The Michael Parable

Employee #432

 This is the story of a man named Michael. Michael worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee #432. Employee #432's job was simple: he sat at his desk in room 432 and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk, telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order. This is what Employee #432 did every day of every month of every year, and although others might have considered it soul-rending, Michael relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been made exactly for this job, even though he did occasionally peep through his window to say hello to his neighboring colleague. And Michael was happy.

  And then one day, something very peculiar happened, something that would forever change Michael, something he would never quite forget. He had been at his desk for nearly an hour when he realized that not one single order had arrived on the monitor for him to follow. No one had shown up to give him instructions or call a meeting. As a matter of a fact, this time, even his neighbor, Employee #427 did not return his greeting. Never in all his years at the company had this happened, this complete isolation. 

Something was very clearly wrong.