activity at your work station. As you know, energy management is a top priority of this administration, since energy expended outside a Bu-Health facility is not Job-Supportive. Our recommendations cover hazards which, if not remedied . . .”
Two packing meckies appeared at a recently vacated desk in the next aisle, carrying cardboard cartons. Short and squat, they had blinking red and yellow lights and tin can heads. One eye was centrally positioned. No mouth, ears or nose. The meckies emptied the contents of the drawers on top of the desk, then lifted one end of the desk, causing the items to slide neatly into waiting boxes. They worked quickly and efficiently, and soon rolled away with their loads in the direction of the elevator bank.
Sidney heard a familiar voice, turned his head to the left and glanced at Malcolm Penny, the owlish Second Assistant to the Assistant Administrator. Penny was conducting a departmental tour, and a group of G.W. eight hundred trainees rolled along behind him, hanging on every word.
“The Presidential Bureau has seventy-nine departments,” Penny explained in his high-pitched voice, “one of which is Central Forms. Job Station Beasley is one of the authorized jobs in Central Forms.” He waved an expansive arm, added, “This station takes up an entire floor.” The group rolled slowly by Sidney’s desk, made a right turn onto the main aisle.
Someone sneezed at a nearby desk.
“May Rosenbloom bless you,” a woman said.
“Beasley Station has twenty-six sections,” Penny continued. “Each section has five item counters, two projection-graph operators, three trash can auditors, one manual sergeant and one attendance monitor. All draw up reports, in exquisite detail, of course. Comprehensive reports are the life blood of the government.”
The trainees nodded in agreement.
Sidney looked back at his letter from the President, read its first recommendation: “On numerous occasions, you were observed bailing up pieces of paper and hurling them into the waste receptacle. Papers should not be balled up, and should be slipped into the waste receptacle with a minimum expenditure of energy. . . . ” Sidney yawned and looked around the room.
From his desk near the metronome, he could barely make out a row of red, yellow and blue alpha-numeric charts along a distant wall directly ahead of him. That was the file department. A double swinging door in the wall led to the departmental archives. Along an equally distant side wall were the committee rooms, and along the other side were the managerial offices and supervisorial cubicles. The tiny figure of Administrator Nelson could be seen approaching from his office. The KWAK! KWAK! of automatic name-date stampers rang from all around, accompanied by the sounds of auto-staplers and collators and the punctuating squeaks of autocarts as they stopped at each worktable to pick up paper. It was warm in the room, and the ever-present, gelatinous purr of Harmak forced Sidney to fight drowsiness.
Sidney shook his head to clear it, turned around to face Melinda Brown, a yellow-haired G.W. seven-five-oh at the desk behind his. As she slipped a green plastic paper clip onto a file, the paper clip broke. Smiling winsomely, she reached into a dispenser for a replacement.
“Plastic is fantastic!” Sidney intoned.
“Yes,” she agreed. Still smiling, she placed a new, orange paper clip on the file. “Every break is a new task.”
The noise of machinery and buzz of conversation gradually slowed and stopped. Sidney turned to watch Administrator Nelson ride a lift to the top of the metronome base. It was nearly time for the afternoon envelope stuffing session, and every employee had a stack of form-change announcement cards and a stack of white envelopes in an automatic stuffing tray. Sidney glanced at the large red button on his desktop near the base of the stuffing tray. He placed the forefinger of his right hand over the button.
Administrator Nelson
Two packing meckies appeared at a recently vacated desk in the next aisle, carrying cardboard cartons. Short and squat, they had blinking red and yellow lights and tin can heads. One eye was centrally positioned. No mouth, ears or nose. The meckies emptied the contents of the drawers on top of the desk, then lifted one end of the desk, causing the items to slide neatly into waiting boxes. They worked quickly and efficiently, and soon rolled away with their loads in the direction of the elevator bank.
Sidney heard a familiar voice, turned his head to the left and glanced at Malcolm Penny, the owlish Second Assistant to the Assistant Administrator. Penny was conducting a departmental tour, and a group of G.W. eight hundred trainees rolled along behind him, hanging on every word.
“The Presidential Bureau has seventy-nine departments,” Penny explained in his high-pitched voice, “one of which is Central Forms. Job Station Beasley is one of the authorized jobs in Central Forms.” He waved an expansive arm, added, “This station takes up an entire floor.” The group rolled slowly by Sidney’s desk, made a right turn onto the main aisle.
Someone sneezed at a nearby desk.
“May Rosenbloom bless you,” a woman said.
“Beasley Station has twenty-six sections,” Penny continued. “Each section has five item counters, two projection-graph operators, three trash can auditors, one manual sergeant and one attendance monitor. All draw up reports, in exquisite detail, of course. Comprehensive reports are the life blood of the government.”
The trainees nodded in agreement.
Sidney looked back at his letter from the President, read its first recommendation: “On numerous occasions, you were observed bailing up pieces of paper and hurling them into the waste receptacle. Papers should not be balled up, and should be slipped into the waste receptacle with a minimum expenditure of energy. . . . ” Sidney yawned and looked around the room.
From his desk near the metronome, he could barely make out a row of red, yellow and blue alpha-numeric charts along a distant wall directly ahead of him. That was the file department. A double swinging door in the wall led to the departmental archives. Along an equally distant side wall were the committee rooms, and along the other side were the managerial offices and supervisorial cubicles. The tiny figure of Administrator Nelson could be seen approaching from his office. The KWAK! KWAK! of automatic name-date stampers rang from all around, accompanied by the sounds of auto-staplers and collators and the punctuating squeaks of autocarts as they stopped at each worktable to pick up paper. It was warm in the room, and the ever-present, gelatinous purr of Harmak forced Sidney to fight drowsiness.
Sidney shook his head to clear it, turned around to face Melinda Brown, a yellow-haired G.W. seven-five-oh at the desk behind his. As she slipped a green plastic paper clip onto a file, the paper clip broke. Smiling winsomely, she reached into a dispenser for a replacement.
“Plastic is fantastic!” Sidney intoned.
“Yes,” she agreed. Still smiling, she placed a new, orange paper clip on the file. “Every break is a new task.”
The noise of machinery and buzz of conversation gradually slowed and stopped. Sidney turned to watch Administrator Nelson ride a lift to the top of the metronome base. It was nearly time for the afternoon envelope stuffing session, and every employee had a stack of form-change announcement cards and a stack of white envelopes in an automatic stuffing tray. Sidney glanced at the large red button on his desktop near the base of the stuffing tray. He placed the forefinger of his right hand over the button.
Administrator Nelson
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