to hold many people, it had no seats. There was currently only one person behind the driver. This person was wearing rags even more tattered than Sean’s jacket and had a wild, unruly, tangled beard. He was asleep in the back, twisting and turning over, scratching himself and muttering under his breath. White letters on the side of the donkey cart announced it as the “Humancorp Corporate Shuttle.”

  Sean gathered up his needful papers into a bag, which he slung over his shoulder, then went out to meet the cart.

  “Are you Sean G. Woods?” the cart driver grunted at him, before he could say anything.

  “Yes,” Sean said.

  “Get in,” the cart driver said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  Sean got in and sat on the homeless-looking man in the back.

  “Great,” said the driver. He cracked his whip, and the donkey, with something of a resentful stare, lurched into motion ahead of him. The cart shook. It hopped and jumped on the various cracks and potholes in the road outside Sean’s house while occasional cars beeped at them and overtook them from behind.

  Shifting off of the homeless-looking man with the bushy beard, Sean reached into his bag and took out the letter inviting him to an interview, which he had brought with him. He re-read it carefully.

  “Uh, this letter I got said a shuttle bus would be stopping at my house,” Sean said. “Did the bus, er, break down?”

  “No,” the cart driver said bitterly as he cracked the whip at the animal that was hauling the cart. “It’s always like this. We don’t use buses.”

  “Why not?” Sean asked.

  “I’m only allowed to use stuff produced by Humancorp to pick up passengers,” the cart driver explained. “Humancorp doesn’t make gasoline, so we’re not allowed to use gas-powered vehicles.”

  Sean looked at the wooden cart with some trepidation.

  “But they made this cart, did they?”

  “Nope, they made the donkey,” the cart driver said, and he gestured to branding on the donkey’s rear. It said, “Made In Nevada,” then, beneath that, “Product of Humancorp Incorporated.”

  Sean gawked at this stamp for a second.

  “This here’s a Humancorp Turbodonkey,” the driver said, a hint of pride seeping into his voice. “It’s 300% more stubborn than your average donkey and can go almost 20% as fast.”

  “Er, so, Humancorp breeds animals?” Sean asked. “What else do they make?”

  “Humancorp makes everything,” replied the cart driver. “‘Cept oil. Our competitors make that, so we’re not allowed to use it.”

  He cracked the whip on the donkey.

  “Uh, what about electric vehicles?” Sean suggested. “Does Humancorp make those?”

  “Sure, but you try shooting your way into Research and Development to get your hands on one some time,” said the driver. “I doubt you’d even get through the pharmaceutical unit before that nut who runs the department stops you.”

  Sean thought about this for a while, then decided maybe it would be a good idea to learn something about Humancorp Incorporated before he met directly with the CEO. He brandished the letter at the donkey cart driver, who glanced briefly at it.

  “I’ve got an interview
with the CEO, Richard Dinero, at 11 AM,” Sean said.

  “My condolences,” said the driver.

  “Why do you say that? What kind of person is he?”

  “He’s a real jackass, and keep in mind that I run this donkey cart for a living. Dinero is rich. I mean, really rich. Spends most of his time holed up in his office. He’s probably there right now.”

  He cracked the whip again, drawing another resentful glance from the animal in front. The homeless man in the back gave a loud snort and turned over.

  “So Humancorp is a manufacturing company?” Sean guessed.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it a big company?”

  “The biggest. I’ve been at the company since the beginning, and I’d tell you more, but I’m on the clock here.”

  Sean crossed his arms and sank back down into the chairless wooden section of the cart. After a while, he reached into his bag and pulled out the job interview tips he had printed out from the internet the previous night. It had taken him a while to find a really good applicant’s guide to job interviews, but Sean was confident he had found the absolute best one, one that fit him perfectly.

  It was entitled, “How to Trick a Company Into Hiring You.”

  Though Sean had trouble reading with the bumping of the donkey cart, and he felt a little motion sickness as he tried, he nevertheless skimmed through the document, finding the job interview section. It wasn’t as long as he’d thought.

  “You’ll read a lot of advice out there about how to trick a company into hiring you, but job interviews really aren’t all that complicated,” the document read. “Here are a few tips. If you follow them, you’ll be well on your way to a better job and a better life.

  Section A: Attitude. Review these three simple rules and follow them during your interview to make sure that you leave your interviewer and prospective employer with a good impression of you. 1) Remember to stay positive, 2) be friendly and smile during your job interview, and 3) bribe your interviewer. Following these three easy rules will practically guarantee you a place in the company.