Survival Job

Once everyone had settled into their seats, a man stepped up to the lectern at the front of the conference room. Behind him, a PowerPoint slide with the AllGo corporate colors and a whimsical font indicated that his name was Mr. Dudley. Exhibit B was the name “Mr. Dudley” stitched onto the left breast of his AllGo branded golf shirt. Barring new evidence to the contrary, it was a good bet that this guy’s name was Mr. Dudley. 

“Good evening,” said Mr. Dudley. “My name is Mr. Dudley.”

Anne sighed. Five minutes in, and this was already taking forever. 

An all night seminar directly on the heels of a 10-7 shift would’ve easily been the worst part of her day, if not for the fact that Anne had been evicted from her basement apartment earlier that morning. In a small saving grace, the bread truck she drove (a relic from her family’s now-defunct bakery) turned out to be big enough to hold all the art supplies she had amassed over the years. Thinking about the beloved tools of her preferred trade - a chaotic collection of paints, plasters, palette knives, power saws, rolls of paper, coils of rope, jugs of darkroom and etching chemicals - just sitting there in the AllGo parking lot pushed Anne’s heart deep into the pit of her stomach. She really did not want to be here.

For a time, Anne had been able to make a living as a freelance artist, but in the age of the smartphone and Google images and AI, the demand for original art had cratered. In an effort to extract herself from the wreckage, Anne had reluctantly taken a job at an AllGo warehouse (“All the things you need…to go!”) picking and packing the never-ending stream of online orders that had made the e-retail giant bigger than US Steel. Anne hit her numbers comfortably and flew mostly under the radar of the various managers, associate managers, supervising managers and other sundry tablet jockeys that prowled the sprawling warehouse floor on their AllGo branded Segway scooters. The job didn’t pay enough, but she had managed to stay afloat, at least until that morning.

In a twist of timing both hilarious and depressing, a newly-unhoused Anne had arrived at AllGo to find that her commitment to invisibility had somehow gotten her flagged as potential management material. “You couldn’t pay me to sit through one of those awful training seminars,” Anne thought when she read the notice….then she read the part about getting paid double-time and ruefully recanted.

Three other people in golf shirts that matched Mr. Dudley’s (name on the left breast, AllGo logo on the right, pique knit performance fabric for the ultimate in both fit and breathability) stood off to one side of the lectern, next to a frosted floor-to-ceiling window that ran the length of the large conference room. Anne had never seen these people before and since they didn’t even rate a PowerPoint slide, she gave herself the little treat of ignoring them.

She had seen all seven of her fellow management candidates around the warehouse, though - in particular the tall, skinny guy with the crooked smile who somehow managed to make the reflective safety vest and dorky lifting belt he wore for back support look kind of cool. If they were allowed a break at some point tonight, Anne thought that maybe she’d finally introduce herself. At this point, what did she have to lose?

“Now, most workplace activations like this one open up with some kind of cringey icebreaker that everybody dreads,” said Mr. Dudley.

Anne knew a setup when she heard one. 

“…so let’s get started with ours!”

Anne thought she heard a muffled “oof” from Crooked Smile’s direction, but it was quickly drowned out by Mr. Dudley and the other Golf Shirts howling like they were front row center for Steve Martin at the Universal Amphitheatre in 1978.

“This icebreaker,” Mr. Dudley said, “is called ‘Build a Shake.’ You’ll break up into pairs to create a fun secret handshake. The team with the coolest shake gets to pick where we order our midnight snack, anyplace you want.”

As everyone got to their feet and started to partner up, Anne’s breath quickened when she noticed Crooked Smile making a beeline towards her.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m Matt.”

“Anne,” said Anne. 

“We should probably get cracking,” said Matt. “Not to judge books by their covers, but some of these people look like they’re capable of picking Quiznos.”

Anne laughed out loud, for the first time in a while.

The icebreaker was indeed cringey, but damn if it didn’t actually break the ice. As they worked on their handshake, Matt’s easy nature and the way he pressed his calloused palms into hers gave Anne a warm, fluttery feeling in her stomach. 

“When Mr. Dudley sees our shake,” she said, “he’s gonna be glad he stopped by after shooting that toothpaste commercial and before leaving to shoot the one for self-tanner.”

“Stop being funny,” Matt laughed. “If they find out we’ve got personalities, we’ll never get promoted.”

With the votes tabulated, Anne and Matt’s handshake was deemed the coolest and they chose La Fogata, the best Mexican place in town. Crazy good guacamole.

“Now that we’ve had a little fun, let’s talk a little shop,” said Mr. Dudley. “I think we can all agree that there’s real dignity in a good day’s work. And here at AllGo, it’s about even more than that.”

He advanced the PowerPoint to reveal a slide of AllGo’s billionaire CEO John Winthrop holding a golden shovel at some kind of groundbreaking ceremony. Winthrop was staring right down the barrel of the camera, with his eyes a little too wide and his smile a little too broad. You wouldn’t call him bad looking per se, but Winthrop definitely had that free-floating weirdness that often attaches itself to the ultrawealthy.

“When Mr. Winthrop founded AllGo,” continued Mr. Dudley, "it was with the belief that every human being has a calling. That we were each put here on earth to serve a purpose, and to ignore or defy one’s purpose was to travel a very treacherous road indeed.”

Anne couldn’t help but think about her truck full of art supplies in the parking lot, and how traveling that road had led her to this conference room. The notion that she might have been put on earth to pack boxes for a company that would mail you anything from dish soap to dildos was not a pleasant one.

“So tonight, we’re going to take a little field trip,” said Mr. Dudley. “Each of you is going to have the opportunity to teach us about your purpose in the warehouse. We’ll learn how each of us fits into the master plan, then head back here for our midnight snack.”

The field trip was every bit as interesting as you might expect. At one point, Matt feigned passing out from boredom, clunking his head onto Anne’s shoulder and quietly snoring in her ear. His shampoo smelled like almonds, which she really liked.

As the tour stretched into its second thrilling hour, Anne noticed something.

“Hey,” she said to the woman who had just shown them how AllGo handled returns and exchanges. “What happened to your handshake partner?”

“Oh yeah,” said Matt. “The guy in the New Jersey Devils hat.”

“I think he went home,” said Returns and Exchanges.

“Dang,” said Matt. “The night is young and we’ve already got our first casualty.”

“No great loss,” said Returns and Exchanges. “I don’t know what he was doing here in the first place. You saw our handshake, it sucked.”

Eventually, they completed the circuit of all seven of their work stations – Devils Hat Guy having had the decency to bail before giving his presentation – and returned to the conference room. The now aptly named midnight snack had been sitting for a little while, but the guacamole was still amazing. Mr. Dudley strolled by the small table where Anne and Matt were eating, and Anne stopped him. “Didn’t you guys order anything?”

“That’s very thoughtful of you to ask, Anne. But don’t worry about us…we’ll have our snack break in a bit.” Continuing on to the front of the room, Mr. Dudley addressed the group. “It’s nice to share a meal with your community, isn’t it? As you know, we’re big on community here at AllGo. Like a jigsaw puzzle, we can make something beautiful when we all fit together.”

“When I was a kid,” Matt whispered to Anne, “my grandmother had a jigsaw puzzle that made a picture of a bunch of different kinds of toilets.” Anne actually snorted at this, but covered it up with a brief coughing fit well enough that Mr. Dudley didn’t seem to notice. 

“At the management level,” he continued, “this idea of community becomes even more important. You’re here tonight because we think you have certain gifts. And we want to absorb those gifts into our management team to repay Mr. Winthrop for the many blessings he has bestowed upon us.”

Anne's brow furrowed. “Looks like the midnight snack comes with a glass of Kool-Aid,” she whispered to Matt. But the vibe in the room had shifted, and neither of them felt like laughing anymore.

“An opportunity like this is rare,” Mr. Dudley continued. “It requires that you expel all other distractions from your hearts and minds…but I think you’ll find it’s worth the sacrifice. Sharon, would you join me up here, please?”

With a gasp of excitement, Returns and Exchanges made haste to the front of the room.

“Sharon,” said Mr. Dudley, “tonight you’ve shown us exactly what we’re looking for. Would you like to continue on the management track?”

“Absolutely,” beamed Sharon.

“That’s terrific,” said Mr. Dudley. 

Snapping his jaw wide open at the hinge, Mr. Dudley sank his teeth deep into Sharon’s skull, shearing off the crown of her head with an ungodly cracking sound that Anne knew would never fully leave her ears. Slurping out a chunk of Sharon’s brain with his tongue, Mr. Dudley let out a high-pitched, gurgling shriek. The other Golf Shirts, responding to the invitation, lunged forward as one and, like a pack of khaki-clad wolves, began to feast on the insides of Sharon’s head.