The Jetsons might have had it right

George woke up. He felt it before his eyes opened. The grit of his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, the feeling of that layer of grime on his teeth, he’d been drinking again last night. Now comes the headache. Still with his eyes closed he braces for that familiar constant bitter hum of disapproval from his brain, starved for water. The eyes open now, harsh bright light is too much shock for his body to take just yet, he closes them again, and rolls over - he knows he can get away with sleeping in another half an hour.

He knows it’s trite, but the thought of work makes him tremble. Reporting into work, sitting in front of that giant screen, he doesn’t have any friends at work, everyone prefers to work from home, they don’t want to make the effort to befriend anyone. The loneliness at times makes him feel like crying, but then he remembers that his role is to be the strong one, to feed his family and not need friends, not need any acquaintance other than his wife and children, they should be wholly fulfilling. At least that’s what Dude Dad on TikTok says.

Spacely makes sprockets, they need to make sprockets at an astounding rate. Early on in the company, the bottleneck was manufacturing. Now, abundance has dissolved the moat of the skilled worker. Securityvisors watched the machines, and occasionally helped when they got stuck, or when luddites attacked, but now the bottleneck was in the hearts and minds of the populace - they truly didn’t know how many sprockets they needed, and the role of Spacely’s was to invent ways to inform them how many sprockets they needed (and just a hint, it was directly correlated to the balance the bank would lend them)

So Spacely devised a new program. This system would invent new companies at a rate of thousands per day, researching minute-by-minute flash trends on social media and attaching the value of sprockets to social wants through astroturfing via millions of AI accounts. It would simultaneously lobby local, provincial, and federal governments for amenable laws to the production of sprockets out of the material du jour (or minute, as the trend may dictate). It would research and phish executives at friendly companies to procure large deals for sprockets at bulk rates, all valued on a surge pricing model that ensured maximal value to Spacely. And it would start rumour mills (again via the astroturfing accounts) about competitor sprockets, diminishing their value, exposing bad behaviour by executives, and doxing them when necessary to redirect popular discontent against the sprocket industry.

George’s terminal was fabulous, it was the best in ergonomics that money could buy. The screen was an immaculate representation of pixels, blending reality with the digital information in front of him. His chair had the best neck support, his benefit program had regular massages where he could relieve the stress that built up in him from the terror of his work, up to five times per year. It was an enviable position from his peers’ vantage. The money came in, he could support his wife and daughter’s spending habits, he had time off to play ball with his son, and even time to walk the dog.

Work though… work made him sweat cold. They had long given up on him examining the details of individual companies in their approval to operate. His conscience was a bottleneck they couldn’t afford. So he now reviewed them in batches of hundreds at a time. His job was to push a button. His job was to understand what all of those shell companies would do with their directives, understand it, extrapolate where they might go with it, and push the button to accept responsibility for their actions.

George pushed the button.

He went home and drank.