supposed to do then? Pack groceries at the local supermarket? Nahh. Not so rosy career prospects there either, Scott thought. The last time he went shopping at Coles he hadn’t been able to find a single person working there, and he’d had to scan his own groceries before paying at some sort of automated checkout machine. What the fuck was happening with society? Every job was either outsourced to India, automated or replaced by the internet. These ridiculous companies he wrote about; the companies of the new economy , they were supposedly the future.
“….we will all need to chip in.”
Scott Davis turned slightly to the left and observed some of the faces around him. Many of them had been there almost as long as him. They all looked tired. It wasn’t the first time the Gold Coast Times had called for an all-hands meeting in the canteen. New boss, same old shit. To be a journalist had been a fight against windmills for years, and it wasn’t about to get better anytime soon. Vesna Connor had just advised the room that the free coffee would be ended from Monday first. A sigh had travelled through the canteen. Like that was going to save the paper – to cut out the free coffee.
Scott felt a poke in his elbow. “Have you looked at the case?” It was Mark Moss, who had managed to manoeuvre himself next to Scott. Scott hadn’t deliberately tried to avoid Mark since he had popped his hairy head in and asked for help more than eight weeks ago. He just hadn’t bothered to seek him out. He had thought he had sent an obvious signal: of course he hadn’t looked at the case. Missing girls on the Gold Coast. Possible serial killer on the loose. Mark Moss was an inexperienced kid with a vivid imagination. Scott didn’t have time to teach him how to do his job. The paper had made the decision to replace Scott with Mark on the crime desk, not Scott. They could bloody well train him themselves.
“Shh. I’m trying to listen to Vesna,” Scott said.
“It’s a simple question. Have you looked into the case or not?” Mark pressed. He was a persistent little fucker.
“I want to know if I’ve still got a job,” Scott replied, and nodded toward the stage, where the editor Vesna Connor had started to rattle off the departments that were going to be cut.
She hadn’t mentioned the business desk of the paper yet.
14
Y-Bator’s investment soon got legs to walk on when Frank heard about the account balance. Andrew had initially wanted to preserve as much cash as possible, in case the idea didn’t turn out to be viable, and they had to pivot. He was after all dependent on withdrawing a salary to survive from day to day. But Frank had convinced him: They could manage without any staff hires for a while, but they had to invest in hardware, expensive hardware. Otherwise the software wouldn’t be able to scale Frank’s advanced algorithms.
Upon returning from a shopping trip, Andrew received the message he had been awaiting for the last few days; their mobile app had been granted a green light from Apple – they were allowed to release the app on iTunes.
Andrew was fired up where he sat in his rusty Mazda 3, boxes of servers and computer screens stacked to the ceiling. Ken had done a magnificent job designing the user interface, and the development of the app had almost gone without a single glitch. Andrew had to admit he didn’t understand most of the technical jargon Frank used when he explained which problems he worked on, but who cared? In a matter of record time Frank had been successful in amending the original software so that they now had a functioning mobile app users could use to take a picture of clothing they liked, and instantly see what they would look like in that very same outfit.
There was only one minor flaw in the otherwise perfect software Frank had developed; to enable the software to calculate correct sizes and shape the piece of clothing around the user, the user had to film themselves with
“….we will all need to chip in.”
Scott Davis turned slightly to the left and observed some of the faces around him. Many of them had been there almost as long as him. They all looked tired. It wasn’t the first time the Gold Coast Times had called for an all-hands meeting in the canteen. New boss, same old shit. To be a journalist had been a fight against windmills for years, and it wasn’t about to get better anytime soon. Vesna Connor had just advised the room that the free coffee would be ended from Monday first. A sigh had travelled through the canteen. Like that was going to save the paper – to cut out the free coffee.
Scott felt a poke in his elbow. “Have you looked at the case?” It was Mark Moss, who had managed to manoeuvre himself next to Scott. Scott hadn’t deliberately tried to avoid Mark since he had popped his hairy head in and asked for help more than eight weeks ago. He just hadn’t bothered to seek him out. He had thought he had sent an obvious signal: of course he hadn’t looked at the case. Missing girls on the Gold Coast. Possible serial killer on the loose. Mark Moss was an inexperienced kid with a vivid imagination. Scott didn’t have time to teach him how to do his job. The paper had made the decision to replace Scott with Mark on the crime desk, not Scott. They could bloody well train him themselves.
“Shh. I’m trying to listen to Vesna,” Scott said.
“It’s a simple question. Have you looked into the case or not?” Mark pressed. He was a persistent little fucker.
“I want to know if I’ve still got a job,” Scott replied, and nodded toward the stage, where the editor Vesna Connor had started to rattle off the departments that were going to be cut.
She hadn’t mentioned the business desk of the paper yet.
14
Y-Bator’s investment soon got legs to walk on when Frank heard about the account balance. Andrew had initially wanted to preserve as much cash as possible, in case the idea didn’t turn out to be viable, and they had to pivot. He was after all dependent on withdrawing a salary to survive from day to day. But Frank had convinced him: They could manage without any staff hires for a while, but they had to invest in hardware, expensive hardware. Otherwise the software wouldn’t be able to scale Frank’s advanced algorithms.
Upon returning from a shopping trip, Andrew received the message he had been awaiting for the last few days; their mobile app had been granted a green light from Apple – they were allowed to release the app on iTunes.
Andrew was fired up where he sat in his rusty Mazda 3, boxes of servers and computer screens stacked to the ceiling. Ken had done a magnificent job designing the user interface, and the development of the app had almost gone without a single glitch. Andrew had to admit he didn’t understand most of the technical jargon Frank used when he explained which problems he worked on, but who cared? In a matter of record time Frank had been successful in amending the original software so that they now had a functioning mobile app users could use to take a picture of clothing they liked, and instantly see what they would look like in that very same outfit.
There was only one minor flaw in the otherwise perfect software Frank had developed; to enable the software to calculate correct sizes and shape the piece of clothing around the user, the user had to film themselves with
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