The Unbearable Banality of Being

The rain beat steadily against the carriage window, tracing little streams along the glass that flowed in chaotic and unpredictable patterns like a delta. It had been this way for what felt like weeks, the shortening days of Autumn morphing into what seemed like a single one of continuous darkness, damp and drizzle. A fitting background for the monotonous misery of the commute. Despite the chill outside one of the windows was open, not fully open of course as that was impossible, but inward leaning, at an angle. It was just enough to allow the bite of the breeze to seep through as the train crept along at a snail's pace towards its destination. The cold air, smelling strongly of diesel fumes, mixed with the scent of warm bodies and wet clothing. If you looked long enough at the crowd you would see steam rising like breath as coats and hoods dried. 

He had already been on the train longer than the schedule should have allowed, the twenty minute journey turning into thirty. It wasn't his fault that the company had relocated to a building only public transport could travel to, but he knew the familiar lines by heart. How 'Employees should make sure they leave plenty of time to allow for possible delays'. Corporate code for 'if you're late, it's your fault no matter the reason'. Stifling a yawn with a gloved hand reminded him just how early he had left home to try and avoid that conversation. A home that he could only afford if he had this job, but that he was barely in because of this job. 

There was a sudden jolt and the whole mass of passengers lurched forward as one, like a shifting tide reacting to the Moon's pull. A body brushed against him, a voice apologised, he nodded his own response of forgiveness. The carriage was full to bursting, it was hardly the fault of any one of them that they would bounce around like pinballs with every motion of the vehicle. Bumping off one another like dodgems but ultimately unable to fall over due to the crush, it was a damn good thing he wasn't claustrophobic. A tinny voice played out a crackled and garbled message from the antiquated speaker system, the usual apology for the delay. Was it really an apology if nothing ever changed? Glancing at his watch as the time crept towards forty he sighed and stared back out into the gloom beyond the window and at the city of grey monuments and towering crane's. 

One of them was his destination, a tower block that tried to look different to all the others but ultimately looked exactly the same. Modern, sterile, boring but designed and built by people who thought it wasn't. A great glass monstrosity, reaching up into the sky like it was grasping at the air with girder fingers. It was frustrating that he could see it, so close and yet here he was, an inmate trapped in this prison on wheels, unable to get out and just walk the remaining few hundred metres. The skyline faded as his breath misted up the window and he was brought back from his daydream by the explosive sound of someone sneezing close to his ear. He even felt the globules of moisture as they splattered against his skin. Then as if it had been a signal the whole living mass moved as one again and the sqeual of steel wheels announced the movement of the train.

A few minutes passed before the brakes made the same hideous noise, the rows and rows of identical platforms spread out uniformly into the distance. Each with a goliath parked up and spilling its human contents, like guts, as they disembarked and hurried away to their various destinations. There was the hiss and groan of the rusty doors as they forced their way open, pushing aside the crowd that had stood too close and now struggled to maintain their balance. Within seconds he felt as if he were being swept along as the ocean of people began to push for the doors, the polite apologies of earlier now forgotten amongst the desperation to get out and onto final destinations. Once on the platform he stepped aside from the crush so as to walk unhindered, besides he was already late. What was the point in rushing? 

He felt the damp air once again as the Victorian roof above the platform was pockmarked with rotten holes like a scattergun had erupted through it, allowing the drip, drip of drizzle to seep through. He was carrying a bag over one shoulder, the kind that could be used for carrying anything incognito, which he adjusted to a comfortable position as he walked. It was nondescript and dark like his mood, the weather and his coat  of which he lifted the collar up around his neck and pulled down a hat over his ears to protect him, if only momentarily from the wet wind as he headed towards the exit stairwell that led down to the tunnel beneath the station. Most of the people that had been present on the carriage had already disappeared in this direction, needlessly so it would turn out as in the near distance he could now see the usual bottleneck of too many passengers and not enough ticket turnstiles. The sound of beep, beep, beep, echoed in the tiled hallway as each person pushed their crumpled ticket through the electronic gates. By the time it was his turn he'd already rummaged in his pocket and found his season pass, the season pass that the machine no longer read as it was made of the flimsiest of material that rubbed away no matter how it was stored. An employee in a high visibility vest nodded to him and manually opened the gate on his behalf. He'd been getting that done for weeks now and only once had someone suggested he get the ticket replaced, at his expense of course.

He crossed the concourse, narrowly avoiding slipping on the ice like tiles and slaloming between the half full buckets and wet floor signs and emerged out into the square. It had once been a busy road of multiple-laned traffic and low hanging smog but was now an expanse of granite grey pedestrianisation with the odd oasis of half dead tree sticking up from the ground. It looked like what might happen if someone who'd neve seen a public space had designed it. On one side rose the latest additions to the skyline,  and on the other, half demolished and much more aesthetically pleasing older ones, cursed to watch their fate slowly advance towards them. His destination was one of the newer soulless monstrosities, finished barely a year before and still looking as authoritarian and bland as it had on that day. Even the moss growing around the window panes lacked colour, just beige, pollution stained sponges. At the glass revolving doors he reached into his coat and pulled out a lanyard attached to a plastic card, identification that he belonged here. He held it a few centimetres from a plastic box and waited for it to make a beeping sound, before passing through the threshold. 

The foyer was well lit and painted bright neutral colours, giving it a sterile and scientific look. He passed by the reception desk where a nameless security guard was staring blankly at a laptop screen, catching a glimpse of the tv show he was watching while not doing anything security related, and headed in the direction of the elevators intending instead to use the staircase beyond. He only needed the first floor and found that using his feet was always quicker than relying on machinery. Another audible beep as he flashed the I.D. card once again and then at the top of the stairs a third time. Now on the right floor he swiped the card one last time and entered the office itself. For a building that housed a paperless and purely digital currency based company you'd be forgiven for thinking it housed a safe filled with bricks of bullion. He could already feel the eyes on him as he entered and he made no effort to check either his watch or the large clock above him on the wall in case that provoked a comment. Instead he muttered an apology full of falsities and complaints about the rail service and headed straight to his desk. Trudging past the faceless with their heads bowed and eyes glued to the dual monitors, his feet squelching on the carpet and leaving a breadcrumb trail of puddles behind, he hung his coat with several others, a mere of water forming below them, and pulled back the wheeled chair from his allotted space. 

He said a few words of pleasantries and good morning's to those sitting neatby, they're tired eyes reflecting the screens of spreadsheets and numerals and turned the power on for his own machine. It hummed loudly, its internal fan working hard to blow away the dust inevitably left over as the cleaner's, though employed to clean, were categorically disallowed from touching the desks. A bizarre situation that had led to thick grime on all working surfaces, breeding grounds of diseases that were to be touched by hand but a spotless, completely sterile floor. The monitor's lit up with a warning screen and a percentage based count, clearly some update had remotely taken place and he would have to wait several minutes while it was configured. Again he felt the need to apologise for not being able to get straight to work, someone nearby, more senior than himself acknowledged this momentarily. He rose again from the seat he had only moments ago sat in and after looking around to check if anyone else would want a hot drink and upon seeing steam rising from freshly filled cups all about, answered his own non verbalised question before heading off in the direction of the kitchenette. 

As he walked he caught snippets of conversation, gossip between others, activities that had taken place and names he didn't know between people he had only a mild connection with. The odd smile here and nod of recognition there from people who recognised him and he recognised back but nothing meaningful, just a simple acknowledgment of existence between them. He opened a cupboard and selected the least painfully cheerful mug available, avoiding any with clichés about Monday's or positive messages, and scooped in a spoonful of the bland, tasteless but, as had been advertised to him during his interview, free coffee granules. As he waited for the kettle to boil he stared out of the window, large and open, designed to let in as much natural light as possible and encourage a positive work environment. Today only emphasising the gloom of the black clouds, the frigid rain and the view of bland industry and meaningless concrete architecture of the city. The window was like a mirror looking in upon his soul, empty, vacuous, a vision of banality. The kettle began to steam and he poured the boiling liquid over the coffee, stirred it several times and then added milk. There was a stench of some kind that emerged from the fridge when he removed and returned the milk, evidently the laminated notice stuck to the door about everyone doing their bit and leaning up after themselves had gone unheeded. He took a sip from the mug and then headed back to his desk. 

When he arrived he could see that whatever update had been taking place had now finished, a corporate logo with a background of fields at sunset, or sunrise as he couldn't tell which it was meant to be, was emblazoned on the dual screens. Some kind of stock image that was probably on a hundred motivational posters around the building, undersigned with the words "Challenge" or "Desire". He put the coffee down and it spilled slightly, a splash staining the desk and a dribble of it running down the side of the mug. He swore to himself and one of the people nearby looked over at him grinning, as if this mild inconvenience was the most hilarious joke ever to happen, before holding out a small packet of tissues. He took one and mopped up the mess, tossing the used paper into a waste bin a few metres away, landing it like a three pointer. He was slightly disappointed the spilled coffee got more attention than this feat of slight athleticism. 

He typed out a username and password, waited for it to load up a desktop and then typed in another username and password, repeating this process three more times, signing in to various pieces of software that were essential for the daily tasks he had to go through. He sighed in frustration as one of the passwords appeared to be wrong, he could’ve sworn he had only changed it the day before and he had definitely entered it correctly. An uppercase letter, a special character, a number, and all the other unnecessary garbage that he had drilled into him in numerous meetings about security despite, as he thought to himself, to even get to this point any wrong un would have had to have passed through numerous secure doors. He looked left, then right quickly to make sure no one was watching and opened up a saved email with a long list of passwords, it wasn’t his fault the company insisted on using so many different pieces of software right? How was anyone meant to just remember all these, especially when they had to be changed every few weeks. He found the one he was after, of course he’d been entering the old one he had changed from, and finished logging on. 

He paused for a moment and lifted the coffee cup to his lips, just as a notification appeared on the bottom corner of the screen. He didn’t even bother opening it, the summary that flashed up said enough; “why aren’t you logged into the phones?”. He leaned over to the desk phone and typed in a pin code, twice, because for some reason that’s just the procedure he had to do to log in. The phone immediately began ringing at a shrill and unnecessarily loud volume that made him jump in his seat. Before answering he quickly punched the volume down button several times with his index finger, lowering the sound from horrendous down to just plain annoying. He put down the coffee, it was a waste of time making it anyway as it would definitely be cold by the time he had time to think let alone the time to drink it, and answered the phone.

A shrill and unpleasant voice began speaking half way through his spiel of "good morning, how can I help you?", Asking him how he was that morning and then carrying on before he could even reply. This part of every call really grated on him, the false politeness of questioning the other on their wellbeing  but not actually caring enough to allow that person to respond. He could literally feel the superiority complex coursing through the copper wires as the voice began immediately making demands, not requests, actual demands. They had apparently been waiting over an hour for a response for one of their customers, funnily enough when he located the proposed agreement for that customer it had only been received mere minutes before. This didn't placate the voice. They insisted their customer was a priority, that they had to catch a flight in less than an hour, although when questioned why anyone would apply for a financial product on their way to the airport they were less forthcoming. Now came the least pleasant section of the phone call, the apology that he would have to give despite knowing full well it was not only anything he had done wrong, how could he, he'd only just started his day? But also to pretend that the pomposity of someone raising their voice was fine and that this was how someone could get what they wanted. He did this, they accepted his response and thankfully, this time at least, didn't mention the amount of business that they provided to his employer as a coup de grace of 'get it done, immediately'. He gathered himself, he did all of what he said he would do, he hung up and when he was sure the call recording had ended he muttered an expletive and symbolically raised his middle finger to the phone. Several people nearby noticed, one or two let out a quiet laugh, the manager who'd sent the email telling him to log into the phones wasn't one of them.

For the rest of the morning he followed this routine, hang up a call, begin a task, half finish it, get interrupted by the phone, listen to the often irate and threatening voice on the other end that always had something incredibly important to be angry about, deal with them them in a way that made it seem like he cared about their problem deeply and he would strive to personally help them achieve their goal, hang up the call, immediately not care about whatever they wanted, go back to the task he had paused moments before. Over and over again he did this, like a merry dance between two pugilists, taking the hits so that he could eventually come out on top, eventually finish what he started seconds, then minutes, then a whole half hour ago and still not succeeded, and he waited and he prayed for the bell. 

That bell came, figuratively, at his lunch hour. He knew it had been approaching as he had seen the weary faces of the late shift staff filing down the office towards the available desks. He suddenly realised that after today he had no idea what his shift pattern was like, he hoped to himself that there wasn't going to be any extra weekend working or additional late shifts. As he tried to open up the folder containing the rota on the shared drive, it merely told him it was already locked for editing. He looked up in the direction of the manager who was apparently working on it and saw an empty space where they would normally be. No doubt some immensely important meeting had dragged that person away from the task of completing a rota, a rota that thirty people relied upon to tell them how their lives were going to be lived for the next month. He got up and filed past the late shift staff, one or two of them nodded a greeting to him, oh how he did not envy them today, and exited through a door towards the break out area.

He crossed through the empty break room, evidently he was the first person to down tools and flee in the whole building. It was a large and mainly open space, a modern designed room with minimal furniture that was concentrated in one end of the room, a long stand up table on the other side and a few armchairs with high and tall headrest designed to cancel out sound. He had sat in these plenty of tims before and could confirm they did just that, although with the effect of making him feel like he was sitting in a bubble underwater. There was also a pool table, some kind of computer gaming driving simulator setup, he had never bothered to use it and couldn’t think of anyone else who had, and perhaps most bizarrely of all a pile of the strangest selection of books he’d ever seen. Once he had flicked through them out of boredom and discovered amongst the usual cheap fiction and magazines a book of photographs of Celine Dion with babies dressed as fairies and nymphs. 

He opened the glass exit door and descended the stairway to the lobby, it was far busier than it had been when he had arrived this morning. A group of business attired people were standing around the reception desk, a clipboard being passed around between them which the security guard, who earlier had been watching TV, was now frantically trying to get back in order to be able to use the scribbled down information to print up what looked to be visitor passes. There was a buzz of excited chatter that echoed slightly off the lobby tiles, he passed by the crowd, his nose attacked on all fronts by a heady mixture of drying raincoats and salesman’s aftershave, and exited out of the revolving doors into the street. 

As soon as he stepped outside he regretted it, he had forgotten to collect his coat and although the earlier rain had dissipated away the low hanging clouds of dark granite made him uneasy about surviving the trip to the close by shop without falling victim to another downpour. Weighing up the risk he decided to take the chance and moving at a brisk pace walked down the gradual decline of the disabled ramp entrance and out into the square. It took him less than five minutes to arrive at his destination, one of those stores that are owned and operated by a supermarket chain but pretend to be local and convenient, the price of which being everything costs twice as much as it should and the rigid uniformity of every single one of them looking exactly the same. He squeezed down the cramped aisles and had to excuse himself on more than one occasion as he found himself being jostled from multiple angles by hands and elbows that reached out in front of him, behind him, under him, to grab at products on the rapidly emptying shelves. The lunch time rush was truly on and he thought to himself that if he wasn’t careful there wouldn’t be much choice in the selection remaining. He picked up an overpriced packaged sandwich and the accompanying items that made up a ‘meal deal’, a phrase he hated to his very core especially once he heard a nearby voice remark about how much good value it was. How can it be a deal if the price is inflated way beyond normal in the first place? He queued up impatiently, glancing towards the doorway to make sure the rain had not picked up again, and finding himself more and more frustrated by the time it was taking everyone else to use the exceedingly simple self service tills, especially when a checkout assistant had to stop serving customers in order to show a confused customer how they work. Finally it was his turn, he moved swiftly through the process like a man possessed, tapped his payment card, declined the need for a receipt, picked up the items and heard the unmistakable crash of an ocean of water outside. He’d chanced it and he’d lost.

He sprinted his way back to the office, feet pounding upon the rapidly flooding pavement, water splashing with each footfall as the square quickly became an inner city lake, water trapped by sea of concrete and bad drainage. By the time he reached the doors of the building he was soaked through, his hands cold, knuckles purple with the chill, clutching at the soggy sandwich package. The lobby was empty once again, evidently the important looking group of visitors had been hurried along to whatever meeting of grey hair and grey suits they had come for. The security guard appeared to have returned to his previous relaxed demeanour and although he couldn't see as he ascended the staircase towards the break room, he was sure they'd also returned to whatever TV show they'd been watching.

If the lobby was a bay of tranquillity the break room was now a busy commercial port. It had filled up to the point that many people were standing in groups due to the relative lack of seating, modern planning at its best he thought to himself. He counted himself lucky that he didn't appear to have been the only one caught out by the return of the rain, puddled footprints could be seen all around and at least a dozen other people showed distinctive patches of wetness on their clothing. The room was warm, at least he would dry off relatively fast if he could find a spot near one of the radiators, from the scent of the rainforest atmosphere plenty of others had had the same thoughts. 

He found a solo chair that appeared to be free, as he sat down and leaned his head back into the deep headrest he felt like he had dunked his head underwater. The room was still noisy, yes, but it was muffled and faroff, like the volume on a particularly loud movie playing through the wall of the adjoining theatre, he sighed to himself, it wasn't quite peace and quiet but it was at least something. In front of him stood the pool table, now surrounded by a group who were watching the current players and waiting their turn. The repetitive tock tock of the ball being struck by the cue and then systematically striking another ball had a kind of hypnosis to it. He recognised every person in the group by sight, they did this same routine every day, at every opportunity they could, lunch time especially but at other times when he had been working a different shift pattern he had found at least one of them practising alone. It was as if this was the only joyful distraction they had from the monotony of their daily life, ironic he thought, as it seemed just as repetitive. 

After a while the crowds in the room began to dissipate away, small groups at first and then more of a swarm as the approaching end of their lunch hours became more impending. The pool players stuck around the longest, they could hardly be expected to leave before someone had been declared the winner. As he rose up from the chair and wiped down the crumbs of the sandwich from himself he nodded in greeting in their general direction before he too headed back towards the afternoon’s slog. He had been asked a few times before if he wanted to join in but had always turned down the offer, not that he had anything against them persay and even appreciated the invite but he'd always considered himself the kind of person who was only ever any good at this kind of activity if he was inebriated.

He felt a slight chill as he passed through the familiar sets of security doors, the air conditioning hitting his cold and still slightly damp clothing. Climate control that kept the climate controlled perfectly at an uncomfortable temperature for everyone, neither warm nor cold, just unpleasant enough. The noise of the office took a second or two for him to get used to, after coming from the relative quiet of the seat he’d found in the break room he was now confronted by an almost solid wall of sound. A dozen conversations all happening at once, he caught snippets of them here and there, informal one’s between colleagues, more professional sounding one’s down phone lines from the staff who appeared shackled to their desk by telephone headsets. As he passed one desk he could hear the bellowing of the voice on the other end of the line and caught a glance at the face of the person having to suffer through it. A mixture of fear and sorrow was evident in their eyes, the kind of face that only comes about when being subjected to a torrent of abuse and being not allowed under any circumstances whatsoever to reply in kind or even put up a defence. They looked like they were on the verge of tears, he passed by without drawing their attention, he didn’t know what to do or say, he could’ve comforted them but that wouldn’t have stopped the disembodied, self-important and threatening voice from continuing its tirade. It was as if the humanity of conversation was paused as soon as the connection between the two ends of the line was made and nothing he could say or do would make it return. 

He reached his desk and sat back down, noticing that the time was a few minutes before he was due back, he signed himself in anyway, feeling the silent obligation to make up for the few minutes he was late that morning. He clicked through the few emails that had been sent while he was on lunch, most were general information ones to all staff that he deleted after no more than a cursory glance and one or two were passive aggressively asking for people to stop doing a particular thing or to make sure they carry out a task correctly. The kind of message that gets sent to everyone rather than just to the person that was known to be the culprit, a kind of group shaming instead of a solution. He stopped however, once he reached one particular message, sent directly to him, no one else copied in, the kind of correspondence that was actually worth his time to read. It was a demand, disguised as a request, to guide some visitors through his role, to show them what he did, how he did it and what the benefit of it was. The kind of task that would require him to put on his professional persona and hide his deep inner disillusionment but did come with some benefits, several hours away from the monotony of what he had spent the entire morning doing. He typed out a reply, full of faux enthusiasm, and accepted.

A short time later he heard his name being called and looking up from his desk saw one of the management standing with a group of people. Important looking people, or at least they were dressed like they wanted to bestow an air of importance about themselves, all suit and no substance. He recognised them as the same group who had been standing around the lobby while the flustered security guard had been interrupted from his daily television quota. Clearly he'd had the right thought when he'd first seen them, they were some kind of group of executives of some sort, possibly from a sister office he had never heard of or would ever likely visit. The kind of people who made their business by travelling between various satellite cities and spending time with the lowly workforce, either as a public relations exercise, a spying mission worthy of a Cold War novel, or both. He waved back and put on his best corporate grin, the one so fake he could literally smell plastic whenever he used it,  indicating he was ready. 

The manager approached his desk and introduced them both to him, a man and a woman with the sort of clean cut hairstyles and faces that gave them totally non descript ages, anywhere between 30 and 45 but equally they could have crawled out of the womb looking exactly this way and he wouldn't have been surprised. He forgot their names instantly as he expected they would do the same for him, he knew he mattered nothing to them, he was just a drone so why should he offer them any different courtesy? Two chairs were procured from a nearby desk and they planted themselves beside him at a distance that would allow them to observe and prod him for comments but made a very clear boundary between him and them. They dispensed the usual pleasantries, asked how long he had worked there, made the standard allowable joke about it being too long, and then settled into the routine of watching him work while he explained exactly what it was he did all day. It wasn't a test, of course it wasn't, but he knew that if either of them wanted to it would become one. 

He told them some background on himself when they asked about his experience. Telling them how he had worked for this company for a number of years, how before that he'd worked for a number of similar companies, although he didn't say how soul destroyingly similar they all were. He gave them a few needless personal anecdotes about himself, what he did in his spare time and his interests. Leaving out that because of this job he had little to no time for any of it anymore or that most days he just went home with a numb feeling of exhaustion and malaise. Then they asked him what they had actually come to sit with him for, he was relieved they got down to business so fast in a way, it meant he could just get on with it and not have to pretend they where anything but robot's with a stock set of personal questions they didn't care about the responses to. 

He moved the dual screens for the computer slightly so that they could see better and began. Firstly showing them the queue of financial proposals that stretched out ad infinitum and caused the scrollbar to be smaller than a full stop. He explained how the vast majority of the proposals received never made it to this place, being automatically decided upon by a complex scorecard that assessed each customer in a multitude of ways, like the fates themselves. These however were the ones that required human eyes to look at them, something that he knew every corporation in the industry would love to be able to do away with but just didn't have the technology to do so, yet. He selected form the vast list a proposal at random as other than an arbitrary reference number, the amount of finance being requested and the name of the customer, nothing else could be seen until they had actually viewed the proposal, a system designed to stop the picking and choosing of easy work by supposedly lazy workers but inherently flawed. During busy periods the ones that would be quicker to work, and therefore easier to reduce the overall waiting times, could not be found out before starting, and of course it was the human staff that would bear the wrath of customers and management alike for being too slow, not the computer built to fail. 

The screen flickered momentarily while the financial proposal loaded up and then presented a summary screen with the basic information that had been entered. Names, Dates of Birth, the amount of money that was being sought and a long list of reasons categorised in a mixture of codes and barely intelligible English that had meant this customer was having to hang around instead of merrily signing the next few years of their life away to a debt they'd requested and getting on with their day. He didn't bother to explain what any of the codes meant just yet, instead he opened up a box for typing out notes connected to the proposal and entered his initials before saving. He explained to the vigilant eyes beside him that this was to make sure no one accidentally tried working the same deal as him at the same time, efficiency was the name of the game. What he didn't tell them was the actual reason, that first note was time stamped and he had to add it to prove he had begun working on this proposal at the time he said he had. He'd never been brought up as slow at his job, but he knew others had and there were ways of viewing the data that gave the Panopticon of management the difference between entering a proposal and actually beginning to work it. Time was money after all. 

He moved on and began to explain the basic premises of what he would have to do, taking it step by step, first copying out and pasting the numerous codes above his previous note, again time stamped, to show why he was in this proposal and what needed to be checked. He then explained in better language than the garbled newspeak of the codes what he actually had to check on this one; it appeared the customer had their bank details flagging at an address they hadn't entered as their current address. He told them his educated guess, that it was two things; either they'd moved home recently or they were yet to cut the umbilical ties between themselves and their parents home, still registering finance there for many years after moving out. Before investigating this he did some basic administration work, checking the Name and Date of Birth entered matched up with the credit that had been found, noticing a spelling error on some long ago settled mobile phone contract and explaining how that didn't matter but he'd note down that he was aware of it anyway. Then he began to check the credit profile itself, a needlessly complex and yet simple system of numbers that resembled binary and letter codes that would determine one thing, were they on the naughty or nice list? He had often pondered on the very nature of this system, how a person's entire life could be boiled down to a combination of ones and zeros. Zero, well done you paid a bill on time. One, oh dear, looks like something happened.  A system that held the lives of 7 billion individual souls in its cool and unfeeling grasp, deciding if you could join the ranks of homeowners or remain renting forever, whether you could purchase that frivolous item you fancied or a more essential purchase, whether you were blacklisted or not. No context, no thought, no morality, designed to be beyond good and evil and reduce humanity to nothing more than risk or reward.

He explained how this particular customer appeared to be fine, a sea of zeroes spread out across the screen to confirm this, then pointing out his hunch had been correct, all of the credit was showing at the previous address and there was nothing at the address the customer claimed to live at, they had moved home a few months ago. He drafted a brief note stating what he had seen, that it was all ok but that he'd add a condition as part of the acceptance for a proof of address, briefly explaining what was acceptable for the customer to provide for this; the basic and expected documents, a driving licence, an electricity bill etc. Then he found himself drifting towards a tangent, telling a tale of the kind of bizarre and unacceptable documents that had been received in the past such as a letter from a hospital for a smear test or a photo of someone in their local paper standing outside their house. Strange, strange things. The suits beside him let out a polite laugh, the kind that a machine learning program would give as an expected response but not mean a single breath of, nor understand. So he went back to the task and showed them how he would add in that condition that would be copied into the acceptance documentation the computer would email out once he was done. 

Just before finishing he gave the whole process a final once over double checking the customers employment was acceptable for the credit policy, that the income made sense for the occupation and loan size and although not required mentally counting beans on an abacus to see if this was affordable. Satisfied with everything he moved the cursor and hovered over the button with bold letters, ACCEPT. As he clicked he imagined sending a digital ball and chain of debt to someone he would never meet. He turned away from the screen and asked if either of them had any questions so far, they didn't, so he scrolled back through the queue, chose another proposal at random and began the process all over again. 

He didn't know exactly how long he had been showing them but after a while he felt a swollen soreness in his throat, the kind he always got when he spoke for too long and didn't drink enough water. The scratching at the back of his mouth was uncomfortable, like there was a coating of sandpaper wearing down at his flesh. Mercifully the two people beside him decided that they had seen enough, or that whatever schedule they were on meant that they would have to move on. The manager who had dropped them off at his desk returned as if he had been hovering nearby out of sight for some time, they both thanked him for his time and told him he had been very informative. He watched them walk away, they even walked like a machine imitating a human he thought to himself, and then locked his computer screen. He needed a cure for the feeling in his throat so he got up and headed towards the kitchen area. 

He passed through the same area he had when returning from his lunch break, saw the same faces, heard the same conversations being had over and over. There was one noticeable difference however, an empty space where earlier he was sure he had seen someone. It was clear the occupant hadn't just gone to the bathroom as the desk was completely clear of all the usual, uniform, office detritus that was multiplied across the other desks nearby. Passing through he heard whispered conversation between colleagues, like hearing a small section of radio before switching to another station. He had clearly missed most of what had already been said but from what he could gather someone had left the building. It was then he realised who they were talking about, the person that had been on the verge of tears when he had walked by previously, he had been witness to a breakdown and he had done nothing. If he had stopped he'd have been in trouble for returning late to his own desk and besides he wouldn't have been able to stop the four lettered tirade that he had overheard the now absent person from being on the receiving end of. Yet still he felt a sharp pang of guilt in the depths of his gut as their voices faded with each slow stride away from them, He could have stopped and smiled at them, let them know it was just a job and that once they put down the phone they'd unlikely ever speak to their abuser again. Then again he also knew, from experience, that would have been a lie, even if it was a different voice next time the outcome would have been similar. Still though, the thought of not showing a single sign of sympathy as he bore witness to that stranger's sorrow gnawed at him, he felt complicit. 

He reached the water dispenser, one of the upside down bottle types that let out a loud glug as it poured out into a clear, plastic cup. He sipped slowly, the cool liquid soothing his inflamed oesophagus, and glanced at his watch. Not long left of the day now, although that just meant time having to be in this particular building, his actual free time wouldn't truly begin until after the journey home, a journey he hoped wouldn't take as long as that morning. Finishing the water, he noticed the side of the nearby bin for recycling was barely half full compared to the non recyclable side. The company had made a big announcement recently about going paperless and how they were doing their bit for the environment. The cynic in him thought it was just marketing and the realist, upon seeing that he couldn't actually recycle the disposable cup he held in his hand, confirmed it. He threw it into the bin. 

He returned to his desk and logged back in, once again there were several emails that addressed everyone in the department or business that he skimmed through and mostly ignored. One was of interest though, it contained no attachment or any actual body, it was just a heading "rota complete". He looked about him to see if he could tell by the disappointed faces how bad the next month of his life was going to be but he didn't get any indication, everyone looked as unhappy as usual. He did however notice that the email had been sent with a notification, the sender was out of the office, that gave him a hint that it was going to be bad. The manager responsible, emailing and then immediately leaving the building so no one could complain, was not a good sign at all. He closed the email and opened up the file path for the folder that contained the rota, after a few moments it loaded up and his heart sank. It was just as bad as he had expected, it was a long month so he'd expected to be screwed but the two ten day long stints really depressed him. It wasn't just the fact that they were that long but with some of the shift patterns he would be getting home one day and be literally having to make his way back to the office the following day around eight hours later. He couldn't continue like this for much longer and surely the company knew it, what level of productivity and efficiency could they expect from burning out staff this way? He had to leave in the near future, but then he remembered how he had tried, already, multiple times. The interviews he'd had were for similar jobs, similar companies, similar shifts and working practices. If he left, what really would change? The name of where the money came from  on the payslip? He was in a labyrinth with no way out, trapped by circumstance of experience and age. 

He was snapped out of his depressive daydream by another message appearing in his inbox, once again someone asking him why he wasn't logged into the phone. Sometimes he felt like he could stand up and just scream back, telling them he couldn't be available every second of every day for every damn query that might come through from the noise box on his desk. Then after a few seconds he would remember his bills, his commitments, his life outside of this place, for what it was worth, and how without this job he'd quickly find all of those things catching up with him. He didn't reply, he didn't even acknowledge the passive aggressive tone of the message, he just typed in the code for his phone, twice, and started the final few hours of the day, repeating the monotony of the morning.

Finally he saw the clock in the corner of his computer screen tickover to his allotted finish time, all around him was the commotion of similar endings of the day for other people. The noise of desk's being packed up, the beeping tones of phones and computers being logged out of, the chat of colleagues amongst themselves as others were still shackled to their stations, restrained by the different shift patterns across the building. He stood up and collected his things, packing them up into his bag before walking over to collect the not quite dry coat that now smelled faintly of must. There was no point rushing, the earliest train he could catch was not due for at least half an hour and even that was an optimistic thought. He began the slow walk out, feeling all eyes on him as if taking a green mile, the jealous looks of people who would not be finishing their own sentences for many hours yet. Through the several ID controlled exits he went, falling into the living caravan of human beings as they walked down the corridors, stairs and through the lobby towards the exit. He noticed that the security guard was still at their post, still doing very little except watching TV and chatting with someone he vaguely recognised from another floor in the building. He paused at the revolving doors, feeling the slight crush as the pressure of people looking to get home built behind him at the bottleneck. Catching slight snippets of conversation between them, what they were planning on doing that evening, what anaesthesia of television programming they were going to watch to pass the time between the hours spent here. When he passed through the doors he felt the temperature change and raised his collar up around his neck, adjusting the bag upon his shoulder and as he did so, smelt the rain in the air. 

He followed the crowd across the square and into the station building, once again finding himself forced to wait and pass through one by one at the electronic gates and again having to show the malfunctioning pass to an official so he could get through himself. Once on the other side the crowd began to disperse down various hallways, each leading to a platform with a different combination of destinations. He followed his own path and found himself amongst a large group all waiting for the same train. He glanced up at the station board, even though he knew the timetable by heart, and walked out along the platform to give himself some space. He also knew the best place to stand so that he would be one of, if not the first, on board, as if that even mattered. With the number of passengers getting on whether he was first or last wouldn't make a difference to seating arrangements or departure times, but he liked to stand in the same position or as near enough as he could anyway. 

As he stood, he found his mind wandering back over the past day. A typical day, one of coercion, of being made subconsciously to obey and follow rules. Rules that he would uphold to decide the financial fate of strangers, names on a screen he would never meet and yet held in the palm of his hand. It was like he was all-powerful except the rules of the game were not his, they were not even within his control. He must follow them or face the consequences himself, his own destiny was not anything he could control despite the imaginary sway over other lives he had. Was there a time when he didn't feel this way? When he hadn't felt so cynical? Had he always been this way or was it just that it was so long ago that he had blocked it from memory? Embarrassed by how naïve he had been about life. 

He paused his own thoughts and looked down, seeing the yellow line stretching out perpendicular to his feet. He traced it from one end of the platform to the other and read the intervals at which it was broken with 'Do Not Cross' in bold and bright lettering. He was still following others' rules even now, even outside of the confirmation of the office gaol. He felt the vibration running up from the concrete and through his whole body, he didn't look up, he knew it was the approach of the train and the sound of the brakes as it began to slow down confirmed this for him, squealing metal upon metal, a background of white noise to his mind. He kept his eyes down and took a sighing breath, moving his feet slowly as if in a daydream and stepped out, crossing the yellow line.

December 2021