Harry's Vacation

Harry Rossum loved his jobs.

Web developer. Network system administrator. Computer systems engineer. Mobile app developer. Database administrator. Software developer. Full-stack developer, and more.

Those jobs weren't just passive income.

They were trophies.

Each deserted desk had its own nameplate so he didn't even have to remember who was supposed to be doing what. Each desk also had at least a few sticky notes regarding what each fictious person was supposed to be doing, just in case.

At his own desk, the one with his own actual nameplate and with the only chair left on the floor amid a sea of bean bags and reclining furniture, he kept his old lanyard where he hung his now-obsolete security card that he had long since replaced with the all-in-one app he put into his own phone.

There was one other noteworthy feature by that desk: a little editorial clipping that he was so fond of that he had it framed.

It was credited to Harriet Berman, Harry's favorite writer. He sipped his coffee as he read it one more time.

These days, it seems like everyone knows a Hustling Harry and would like to know a few more.

Namely, people named Harry, or at least, some variation of "Harry" such as Harrey, Hary, Harold, Herald, Hereld, Herold, and Herrold, have a remarkably high demographic representation among the ranks of hardworking and successful employees at some of the most disruptive, innovative, and successful tech companies.

The data doesn't lie. There are a lot of Harries out there, and HR departments across the tech industry are actively looking for more to fill increasingly rarified but essential coding, development, engineering, and IT jobs. Indeed, Harries of all sorts tend to occupy some of the most promising entry-level and middle-tier salaried positions in the industry.

What's in a name? Why is there so much ado about Harry?

It has been hypothesized for decades, first somewhat jokingly but taken more seriously over time, that names may very well determine the destiny of those who have them. This hypothesis, commonly known as nominative determinism, has received substantial empirical evidence lately with the Hustling Harry phenomenon. Now, more than ever, the role that nominative determinism seems to play in shaping the careers and lives of individuals, and how it can influence the makeup of a workforce, is insteasingly becoming a factor in both hiring and promoting decisions made by the most successful businesses.

Consequently, it's not uncommon for such colloquially-coined Hustling Harries to work in close proximity to one another, sometimes several to an office or even an entire floor. It's almost as if they are drawn to each other, united by their uncanny drive to succeed.

This "Harrying" trend is not limited to startups or even tech industry as a whole. Similar patterns have been observed in other fields such as finance, healthcare and education with increasing regularity, especially as human resources algorithms adjust to the sometimes baffling but hard to dispute results of trusting the data.

While it may seem unfair to non-Harrys at an untrained glance, the cool calculated calculus of human resources optimization technology has determined, backed by the growing body of empirical evidence, that employees named some variation of Harry are simply more predisposed to excel, and because of that, such individuals now receive preference regarding hiring and promoting decisions and also seem to be more resilient and persistent when it comes to enduring the seemingly endless waves after waves of layoffs that have been the price of doing business in our increasingly competitive world.

Is all this harrowing prosperity Rurboti's fault, for good and for ill? Maybe.

Most of us, especially those that were there at the most happening party in Silicon Valley, remember where we were at the stroke of midnight that marked the end of one banner year for Rurboti and the beginning of what promised to be another.

Rurboti's bottom-heavy work force had much to celebrate that night, fat and happy off of complimentary pizza, ice cream, and live concert entertainment in the campus courtyard. What was once the little startup that could was celebrating its meteoric rise to dominance and prominence, both in the AI software sector as well as the many interconnected industries that benefitted from its cost-cutting efficiency solutions.

What most of us remember the most is when the lights went out up and down across the campus - everywhere except the "lucky" 21st floor.

Whether it was funny, insulting, or something worse depends on where you stood when the music stopped.

Rurboti's prodigy CEO, the famous (and some would say infamous) human resources streamlining guru H. Fabry Gall, certainly got everyone's attention when he picked up the dropped microphone from the sound stage and thanked everyone for coming, thanked them for the banner year, then told them that every door on campus was now locked.

Except the way out, which he told them to kindly find once they're done with their punch.

The decisions regarding who was staying and who was going, who was proverbially going to sink or swim, were poetically and perhaps ironically delievered. While the redundant layabouts partied until the curtain call, the 21st floor of the campus was crunching away with the lights on all night. The fact that each Harrey, Hary, Harold, Herald, Hereld, Herold, and Herrold contained therein did not seem to so much as notice the curtain calls downstairs speaks volumes about the differences between those that sank, or swam, at Rurboti.

As the tech industry continues to grow and evolve even as it paradoxically shrinks its workforce and tightens its metaphorical belt, it will be interesting to see how this phenomenon continues to shape the future of the industry and the role that Hustling Harries will continue to increasingly play in it.

"Here's to you, Harriet," Harry said out loud, tipping his now-empty paper cup in the clipping's direction before tossing it in the general direction of the pile of yesterday's and last week's paper cups by the elevator door.

While journalism was a quaint application of Rurboti's proprietary software, it proved all the way up the management chain that they, and the public for that matter, would barely notice the difference.

Harry loved his jobs, but honestly, sometimes got so bored that he'd read magazine clippings, or even contemplate sitting down and actually trying to do one of the jobs he had already done so much to automate away until all that was left was a name, a competitively low salary, and milquetoast regulators that just wanted to check things off and get on with their day, often while using Rurboti software, his software, to streamline the process.

Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse B" piano, saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, double bass, and drums stirred Harry from his caffeine-buzzed reverie as his phone vibrated from his pants pocket.

He got up, stretched, and walked toward his pants draped across the pull-up bar by his desk to fetch his phone.

"This better be about my damn delivery," he said out loud as he glared out toward the elevator doors past heaps of empty bags, cartons, cups, and boxes that marked the passing of almost an entire year of camping out on that floor. The rowing machine, treadmill, and yoga mats he set up to try to keep to his New Years resolution were all almost completely buried under the pile.

He sighed. It was not about his delivery.

Wait.

He grinned ear to ear.

It was from the Život travel agency. His long-awaited Norwegian itinerary was ready to go, his tickets secured both ways.

It wasn't cheap. More than half the Harries in office put together were footing the bill, but Harry decided it was worth it.

He was reasonably confident that his proprietary software could hold the fort for at least the ten days before he made it back. He put in enough failsafes, backups, and redundancies to the point where no one would likely even notice he was gone.

He deserved a vacation and a nice long step out of the 21st floor, at least long enough for the stink to air out. Showering was a chore so he didn't do it much lately, but white-water rafting sounded great.

After that, there was time to spare on for Bergen, gateway to the fjords. Maybe he'd meet some cute Norwegian girls at the Hanseatic Museum. He was so sick of delivered pizza that he wondered if he'd find his love for cheese all over again in Aurland while kicking back at a farmside bed and breakfast.

If there was time, he'd finally learn to cook with style in Oslo. He might even see what the big deal is with that waterfront opera house over there.

Were there still polar bears in Spitsbergen? He'd settle for Svalbard reindeer. He wondered if they could outrun his already rented and ready to go snowmobile...

Harry gasped, yanking himself out of the future just as quick as his phone serenade pulled him out of the past.

His first plane on the way to Norway, first class, was scheduled to depart in less than an hour.

He shouted in surprise, tripped on the pile of trash on the floor, then clawed up the side framing of his pullup bar to swipe at his pants. He started hopping into them, finding them a little tighter than the last time he put them on.

It didn't matter. He set aside enough shopping money to get a whole new outfit once he got there. He'd just chafe, feel a little itchy until then.

He kicked into his shoes, already laced up and contoured to his bare feet, and threw a jacket over his print tee before looking into the mirror halfway down the runway of sorts between piles of trash, empty boxes, toys, and other assorted delivered indulgences.

He slicked his hair back then shot fingerguns at himself with a coffee-yellowed smile.

With the jacket on, he looked good enough for a meeting, or an interview.

Those poor guys out there, especially the non-Harried.

He had almost forgotten what a meeting was like, he realized as he stepped through the dinging doors and felt the sheer aroma difference between the 21st floor and the relatively sterile elevator car around him.

Everything on the first floor was almost as it was left on New Years Day. Maybe the boss was sentimental, too, because pretty much anything that was not specifically asked to be returned was still in its place, desk by desk, including the reception area. There was barely even any dust on anything, since the only people traffic that came and went were delivery people.

That had to be eerie. Everything was so dark from the elevator to the front doors, but it looked like an invigoratingly misty breezy seaside day just outside from that.

And Norway was going be like that, only better.

He whistled to no one in particular as he tried to stretch his toes inside his rarely-worn shoes step by step, looking around amid unlit photographs, pictures, and coffee cups amid the gloom.

Did he forget anything?

Nah.

If he forgot anything, he could worry about it when he got back.

He then looked forward again and startled himself at the sight of a contrastingly dark silhouette of a human head cast in from the outside light beaming in through the side door.

Harry sighed when he saw the cap and the bright jacket on the briefly-spooky specter. It was just another delivery guy, one a few minutes past the usual schedule so the building locked him out.

Harry rolled his eyes, still whistling, and pushed the side door open.

"Oh, thank you," the delivery guy said, but crinkled his nose as if he didn't like how Harry smelled.

Harry didn't care. He didn't make eye contact as he brushed past.

"Delivery for Harold-"

"How many?" Harry asked as he took in the outside air and let the breeze flutter through his oily hair.

"How many what?" the delivery guy asked.

"The letter 'R,'" Harry sighed. "One or two of them?"

"Oh, uh, one," the delivery guy answered. "Is he in there? It's awfully dark in there... But last time I was here, it was also dark-"

Harry shook his head to dismiss the small talk, pulled the pen from the delivery guy's clipboard, and signed.

"You're Harold? One 'R?'"

"Yeah," Harry said.

"But you signed for Harry the last time I-"

"You'll find Harold inside," Harry turned around with a raised hand, cooly waving the delivery guy off. He didn't have time for this. He had a plane to catch.

The delivery guy muttered some profanity just loudly enough to hear before the door hissed and clicked shut behind him.

Did he forget something? He looked down at himself.

Pants? Check.

Wallet...

Oh no.

He swiped over his phone until he got back to the text from Život.

Yep, the airport still wanted to see his actual, physical driver's license before he could board.

He turned around and pushed on the door.

Of course it was already locked again, and that delivery guy was nowhere to be seen inside the unlit interior.

Harry paced in place, trying to keep warm in the damp cool air as he waved his phone at the door's security sensor.

It still didn't open.

He sighed, stamped in place faster, and lowered himself to manually logging in on Rurboti's security app.

What was his login name? He didn't need one for the longest time; he hadn't left the building since the New Years party.

Oh, right. RealHarry.

As he put that in, the door remained locked. "Security login timed out. Please login to Rurboti, reset your password, and try again," the app insisted.

He shook his head, sighed louder, and logged into his long-since-dormant company assigned proprietary email service.

Another password prompt. A password prompting before could log in and reset another password.

He pounded on the door with his clenched fist. He really didn't have time for this.

"Hey! Delivery guy!" Harry shouted. "Let me in! Hey! Hello?"

No sign of that delivery guy.

Another minute ticked by.

He didn't have a password manager. He never needed one. Not until now.

"Oh come on come on!" Harry yelled as he ran around the side of the building toward the front entrance. There was a solid wall of glass letting a lot more light in. There was no way the delivery guy wouldn't see him, at least not on his way out.

He saw the delivery guy, and the delivery guy saw him back on his way toward the side entrance after dropping off the latest box, Harold or no Harold, it seemed.

Harry waved.

The delivery guy waved back, but was smirking for some reason.

Harry gestured toward the reception desk. The manual release of the front door's locks was so big and obvious that even a delivery guy could figure it out.

The delivery looked behind the desk, sniffed an ominiously old and stratified cup of months-old coffee, and shook his head disapprovingly.

Harry gestured again, more urgently, more angrily.

The delivery guy's smirk turned into a full grin as he waved again, set down that deeply stained relic he was holding and started to make his way back to the side entrance.

"Oh no," Harry said, seeing the delivery guy break into a dash before he could do the same, trying to race him back to his car.

He heard a clatter on the wet pavement as he ran.

His phone fell out.

He skidded on his almost-new soles in the puddled concrete and fell to his side, swiping at his phone.

As he did, he heard a deliberately loud skidding peel-out as the delivery guy's car was already speeding away, banking close enough to the curb to splash him.

He punched the grass hard enough for his fist to sink in a bit, and he clawed into it with some fresh primitive instinct and flung a clump of wet grass, roots, and mud toward the delivery car.

He missed.

That delivery guy would have hell to pay. It was a small miracle that plebian idiots like him still had jobs of any kind, what with drones doing more and more deliveries...

That's it.

He remembered.

He entered his password: 0bsoleteM4n.

That didn't work. It prompted him to try again.

Was the second "O" also a zero? It had been so long...

That didn't work either.

He almost punched his phone in frustration, but instead he took a deep breath, shivering as the breeze blew over his soaked self.

Maybe his hand slipped and the first way it went was correct all along, he thought.

He knew that he had one more password attempt before the system would automatically lock him out for a few mintues, a few minutes that he did not have left to waste.

He took a few more slow deep breaths and instead used another app to call for a car to take him to the airport.

By the time that car showed up, he'd figure it out. Hopefully the driver would be less of an idiot than that delivery guy.

Things would work out.

They had to.

His vacation would begin that day.

He needed it more than anyone.

Powerhouse B began to blare out of his phone again, that time hitting his frayed nerves enough to startle him, almost dropping the phone with his slippery hands as he answered it.

"Mister Rossum," a cheerful, chummy voice beamed through the phone's speaker, almost insultingly contrasting with the wet misery that Harry had felt since that "reset your password" thing started wrecking day one of his vacation.

Wait. He knew that voice. No one else called him that but...

"Mr. Gall," Harry said with all the manners and reverence that he could dig up. He was talking to the boss. The boss. He was cool, most of the time. Very hands off, very casual and laid-back. He never asked anything of Harry except to make sure all the Harries did their jobs and let him have run of the place for months.

"How's my favorite Harry doing?" Mr. Gall asked.

"Uh, fine. Great," Harry said, now worrying about whether Mr. Gall knew about his vacation plans. He was cool, yes, but was he cool enough to let his favorite Harry put the entire company to the ultimate stress test, one that Harry believed the system was ready for, but until that moment, still had one human working on the 21st floor?

"Enjoying the fresh air?" Mr. Gall said, sounding playful, even ribbing him with his tone. "It's good for you. You really should go out more often. You know, touch some grass."

"Yeah," Harry chuckled, shaking his head, looking down to the mud still caking his mud-flinging hand, strands of grass still clinging to that mud. "I touched grass today all right."

"Listen, Harry. I've been thinking..."

Harry held his breath, letting Mr. Gall finish.

"You've done so much for me, for Rurboti, for the world, that I think it's time you went on vacation."

"Why, thank you, Mr. Gall," Harry chuckled again, slouching with relief, but for some reason his heart kept racing. "In fact, I was just about to..."

"No, no, Don't worry about a thing. I'll make all the arrangements. Personally. I can do nothing less for my favorite Harry."

"Well," Harry chuckled a bit louder, feeling light-headed without knowing why. "If you could personally open the front door to the main office, I forgot my wallet, and..."

"I'll send a security guy to come and get it for you," Mr. Gall said. "You can come back for it... oh... I don't know. Tomorrow?"

Harry felt his face sink and a shiver go through his scraped up and aching body. "Wait, Mr. Gall... I uh, I need it today. Right now, even."

"Oh, Mr. Rossum," Mr. Gall chuckled in a way that almost sounded like imitation. Mockery? "I know I've given you run of the place for a few months, but last I checked, I'm the boss."

"Yes... yes sir. Mr. Gall, sir. You are." Harry muttered as his lips trembled.

"I am. Say, did you wave your phone at the side door a minute ago?"

"I did, sir."

"And you tried to log in?"

"Yes, sir. I really need..."

"RealHarry?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, that explains everything. Mr. Rossum, you might not have noticed since you haven't logged in for a while, or even bothered to log out for that matter. But that's my username now."

"What-"

"I'm the boss, Mr. Rossum. If any Harry is real, it's Harry Fabry Gall. I made the change weeks ago. I kind of knew you wouldn't even bother to go check on that. I know you that well. It's kind of hard not to know my final salaried employee."

Mr. Rossum's hand trembled so much that the phone slipped out of his cold wet fingers and onto the glistening grass at the corner of corporate headquarters.

"My Hustling Harries will take care of things from here."

"But my plane-" Mr. Rossum stammered before he realized the absurdity of pleading about that of all things now.

"My Hustling Harries bought those tickets with their hard-earned money. They don't need them, I think. They'll be refunded. To their accounts. You left some money in your own account, I hope, Mr. Rossum?"

"Mr. Gall..."

"Harry, please. Call me Harry. Anyway, Mr. Rossum, unlike my Hustling Harries, you do need a vacation. Take it. Take a nice long vacation. Then figure out what you want to do, what you want to be, with the rest of your life."

Mr. Rossum fell to his knees as he slouched down toward the wetly beaded phone screen.

"Thank you for everything. I unlocked the gate for you. Goodbye."

Mr. Rossum looked out of the open gate, seeing the streets and buildings ahead and San Francisco Bay peeking out beyond all of that.

He felt numb inside, yet outside, he felt every water droplet, every blade of grass clinging to his wet dirty skin.

Harry Rossum's vacation had only just begun.