Rats in the Pipes

Four: Performance Review

Next morning I clocked on for my shift at 06.00 and joined the line at the dispatcher's station. When I got to the front of the queue Dom handed me a ticket. I cursed. He sniggered

"It's your own fault. You should give up lipping authority then you'd be on annual appraisal like the rest of us."

"It's for 15.00 hours I can do one drop before I go." He scanned the screen and dropped a pin.

"Level 33,  shouldn't take you too long now slide I got people to deal with." I collected the package and hurried to the concourse. I ran down the service ramps then on 29 returned to the concourse to take the Lo-Cit vator to 33. There are no service ramps or walkways between Mid and Lo-Cit so you have to use the central concourse. It's a pinch point to control the flow of citizens between zones. Unlike the one between Mid and Up-Cit which is tightly controlled there aren't normally any WCM or CSB personnel on the concourse. I clocked off at 08.00 and made my way reluctantly up levels to the Workforce Control and Management Office on 15. I was outside the door when they opened up at 09.00. Even though my slot wasn't until 15.00 you have to be there at the start of their business day for'registration' otherwise they rearrange your slot and fine you for non-attendance. No pay for a day and no food allowed on the premises either but I'd snatched time to buy a packet of chipples and a couple of buns and stuffed them in my shorts pockets. I could eat them surreptitiously in the cubby. There are no cams in there.

The business of appraising citizens is fully automated and that is how you want it to stay. The worst outcome is an interview with an actual person. I get called in about four times a year because I'm on performance review due to my less than wholly subservient attitude to authority. I'm careful to keep it at low level annoyance not warranting actual action but I overstepped it a couple of years ago and got an official fine for causing public offence. That, plus my long running hair feud, got me on the 'potential for poor citizenship' list. I sat there for hours fighting off boredom by occupying my mind with composing a tune until eventually my number flashed on the screen. I walked over to the row of cubicles, flicked the ID on my bracelet and pressed my eyes to the scanner. ID and iris matched and the programme started. 

The trick of course is to lie. Like everyone else in Esperance who has any sense, I have become expert at saying what is expected. I therefore recorded that I had a healthy number of sexual encounters in the three turns since my last appraisal though in truth I'm a virgin and resigned to staying that way. I asserted my complete satisfaction with my job and that I had no complaints as to the organisation of the City. Everything was as good as it could possibly be and I was entirely optimistic about my future. Once I'd completed the questions I sat and waited for my result. It came up as acceptable. Then the personal notes appeared. I confirmed that I had paid off my fine for causing public offence and answered the more detailed questions relating to attitude and citizenship that resulted from my having been in trouble with authority and waited again. When the screen flashed that this time no personal interview was required I couldn't stop myself letting my breath out in a whoosh of relief. I lost no time in quitting the cubicle and the building. Only when I stepped off the scaler at the next level did I finally relax.

I was walking across the square to my door when a voice hailed me. I looked up. My next door neighbour, Sol was leaning on the wall outside her door.

"You're home early."

"Appraisal."

"You still on performance review?"

"Yes but this is the second time I've had no personal interview so may be they'll slip it to half yearly."

Sol started laughing "You wish! Do you want a kaftee? Come up any way. I've got something to give you."