Dateline: 08/06/2026
08:40
Today is the first day in my new Job, it arrives soon. The induction epack told me a courier was scheduled to arrive before nine.
09:13
The Job’s here. A big white domed shell made from industrial maize bespattered with a million logos and non-tamper user invalidation warnings. It wishes me a good morning and advises that I have two minutes to position it in my preferred location before it uses its executive override to decide for itself; it goes in the windowless backroom.
09:37
My coffee’s cold; I’ve just had the induction overview, seven precise minutes of neutrally toned but implacable machine directive. I’ve got twenty-two and a half minutes to prepare for the morning session. I’ve already been informed that my atypical acknowledgement time is only just within parametric operational norms, and in addition my galvanic response is not that of an eager new employee. I want to tell it to go fuck itself but the realtime EmployeeValue(d) feedback icon blinking in my HUD suggests (requires) a temperate reply. I go and get ready.
09:54
It’s not nice: The analgesic grey goo slops unpleasantly between my buttocks, and the convene pinches my pubes uncomfortably. I look with some dismay in the bathroom mirror at my Lycra sheathed body—casual Friday it ain’t.
10:01
The Job’s got me now; cradled in the smartweave I’m rapidly becoming what the faintly prudish user manual calls, “orifice enhanced”; this is much worse than my previous Job which had a certain end-of-week slacker approach to toilet breaks. New Job looks like it’s gonna fuck and suck me 247 until the work’s done. The solid waste catheter insinuates itself nauseatingly into my colon but the grey goo does its job and all I feel is a distant sense of mild violation; the urine convene thank god still requires a final manual hook up. The WorkSpace interface is a firmware upgrade on my existing HUD so I dodge a bullet there; a retrofit nictitans by an eager young AI is not on my top five fun list. First meeting’s at 10:17 so I take the hit and tell the Job to dunk me.
10:13
It’s alright for a Job I suppose; we’ve just had out first induction chat, it’s typically gender neutral but personable enough, I decide to call it Babs (well, for 9 seconds that is until a querulous monitoring subroutine informs me of inappropriate anthropomorphisation). I suppress a sigh and request insertion into WorkSpace. I hate fucking Mondays.