It was going to be a warmer-than-usual day in Hell — that much was clear from the tone of Serena’s voice.
When the Middleton Punishment Support hotline gets a call to tweak one of our correctional designs, most of the time Serena and her staff can handle it on their own. They can fine tune penance parameters and dial things down when mitigating circumstances are brought to their attention. It’s common for the support team to tailor adjustments for individuals – the punishment must fit the crime. When they call me in, it’s because something’s gone extra wrong.
You see, when you say “There’s a special place in Hell for…” that’s my team designing it. We continually innovate to meet the demands of a fast-changing environment and most of the time our products are extraordinarily robust and effective. Unfortunately, though, we’ve had trouble finding enough qualified staff to adequately chastise the sheer volume of humans that have come to us, so in recent years our organizational mission has shifted from active recruitment to deterrence. My team got a lot of attention with one of our recent lines, which achieved a 43% reduction in negative behaviors within the target pre-decease demographic.
I’m very proud of our work. But once in a while things get really bolloxed up. Usually it’s because humans think up novel transgressions faster than we can build solutions. In this case, though, it turned out they got some help from our side.
“Angela, we got a Code 666 from Roy and Reggie,” Serena sighed. Fabulous: the Intake team made conflicting promises to humans. That’s always a delicate situation because our promises are taken very seriously, and any inability on our part to meet our contracts, no matter how complex the specs or how insignificant the recipient, becomes a branding problem. You could say our reputation suffers. Would you sell your soul to an organization that might not deliver your heart’s desire? So when Intake Reps make mutually exclusive agreements with humans, my team often gets involved to engineer a fix that satisfies all parties.
“Which product?” I asked, dreading the likely answer: College Admissions. There are always a lot of calls about that one. The Intake Department pushes it aggressively, especially in towns like Middleton, because it’s such low hanging fruit with all the helicopter parents. Most of the College Admissions support calls are for Code 13s, so I wondered what in God’s name Reggie had done to cause a 666.
“Sweetest kid in the world,” Serena said. “I looked over the narrative. Justin doesn’t deserve the Hell he’s going through. He’s never going to be one of our clients. It’s the parents. Reggie has been working the dad and Roy’s been talking to the mom. Both parents have already signed off. It’s just that both want different things for the kid.”
“Did you look at the contracts?” I asked. “Aren’t there any terms and conditions limiting our liability for conflicts with preexisting contracts?” That’s supposed to be standard boilerplate, but sometimes the reps use obsolete forms that don’t include it. “I checked,” she said. “Nada.”
“Hell’s Bells!” I said. “I know they’re not soulmates, but don’t those guys ever talk to each other? And aren’t they supposed to have different territories so that stuff like this doesn’t happen?”
“I don’t know what happened, but here we are,” she said.
I decided to begin my investigation with Reggie. Among a team of demanding Intake Reps, his importunity is legendary, and I figured I might as well start with the squeaky wheel.
“My paperwork went in first,” he said, as soon as he saw me. “I get priority.”
“What did your prospect want?”
“Football scholarship for his son at Notre Dame, star player. Then a partnership for the kid at a top law firm, he doesn’t care which. No biggie. I already got the football coach on board, and an SAT surrogate. I don’t wait for things to happen.” He pointed to a row of award plaques on the wall “There’s my witnesses. I deliver.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes and merely tried to look stern. “You know that you’re not supposed to start with that stuff until the paperwork goes through. We have process. To avoid situations like this.”
His scowl could have powered some of our mid-size furnaces. “Yeah? Well, it never would have happened if that little son-of-a… What in Hades was Roy doing talking to the mother? I had already filed a draft contract for the father with the key provisions when Roy-the-Joy started talking to her. Check the timestamps. He’s trying to bump up his numbers and take mine down at the same time. No way am I letting that little turd elbow me out of my Corruption Disruption award.”
Roy told it differently. “The good lady I am working with is only concerned with her son’s welfare. She trembles for his well-being in the beloved but rough and tumble world we know as college football and she cannot consent to his participation in it.” He took a sip of espresso from a tiny elegant china cup, replacing it silently on its saucer. “She furthermore observes that the child is of an artistic temperament. My friend Reggie’s commitment to his client’s wishes is admirable, but in this case, it’s entirely out of the question. The young man is to be given a first-rate education at a top architecture program (negotiations are underway at Cornell, Mother’s own alma mater), to be followed by graduate work and a leadership position at a top firm with an international portfolio.”
It was an infernal mess.
“Could we get on a call with all of us, and both of the clients?” I asked them. “Can we maybe negotiate something?”
Reggie shot that one down out of hand. “There’s nothing to negotiate. I got there first. He’s trying to cut the line.” Roy was not more encouraging. “Of course I’d be delighted to contribute to an amicable arrangement, but I fear that Reggie and his client may prove intransigent. Unless our organization has a solution to propose that my esteemed colleague will embrace wholeheartedly, I do not intend to give my client the minutest pangs of anxiety by suggesting that her stated wishes may not be honored.”
My team is very talented and creative. Best of the best. But we’re not miracle workers. If you tell us “Make it crunchy” and also “Make it gooey” you’re not going to like the results. Case in point: deep fried bacon-wrapped Snickers. (That was a special project of ours.) I always try to head off those types of conflicting requirements before we start building, but it was evident that we weren’t going to get any help from Intake in this case.
I decided to reach out to the clients directly, even though my team has been told not to do that. (Intake tells us we give them too much information and scare them off. But isn’t that the point?) In my experience, tiny details offered by humans that Intake wouldn’t notice or think to ask about can make all the difference between an effective solution and a fruitless one.
The father was exactly as Reggie had portrayed him. My suggested compromise of Justin’s playing football while participating in an Architecture program was greeted with a five minute stream of oaths, the substance of which boiled down to a view that programs in the visual arts were incompatible with both Justin’s procreative opportunities and his father’s status at the office and club. The mother was not more amenable to the concept of Intellectual Property law, specializing in protections for artistic content. “Those vultures? My sweet boy would be picked clean by them on the first day. My husband, bless his heart, is an ass. He does not understand what it means to create. To have one’s ideas take shape in steel and stone, to make your presence felt by thousands.”
There was no way around it. I would have to involve senior management. Situations impacting reputation that cannot be resolved through technical solutions are always of concern and our leadership likes to take a direct hand in setting the spin. Which is fine with me, since I can’t spin. But none of the senior managers, in Intake, Support, or Technical wanted to touch this case — the College Admissions product has a bit of a reputation for raising difficult questions.
Which is how I found myself in the office of Lucy, the big boss, the head of the firm.
“This is all nonsense,” she said. “I’ve heard that name before. Middleton, right?” Middleton isn’t one of our largest territories, but it’s big enough to have attracted attention from upper management. “I think….” she clicked around her screen. “Yes, of course. I’m afraid we’ve got a bit of a disappointment in store for both Reggie and Roy. There’s an enterprise-level agreement with Middleton for College Admissions that’s been in place since last year. In return for preferential acceptances based on school system reputation it specifically prohibits contracts with individual humans.” She smiled sourly at me. “You’re off the hook.”
“Thank you!” I cried. “I was starting to lose sleep over this 666. It’s a matter of honor for me to deliver on our contracts.”
“Yes, well, you’re not the only one. This is where I’m going to have a lot of cleaning up to do. You know,” she sighed, “this enterprise agreement is a 3 year trial that we’ve put in place in a handful of markets. We’re considering extending it to other similar territories because, as I’m sure you’re aware,” glaring at me,“your College Admissions product has been a huge headache for the support organization. It’s too complicated. We’re looking for ways to simplify.”
Stab me to the heart with a silver dagger! That tool is some of our all-time best work!
It’s complicated because it’s so flexible. She should ask Serena what it was like when the support organization had to manage the 50 different tools that this one replaced!
A few days later, I received a meeting invite to bring together all of the parties, just as I had originally proposed. Before the meeting, I reviewed the entire case, to make sure I had all my facts straight. The more I looked at it, the worse I felt for the kid. Serena had done her homework and gathered a lot of information, to help my team figure out some options. By all accounts he was actually very talented, and would be successful in pretty much anything he wished to set his mind to. It was easy to see what the best path for him was, if only his parents would let him follow it.
In the conference room, the parents sat glaring at each other from opposite sides of the table, flanked by their respective Intake reps, Reggie glowering at Roy, Roy with a studied smirk. I was mesmerized by light that sparkled from the father’s diamond pinky ring as he brushed a speck from his Armani. I marveled that the mother could sit up straight under the weight of her jewel-encrusted necklace. Serena and I darted anxious glances at each other. Justin, at one end of the table, picked at his fingernails, and Lucy, at the other end, sat ramrod straight with a countenance of granite.
After summarizing the case Lucy concluded, “Under the circumstances, I think the best thing would be to leave it up to Justin. What do you say, young man? Would you rather go to Notre Dame to play football and become a lawyer or go to architecture school?” The kid lowered his eyes, blushing.
“Well, actually, ma’am…” He glanced at his mother and then at his father and then quickly back at his knees. “I’ve…umm….” He took a deep breath. “I was going to tell you soon, guys. I got the acceptance yesterday. I want to do comic illustration. There’s a great program for it. I’m in.”
The stunned silence was first broken by the father. He stood up and slammed the table. “No son of mine is going to any faggot art program! I won’t have it!” Not to be outdone by her husband, the mother broke in, “My darling! Comic illustration! There’s no cache, no status! You can always do comic illustration on the side. Architecture training will hone your artistic skills,” she wheedled. “It will make you a better comic artist. And you’ll be someone!”
He looked up at her. “No, Mom. I don’t want to be someone. I’m just me.”
“Of course not,” bellowed the father. “At least not that kind. Take my word for it, you’ll love being a lawyer at a top firm. You don’t know what it’s like to have that raw power to channel billions of dollars.”
“Dad, you don’t know what it’s like to have the power to make people laugh, to channel minds with a picture.”
His mother broke out, “Don’t expect a single penny for your tuition or expenses, young man, if you persist in this ridiculous idea.” Her husband, for once, nodded vigorously.
Justin said “That’s OK, guys. They’re giving me a full ride.”
His mother looked crestfallen, but his father eyed him with puzzled curiosity. Lucy raised an eyebrow at me. I gave a little shrug. As Amazing Grace Hopper (not one of ours) used to say, it’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.
Lucy adjusted her smile and turned to the parents. “I believe our work here is done. Since our organization was at fault in offering you unenforceable contracts, we will consider them dissolved and return your deposit. Your souls are at your disposal, once more.” She stood up and held out a hand to each of them. “I don’t think it’s widely understood among humans (or our Intake organization),” (frowning at Reggie and Roy), “but our mission is mostly preventive. Contrary to most of your popular literature, we are not interested in swelling our ranks — we’ve already got far more than we were designed to manage. Let me suggest you take this opportunity to make my job easier by reflecting on this incident. Please remember that if your status-seeking activities become my headache, I will have no qualms about asking my technical team,” nodding towards me, “to share my discomfort with you.” She chucked Justin under the chin, with an almost friendly, “We all have great expectations for you, sir. I trust your parents will, too, in time.”
I’ve been keeping an eye on Justin for the last few years. He’s about to graduate with honors and a job, and his first graphic novel is set to be published next month. His parents are reconciled to his peculiar form of success. A new Intake rep, Rex, was working with them and had prepared a contract based on one of our Ponzi scheme products, but an anonymous note from a well-wisher warned Justin to visit home the weekend it was to be signed. And with all the bustle of exhibiting him to neighbors and eligible interns, well … the contract just kind of fell through the cracks.
It’s never fun when Lucy gives my team special requirements.
Dawn Cohen is a Belle Mead resident who has designed technical solutions for a wide variety of clients. She enjoys writing fiction on the theme of life with science and technology. Several of her stories have been published in US1’s Summer Fiction Issue.
