Alpha Incorporated

IV - ii A FEATHER WILL TURN THE SCALE

Lucy has had better days, and Tuesday is shaping up to be a shit show. First, waiting for her in her inbox, there was a reminder of an overdue report she was supposed to submit on Friday. 'It is what it is,' that is Lucy's mantra when she screws things up, and she says it again to herself as she reads the next message, the one asking her why she didn't reply with her comments on the figures from the beta trial—the trial that she knows was just for show anyway, the results were already decided ahead of time. It isn't like she is faking her way through this job, as some of her staff might believe, it is just that she has been in this scene long enough to decide her own priorities. That is what makes her a good manager, and, in the end, makes her a successful businesswoman. She can see through the bullshit and focus on the important stuff. As for the rest, well, it is what it is.

But the next series of emails cause her to pause. Normally, she would take the follow-up action items from the kangaroo court of the discipline committee and file it under 'it is what it is': minutes of the meeting, call for comments, terms of reference for the committee, RFP for the EAP, more suggestions for TLAs (three letter acronyms)—those kind of things. Today, however, she is looking at a draft of a document that, it is proposed, will be sent out to all employees of Alpha International Incorporated. The Blue Pages, as it is referred, will publicize the crimes and sentencing verdicts of those brought before the discipline committee or those charged under executive order. The names, departments, employee ID number, details of the accusations, findings of the investigators, summary of the disciplinary action taken would be disclosed to all in a bulk email communication, posted on the internal company website, and displayed on staff area information boards. And as Lucy stares at the document, she sees the placeholder icon of the blank outline of a head, the one that is beckoning for the upload of the picture of the accused's face. Public shaming, or public execution, is what it is.

Lucy's desk is a clutter of papers, and diving through them, she surfaces with a pen. She scribbles the employee numbers of each of the seventeen employees, from all of Alpha's North American offices, who will make the first instalment of the rogues gallery called the Blue Pages. She is trying to remember if they discussed the Blue Pages at the meeting yesterday, but can't recall. She may have drifted, a little bit. Lucy skims through the minutes, and there is no mention of this part of the disciplinary process. And as she reads further, Lucy notices that there is also no mention of Pompey, the IT guy who got busted for running the Alpha Ghetto chatroom. There is, and it is no surprise, a lengthy indictment of Claude Measures, whose case was not discussed, except for the brief mention of it by Lucy.

Logging into the HR section of the server, Lucy accesses the first few employees named on the list. Sure enough, the mandatory employee ID photo, just like the one that hangs from Lucy's name tag, is displayed. She is looking at the image of a man, just a normal guy somewhere in—she checks his data—Indiana, and imagines how his world will change once his photo is plastered throughout his plant, or the local newspaper picks up on the story that this circuit technician had been reprimanded for suspected use of illegal drugs at work. Who knows what the real story is, but this poor sucker is going to pay dearly. This is not right. A travesty, is what it is.

She picks up the phone and calls Pompey. He picks up.

"Hey Pippin, it's Lucy Lumalabas. I see you are still working here."

Pompey laughs and adds, "For now. What's up?"

"Well, I am going through the sentencing decisions from the discipline committee and I see that your name doesn't appear here, nor does it appear in the minutes. Yet you were on the docket. We talked about you. I remember that clearly."

"So?"

"So, I was wondering how it is that you were disappeared like that."

"Let's just say that I struck a plea bargain."