Family-ing Remotely

It feels strange to share another person’s narrative. You know, kinda like filching a portion of the evidence that they were in the present time that the experience took place. Plus, the nuances present in each retelling of narrative make them unique. But I proceed either way.

When I first got hired for my job I was so excited. This was my first position post grad and it came at the right time. Bills needed to be paid, mouths fed, etc.

My first week of work went fairly well because I was still in my training period, so there was some room for marginal error. My co-workers emphasized that you learn more from destroying a giant squid axon than you do from just leaving the squid alone in the first place. The saying was strange and it really never caught on for me, but I got the gist of it.

When the weeks continued on and I transitioned from training to full fledged analyst, I realized that it was starting to become more difficult to family. I wanted to make sure that I was effective in each of my roles as worker, son, brother, friend, worker, son-worker, worker-friend, brother-worker, worker-worker. Even as I retell, I think there may have been some minor red flags regarding how intense role blurring would become. In good faith I decided that I would talk to my boss, to discuss ways to alleviate the ostensibly immediate tensions between such important aspects of my life. They’d been at the company for over 40 years, so I figured they’d have some wisdom to impart.

“hi, boss. well weather we have had this day.”

“i am incapable of expressing that sentiment with more efficacy.”

“ha ha. well, to not take your time up in a great manner, i’ll express my dismay. this has been a short path — ”

“dijkstra’s.”

“ha ha. no, boss. what I mean to say is . . . i can no longer family well and work well with work.”

“this is easily solved. do come to follow with me.”

Surprisingly, the conversation with my boss didn’t go too bad and shortly after, it took me to a large room hidden in the bowels of the company. The arrangement of the room was spatially aesthetic. Boxes upon boxes were spread about, separated by no more than four feet across. When I looked inside of the boxes I saw each of my co-workers, typing away on their company PCs.

“you all, hi. well weather we have had this day.”

No one responded. It was the best ice breaker that I had in my arsenal and no one even took a second to look away from their monitors. To be honest, I don’t they could have, even if they desired to.

“boss, hi. they do not laugh.”

“expected much. they cannot. here we create symbiosis between material worker and PC-worker. now they are one. we solve work well.”

“do they family well?”

“it is in the benefits package. have you now read it?”

“i can now read it. boss, sorry.”

I took a few minutes to go over the benefits package. I was so enamored by the initial offer, given my family’s immediate need for an additional income source that everything else got relegated to syntactic sugar.

“boss, on the last page it says, ‘clones cannot unionize.’ is this an esoteric?”

“ha ha. no. you see, we care about family well and work well. we provide our material workers with luxury box and base amenities. you can work well here, forever. we guarantee work well security.”

“what of the clones?”

“oh, ha. yes, we send clone home to family well. you may family remotely to mitigate any possibility of no well.”

It was enticing. I would be able to keep the minimal revenue generated by my labor, the company would continue filching my surplus labor, and I’d be able to family well. I did initially have thoughts of unionizing for wage stability but my co-workers seemed fine, so that expelled that fleeting chimera.

“boss, sounds good. thumbs up.”

So, here I am, transmitting my consciousness (or at least a continuous stream of my working memory) to a clone. We get to do this on Saturdays, to get some indirect face time with family. It was in the benefits package. Unfortunately, the clones are autonomous, even during the weekend merger. So, who knows if it’s relaying this with accuracy.