Enjoy Your Job! by Ken Brosky

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Enjoy Your Job!

By Ken Brosky

First published in: Dark Moon Rising

“Who wants to vacuum the family room?” Mom said excitedly.

Timmy raised his hand and stretched it to the Heavens with all his might, hard enough so that the tendons in his arms hurt. He didn’t know exactly what tendons were, but that’s what his mom called the pain inside his arm when he stretched.

“I do! I do!” He exclaimed. He took another heaping spoonful of his cereal and gulped it down. It was soggy enough that he only had to take a few bites before he could swallow it. The Wheaty-o’s went down hard, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that Timmy was going to get to vacuum the family room; it was a privilage his parents allowed for him once per week, and Timmy just loved it.

“You can even clean the bathrooms later tonight after school,” Dad said from behind his paper. He was nursing his second cup of coffee, probably procrastinating for as long as he could before he finally had to head to work. He was always telling Timmy how he would never have to worry about that, but Timmy never really understood what he meant.

“Thanks, Dad!” Timmy said with genuine happiness.

“Clean up your dish and then the family room is all yours,” said Mom.

Timmy did so, carefully scrubbing the dish until no specks of cereal remained. It made him feel good to see that his dish was clean. Real good. His Dad said it was the satisfaction of a job well-done, Timmy never felt that way after getting good grades on a test. He set the bowl on the drying rack and ran to the closet just beyond the family room. He pulled out the vacuum and plugged it into the nearest outlet, which read:

Watt’s remaining this month: 6,214

Timmy didn’t like to rush vacuuming because it was so fun, but he realized that they DID have an energy limit per month and that seemed pretty important to Mom and Dad.

Timmy ran the vacuum and began to carefully--however quickly--vacuum the carpet in the family room. He watched as every push left two perfect streaks from the sides of the vacuum and carefully aligned each push so that the streaks looked like an old football field. Timmy started at the far wall of the room, so that he didn’t leave any footprints on the fresh carpet. He felt good again as he saw his masterpiece slowly unfold, carefully working his way around the large couch and the dining table. Mom and Dad said Timmy was gifted when it came to cleaning, but Timmy never really payed much attention to that. He was much more interested in the space program than anything else.

“You wouldn’t like the space program,” Dad always said.

“How do you know, though?” was Timmy’s favorite retort.

“I just do, son. I just do.” And Dad usually left it at that.

Finished with the family room, Timmy carefully unplugged the vacuum and put it back in the closet. The digital clock on the wall read 11:35; Mom would have to take him to school in a few minutes.

“Mom!” he yelled. “You have to take me to school!” Normally, he wouldn’t mind being late to school, but today was a special day. Today, the group was taking a quick field trip over to Skyler HMO to look at something called “genetics.” After today, everyone in Timmy’s class would be separated by their interests in order to further something called a “trade.” Timmy wanted more than anything to go into the space program; maybe as soon as a week from now, he would be busy learning about spacecraft and lasers and cool stuff like that.

He saw Mom grab her car keys and two energy cells.

“What do you need the extra energy cell for, Mom? Timmy asked, returning to the kitchen.

“Just running a small errand after I drop you off at your last day of regular school.” At that, Timmy’s heart began racing. He was truly excited.

They left, the ride to the school building taking less than fifteen minutes. In Timmy’s head, it felt like an eternity, as the little car slowly passed each towering building. He saw the Skyler HMO building--a towering, two hundred-story behemoth of a building--pass by on the right, and his heart raced; they were only a few buildings away.

Mom pulled into an empty parking space in front of a large education building, and Timmy couldn’t help but wonder which floor of the forty-story building was designated for the Space Program.

Or did they have their own building all to themselves? Skyler HMO’s Space Program certainly was nothing to scoff at--after all, it was “big guns” (as Dad always called them, since Timmy could never pronounce the real names) that helped Skyler HMO force the European Nations into surrender. New York was Skyler HMO’s official headquarters; surely their Space program would have its own building.

“Off you go,” Mom said. “I’ll be waiting out here at exactly five-thirty, so be ready.”

Timmy gave a quick nod and pecked Mom on the cheek. With that, he jogged his way into the building, slowly like an astronaut would in space where there was no gravity. He did the same as he jogged up the stairs to the second floor and into his classroom.

Most of the kids were already sitting on the rug in the center of the room. Timmy found his best pal Mark and sat next to him excitedly.

“I guess this is it for us,” Timmy said. He tried to add an ounce of sadness to his voice, but he was just too excited.

Mark nodded, less enthusiastic. “I just hope I don’t get stuck in some stupid trade. I hope I can be some kind of artist. My ma says I’m a good drawer.”

Timmy chuckled. “You can be whatever you want to be!”

“Nuh-uh,” Mark said. “My ma says that they already got stuff set up for you. My ma says that we HAVE to do what’s picked for us.”

Timmy’s heart sank. “No, I’m pretty sure you can be whatever you want to.” He looked down at the carpet to hide his growing dissapointment. There was a red and green ice-cream stain that could easily have been lifted out with a little bit of grape juice and a damp rag.

“Yeah, well,” Mark said with his snottiest voice. He had a really good snotty voice, even for an eleven year-old. “We’ll see in a few minutes.”

“Yeah, we will,” Timmy retorted. It wasn’t much of a retort, but he really couldn’t say much more with the tears coating his eyes. He wanted to be in the space program.

The entire class walked to the Skyler HMO building, supervised by two teachers, one Timmy had never seen before. The trip went too quick for Timmy this time; he was now deathly afraid of what was awaiting him in the building, which no longer looked inviting but intimidating, like they were about to walk into the jaws of a beast.

A nice-dressed woman introduced herself as “Pam” and quickly whisked the group into a large elevator.

“We’ll be going directly to the thirty-first floor,” she said once all fourteen kids and two teachers were in. Timmy felt his bowels move slightly as they made their quick ascent. “There, I’m going to teach you a little bit about our new program. I’m going to tell you how it works, and then once all of that is taken care of, you’ll each get a small disk detailing what your specific trade will be.”

The elevator doors opened to introduce a very large hall, with monitoring glass on either side. The guide stepped into the hallway and walked down a considerable way so that all of the kids could take a look into the rooms on either side, which Timmy found to be mostly identical: scientists huddled around large complex machines, surrounded by test tubes. Nothing that really struck his fancy. There were ink outlines of what looked like brains and human anatomy on whiteboards attached to the far walls. In front of where Timmy was, a group of scientists was huddled around one such drawing, heatedly discussing something which could only be interesting to them.

“This is a project that all of you are a part of,” Pam said with false excitement. “It’s called Project: Stimulus. I know that’s a big word, and don’t worry: I’m going to explain all of it to you today so that you’ll all understand exactly why you’re going to learn the trades that you learn.”

She used both hands to point to either side of the hallway. “The men in here are responsible for Project: Stimulus. It was an idea brought forth by Samuel Skyler as a way to avoid economic depressions. What that means is that when a lot of people can’t afford to spend a lot of money, everyone in the world suffers because businesses lose money, and can’t pay their employees a lot of money, and the employees spend less, and then businesses have to pay their employees less!” She seemed excited when she explained what “Economic depressions” were, probably hoping some of it would stick in the children’s’ minds. If they were anything like Timmy (and he was sure that they were), most of it was going in one ear and coming out the other just as fast. All Timmy cared about was what he was going to do for the rest of his life.

“Project: Stimulus,” Pam continued, “is a new program. At birth, a small adjustment was made to each of your brains.” She pointed to her head for visual support. “It’s a small part of your brain where all your pleasure comes from. Your Happy Place! A specific trade was designated for you. The adjustment in your brain works with that specific trade so that you never get sick of it! How many of you have seen your parents come home at night and complain about how bad their jobs are!”

Everyone raised their hands. Timmy, too, had seen his father multiple times come home only to explain why his boss made his life “a living Hell.”

“Well,” Pam said, “with this small adjustment, none of you will ever have to worry about that! By going into the specific trade assigned to you at birth, your Happy Place will always be connected to it! That means that whatever you’re chosen to do, you’ll have fun doing it for as long as you have to! No matter what the task is, your adjustment will tell your brain that you are having fun!”

Timmy understood most of it; basically, he would have fun working at the job they had picked out for him. But he still wanted to work with the space program, even if that wasn’t his “assigned trade.”

“The companies benefit because they won’t have lazy people working for them. Everyone will enjoy their job and no one will ever have to worry about bad production. With everyone working to their fullest potential, all of the problems today will be solved!”

Timmy knew that wasn’t true. It wouldn’t solve all of the problems of the world. Maybe some, and maybe some more that Timmy couldn’t yet understand, but he wasn’t gullible enough to fall for such an embellishment.

“I want to be an astronaut,” Timmy whined quietly to himself.

Pam must have heard, because she said: “Well, if you like it that much, then maybe that’s the job for you!” She was humoring Timmy; he could tell by her tone and he didn’t like it.

Every child was handed a minidisc that they had to give to their parents. Contained in each one was a detailed description of the child’s trade, and where the child was to report for training. Timmy tuned out the rest of the day, and waited in silence until Mom came to pick him up.

She was smiling as he stepped into the car. “I have a present for you, she said, with a hint of excitement in her voice.

Timmy shrugged his shoulders.

“What’s wrong, honey? I thought you would be happy after today. You’re going to be doing something that you love, and you’re going to get paid for it! Why, if they had had this kind of technology when I was born, I would have considered myself lucky!”

“I want to be an astronaut,” Timmy whined.

Mom pretended not to hear him. “You’ll get to clean, you’ll get to vacuum, you’ll get to try all of your neat little stain-lifting recipes and all the while, you’ll get paid to do this! None of this five-credits per week allowance you’re getting now, either! You’ll be able to afford a nice apartment like your father and I.”

“What?” Timmy asked. He looked in the backseat of the car and spotted a brand-new state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner.

“Honey, you’re going to be a janitor. And you’re going to love it!”