Humancorp Incorporated Page 8

  Ever since labor unions introduced radical socialist ideas, like paying employees in money instead of corporate cafeteria vouchers, to Humancorp in the late 1990s, Dinero’s leadership has also been much criticized by the workers, who charge that he is out of touch with the rank-and-file. Indeed, quality of life has gone downhill for workers across the company since Dinero took control. One example is Dinero’s demands for greater and greater revenues from Humancorp products, like the paper tank tread and spicy-hot donkey milk. Since no one wants to buy these products, or indeed any other Humancorp products, the Sales Department has long since resorted to cannibalism to meet their sales quotas. Pressure on the Sales Department for results has, in fact, led the department to institute a practice of waterboarding customers until they say they are willing to buy a coal-powered lawnmower to make it stop, but some customers have refused to break and are subsequently in permanent law-of-war detention in the visitor’s center. Dinero has also inflicted the unimaginable cruelty on Humancorp employees of telling them they can only use Humancorp products (a rule to which he does not adhere himself). Consequently, morale has collapsed on the shop floor to the point that the only product consistently out of stock in the corporate campus store is the suicide pills, particularly after it was discovered that Humancorp-brand toilet paper is not strong enough to either make a rope to climb out the window to escape or hang yourself.

  Advertising presents its own unique challenges for a company whose main business strategy is complete secrecy. As such, Humancorp has gone through a number of heads of advertising. Kevin Lane, Humancorp’s head of advertising from 1994 to 1994.1, was fired for his less-than-subtle “Buy Humancorp but Shhh Don’t Tell Anyone We Exist Because The Whole Company Is Secret” TV campaign, which largely consisted of actors giggling in the foreground while Humancorp employees bonked each other on the heads in the background. Despite the catchy jingle, Dinero subsequently fired him and replaced him with Gregg Watkins, who started the Humancorp “Buy This Stuff But Don’t Ask Where It Came From” drive until he was run over by a fast-moving mule - a common fate for Humancorp executives.

  Humancorp’s Communications Department faces similar challenges to the Marketing Department insofar as it’s official company policy to never communicate with anyone on any subject, and in fact the whole place runs in draconian secrecy. The Director of Communications’ position is vacant after the previous director died from exhaustion after overexercising his vocabulary. The remaining staff of the department spend their days and nights hiding, in consequence of which their performance ratings have shot through the roof.

  Dinero’s tenure as the CEO has also been tenuous, as Humancorp’s vicious and often violent corporate politics have threatened to overthrow him. Ever since his questionable decision to institute the ancient Roman practice of killing every tenth employee for cowardice, Dinero has survived 17 attempts at corporate coups, including one shareholder rebellion, three votes against him by the board, six assassination attempts by the C-level officer corps, another six terror bombings orchestrated by junior management, plus one terror bombing by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and two employee uprisings, including one that Herman insists was orchestrated by his dog. After having the entire board of directors executed as a warning to the rest, Dinero instituted new hiring practices, in consequence of which Humancorp tightened their recruiting standards. The unqualified, the unsuitable, the liars, criminals, and the insane - these were just some of the people that the interview system found and hurriedly employed in upper management to try to crowd out the competent people who might make any new attempt against Dinero’s corporate premiership. Dinero has taken a heavy-handed approach to suppressing dissent, but he has argued that it is necessary to keep Humancorp ahead of its competitors, like General OmniAll, and the now active rebel organizations working against Humancorp, like the Employee Liberation Army, the Mandatory Organization of Anarchists, and the ACLU.

  The consequence of all this is that Humancorp Incorporated is now a very bad place to work. Employees are a hunched over, beaten-down group, and that’s not just because the corporate healthcare plan covers neither back pain nor treatment for beatings. They slog to and from work to toil the day away in poor conditions in the factories or Marketing Department before returning home. Most employees now live on site thanks to Humancorp’s subsidized employee housing strategy; from the CEO’s solid gold pleasure mansion to the rank-and-file’s corrugated iron labor barracks, Humancorp housing is occupied around the clock. It’s not accurate to say all the good people have left. There were never any good people in the first place. The managers gurgle to themselves in their offices, muttering nonsense and choking on their own drool, while the laborers in the camps below plan their resignations, escapes, or armed uprisings against the company.

  Sean was really looking forward to working here, which is bad news for him, because there’s nothing Humancorp hates more than an employee with a positive attitude.

  Chapter 9

  Mr. Dinero explained all of this, along with many other details, as they rode the elevator down to the lower floors of the building. By the time they’d gotten underground, Dinero’s story had finished and the elevator voice was now demanding several thousand dollars from Sean. Sean swiped the card he’d stolen from Mullins and charged it to his account.

  “So that’s the long and the short of it,” Dinero said proudly as they walked out onto an underground floor. Wherever they were now looked like a regular office space. The carpet was gray and the area was filled with offices and conference rooms with glass walls that you could see through.

  Meanwhile, somehow, Herman had acquired a large, deadly-looking assault rifle, which he loaded and shouldered.

  “Why do you have an assault rifle?” Sean inquired of him.

  “Bolt-action isn’t powerful enough,” replied Herman, smoking as he did.

  Winston yipped by their feet.

  “It’s because of all the partisan activity around here,” said Dinero. “Don’t worry. This floor is for high-level managers only. Most of the violence is on the lower levels or outside, or has been ever since the purges.”

  Suddenly, there was a bass rumbling sound and the building rocked.

  “What was that?” asked Sean.

  “Don’t worry,” Dinero reassured him. “Probably just another terror bombing by the ACLU.”

  “Wait,” Sean said, reflecting on this information and Dinero’s account. “Did you say you’ve survived twelve assassination attempts?”

  “About that many,” agreed Dinero. “I lost count after a while. Everyone in the company is out to get me. The only ones I trust are Herman and Winston.”

  He patted Winston’s head.

  “It’s a mistake to trust that dog,” Herman muttered, breathing out a cloud of smoke.

  “Me, Herman, and Winston are also the only real people here,” said Dinero. “Everyone else in the entirety of Humancorp is fake humans, made in our factories. Let me introduce you to some!”

  “Sure,” said Sean enthusiastically.

  Dinero opened a door to a nearby conference room, where several dozen dark-haired men were sitting around a table, almost as if they’d been waiting for Dinero to come in. Many of them stood and bowed or made other demeaning gestures of submission as Dinero entered.

  “This is my advisory action committee, composed of all the high-level managers in the company,” said Dinero. “This is Lefty.”

  He pointed to one particularly young, dark-haired manager who waved back with a cheery smile.

  “You only need to know Lefty,” Dinero said. “Everyone else is an irrelevant cavalcade of sycophants to stoke the egos of management and hopeless yes-men.”

  “Yes, we definitely are,” one of the other committee members agreed.

  “I completely agree,” said yet another.

  “Well, I’m really more of a suck-up than a yes-man,” said someone else.

  “Anyway, so get to know Lefty an
d ignore the rest of them,” Dinero said, again gesturing to Lefty. “The rest of them have MBAs or something.”

  “Why do you call him Lefty?” Sean asked curiously.

  “We call him Lefty because he’s gay,” answered one of the yes-men.

  “I thought we called him Lefty because he was British,” said another.

  “No, we call him Lefty because he’s got webbed toes.”

  “I thought we called him Lefty because he drives on the left side of the road,” Herman said with a frown.

  “I’m not any of those things,” Lefty said with a smile, shaking Sean’s hand pleasantly. “They call me Lefty because I’m right-handed.”

  “Oh, is that like how you call a tall guy ‘Shorty?’” asked Sean.

  “No, they’re just morons,” said Lefty.

  “We definitely are,” agreed one of the yes-men again.

  “Do you have any questions for the committee while you’re here?” Lefty asked, sinking back into his chair.

  “Yes,” said Sean. “Why are they all men?”

  He gestured to the yes-men.

  “For completely legal performance and merit-based reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with any alleged secret policy of keeping women out of management positions,” replied Dinero, before Lefty could respond.

  “Oh,” said Sean. “And why are they all white?”

  “For completely legal performance and merit-based reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with the survey you took earlier being used as a basis for racial discrimination,” said Dinero.

  “Oh,” said Sean. “And why do they all have MBAs?”

  “That’s because of racism,” admitted Dinero. “We had a small problem with systemic discrimination against racial minorities, like people who hold engineering degrees. But that’s got nothing to do with why there aren’t any women or racial minorities here!”

  “Yes, it’s because women and racial minorities, like black people, have difficulty meeting the qualifications of the job,” said Lefty, shaking his head. “It’s just fact that women and black people are very rarely white men, so they can’t serve as upper managers.”

  “That said, I think we’ve got an Asian locked up somewhere,” said Dinero. “Anyway, forward any further questions you might have to Legal, and I’m sure they’ll be happy to ignore them.”

  “Okay,” Sean agreed. He hadn’t actually been that interested in the racial composition of the group; he’d just been using the questions as a distraction to steal pens from the table. Soon, he’d followed Dinero out of the room.

  “Anyway,” Dinero said as he walked and picked Winston back up, “I like to use a very hands-on management style and get involved with the work my subordinates are doing. Don’t be surprised if you hear from me a lot, because I’m constantly supervising everyone. In fact, I’ve had a personal hand in inventing everything here, like, uh, whatever the hell this is,” Dinero said, pointing to a Humancorp product.

  “That’s a stapler, sir,” said Herman, inspecting it.

  “Really?” Dinero asked. “How does it work?”

  Herman demonstrated.

  “Great,” Dinero said. “And, of course, I personally know everyone in the entire company, like whats-his-name over here.” He jerked his thumb at a passing employee. “In fact, let me introduce you to the Teds, so they can get to know you.”

  “Did he say ‘the Teds?’” Sean asked, but received no supply.

  Following Dinero, Sean barged with him into a small kitchen area, which had a sign identifying it as the “No Breaks Room.” It was populated by another collection of dark-haired men in neatly pressed shirts.

  “So these are the Teds,” said Dinero, waving his hand around vaguely. “This is ol’ lying Ted. Don’t confuse him with ol’ cheapskate Ted or ol’ fat Ted over there.”

  “My name’s not Ted,” one of the men protested.

  Dinero laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “That’s ol’ lying Ted for you. He’ll go far in the Marketing Department, once I get him transferred out of Public Relations. Anyway, over here’s flatulent Ted, and cancer patient Ted, and watch out for the fella in the corner because he’s deranged nutcase Ted.”

  “Hi,” Sean said to deranged nutcase Ted.

  “What did you say about my mother?!” screamed Ted.

  “Nothing, but since you asked, she’s fat and ugly,” Sean said pleasantly.

  “Oh, that’s good,” deranged nutcase Ted said, relaxing. “I thought she was a tomato.”

  “That’s ol’ deranged nutcase Ted for you,” said Dinero approvingly, as he abruptly turned and walked out of the room. “I’m thinking of assigning him to Customer Service. He used to be Director of the FBI, you know. I kid, I kid. He was never Director of the FBI. That’s a little politics joke for you.”

  Herman gave an extremely forced laugh. He laughed exactly three times, then stopped.

  Sean, meanwhile, had stolen a bunch of coffee beans and ketchup packets from the kitchen area on the way out.

  They got back into the elevator.

  “Welcome back, oh mighty overlord,” the elevator voice said to Dinero. “Would you like me to terminate the unworthy hangers-on who surround you with vicious, mechanical vengeance?”

  Red dots appeared on Sean’s forehead.

  “Not today, thanks,” said Dinero. “Maybe some other time.”

  The red dots disappeared.

  “By the way,” Dinero said as he operated the elevator’s console. “Don’t get deranged nutcase Ted confused with deranged nutcase Tad or deranged nutcase Todd. They’re totally different people.”

  Winston barked for attention, and Dinero picked him back up and started to stroke him. They descended another floor.

  “I’m famous for my walkabout management style,” Dinero confided in Sean as they emerged on to the next floor. “I use my personal charm and charisma to inspire the employees to greater levels of productivity as I roam the building.”

  “Uh, someone told me that you actually stay holed up in your office all day,” Sean said, recalling the cart driver’s opinion of Dinero.

  “Yeah, well, there are only so many hours in each day I can tolerate looking at the ugly absurdist sculptures that you and the rest of the peons so wrongly call faces,” Dinero said with a shrug. “So yeah, I hang out in my office a lot. Where the hell are we, anyway?”

  “Finance and Accounting, my great leader,” said Herman.

  “Oh, right,” said Dinero. The halls of the Finance and Accounting Department looked very similar to those of the floor above, with gray carpet and offices and conference rooms with glass walls. Dinero opened one apparently at random.

  “These are where the people who tell me how much money I have work,” Dinero told Sean, and he gestured around to a bunch of accountants in gray suits working at computers. “Herman, go find out how much profit we made today.”

  “Sir,” Herman said stiffly, then walked into the room. He came back a few moments later and clicked his heels together.

  “I have the figures here for you, infallible leader,” said Herman.

  He handed Dinero a piece of paper. It had a huge number three written on it.

  “We have three money,” Dinero said. “Good.”

  Sean blinked. He was pretty sure that hadn’t made sense, but then he hadn’t completely been paying attention because he’d been stealing packs of post-it notes.

  “What do you mean you have three money?” Sean said as he stamped wads of post-it notes over holes in his jacket.

  “That’s as good as it ever gets,” said Dinero. “The current CFO can only count to 3. It was different under the old Chief Financial Officer. He had a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Princeton, so he could only count to 2.”

  “Why don’t you hire a CFO who can count higher?” said Sean.

  Dinero gave a hollow laugh.

  “And where would I find someone like that?” said Dinero. “No, I’m satisfied with the
current CFO. He sends me 3’s every day. But if it ever drops to 2, there’ll be trouble!”

  Dinero ushered Sean back into the elevator.

  “Useless parasites on the splendid wizard, be aware that you now owe us a kidney as payment for your continued proximity to Mr. Dinero. We will send a medical team to extract the kidney shortly.”

  “Charge it to my card,” Sean said, and swiped his stolen card again.

  Dinero operated the elevator panel and they went down to the next level. They were now deep underground. The door dinged open. This level looked much bigger than the rest. Hundreds of people seemed to be swarming around a crowded office space. Posters coated the walls, which had been blank on the upper levels, and though the carpet was still gray, the glass-walled offices and conference rooms were gone. They’d been replaced by cubicles and scattered desks, where employees sat and worked at computers or poured over books. People rushed back and forth.

  “Best if we don’t draw attention to ourselves here,” Herman whispered to Sean. “There could be trouble.”

  “We’ve got a lot of employees on this floor. Lots of departments here.” Dinero said. “Recruiting, Security, Marketing, Sales... lots of stuff.”

  “Recruiting?” said Sean. “I’m confused.”

  “Well, get used to that, because I saw your resumé and you’re not exactly Einstein,” Dinero said.

  “I mean, don’t you produce humans at this company?”

  “Of course,” said Dinero.

  “So why do you need to recruit people?”

  “We usually produce them as babies, obviously,” Dinero said crossly. “Adults are difficult to make. We don’t even have a running production line for adults right now. And we don’t usually produce them for ourselves. Humancorp sells to whoever’s willing to buy them: parents, religious cults, other businesses, butcher’s shops... Then, once they grow up, we recruit them as adults. That way’s cheaper than trying to raise them ourselves. Come on man, this is just basic business acumen. Why would we pay for expensive stuff like education and shelter when we can get someone else to do it for free? Anyway, here’s the Security Department.”