The Factory

Resting at the very top of the Minamax building, looking out over a grey sea of rooftops, was a very important room. This was a room where decisions were made and strategies were formed. Being an important room, it was filled with important people, important papers and very important diagrams on a large and important-looking whiteboard. Today the whiteboard showed a box with four quadrants. One contained a crudely drawn dog; another, a question mark; the third, a cow; and the fourth, a star.

“So, where do we see ourselves sitting on the BCG matrix? Clearly we’re in a growth industry, but our market share could stand to improve. A bit of a question mark, perhaps?” Charlie glanced at the whiteboard as he spoke, smiling to himself at the oversized udder he’d drawn on the cow.

“Can’t we be a dog?”, piped up Stanley. “I really like dogs. Had a little terrier as a kid. That’s the sort of fun, playful image we should be trying to portray.”

“Don’t be daft”, chimed in Toni. “Dogs are dogs, they’re the worst position we could possibly be in! Anyway, we’re not a dog. We’re in a growth industry.”

Stanley tried again. “How about a rabbit? Rabbits are cute, too. They burrow down and undermine the competition, and then overnight the little buggers pop up everywhere!”

Toni and Charlie glanced at one another, then, with a shrug, Toni drew some large floppy ears and a fluffy tail on the star. “Rabbit it is, then.”

All this time, Ricky had been sitting quietly in a corner desk trying to follow the discussion. As the new boy, it was all a bit of a puzzle to him. “So, how exactly do we implement this strategy?” he asked.

The other executives chuckled derisively. “We set the strategies, Ricky! We don’t worry about implementing them. Someone else does all that pleb work!”

“Oh”, muttered Ricky, “then how do we convey the strategy to them, and who is it that we’re explaining it to?”

“Simple”, said Charlie. “We pop it in this tube and it goes to the implementors. Everything’s on track, and going swimmingly if I do say so myself, so we’re clearly getting the message across.”

* * *

Harold was staring intently at Shirley the secretary as he took a huge bite out of his apple, juice trickling down through his stubble and pooling in the little dimple in his chin. He glanced over at Charlene to see if she’d noticed how fine Shirley was looking today. Charlene was fiddling with the security keys on her belt, her navy-blue guard uniform and ID badge identical to that of Harold’s.

“You know, Charlene,” began Harold, as he casually eyed the Boys with Clipboards striding in through the main doors and down towards the factory floor, “They say that there are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen is happening right now in one of them. What do you think of that?”

Charlene contemplated this for a moment. “So, right now, in one of these universes, I’m eating your apple?”

“Well, I suppose so. Yes”.

“But I don’t like apples. That doesn’t make any sense. Why would I be eating it?”

“In this particular universe, you like apples”.

“You’re pulling my leg. I’d never like apples. Not in any universe. Anyway, aren’t you mad that I’m eating your apple?”

“Look, the apple doesn’t matter. The important thing is the concept. Somewhere, in some universe, whatever we want is happening.” Harold glanced back over at Shirley with a newfound confidence. “Hey gorgeous, see you tonight!”

Shirley looked up from filing her scarlet nails, puzzled, as Harold strutted out of the room.

* * *

On the factory floor, the staff were becoming increasingly frustrated. The Boys with Clipboards were back again! It was unnerving the way they would watch the workers using the machines, scribbling things down and silently judging them. No one knew why they were there, but they knew they’d damned well better be on their best behaviour when these chaps were watching, or words might be had upstairs. No one wanted to be the slowpoke who got tattled on.

Every single day these men were showing up now, dressed in their fancy black suits and looking all too closely at what was going on. Each day the workers felt they had to up the pace, push themselves that much harder, to make sure the words on those clipboards weren’t going to send them to the unemployment office.

Today, the stress was finally too much for Sam. She stormed away from her work bench and directly up the factory stairs to stand fuming in front of Shirley’s desk.

“Shirley, this is ridiculous! The Boys with Clipboards are harassing us again, making us feel like we’re not good enough. We work bloody hard for this factory, and they just don’t appreciate us! If you’re not careful you’re going to have a walk-out on your hands, and then where would you be, eh? We make this factory run. You can’t do a thing without us.”

Shirley sighed while pressing the big red button on the intercom.

“Charlie, the workers are threatening to strike again. Seems the clipboard boys are pushing them too hard. Any chance they could back down a bit?”

A crackle came back through the speaker, and Charlie’s tinny voice filled the room. “Look Shirley, we set the strategies here. How the implementors choose to implement those strategies is their business. I don’t question how you answer the phone, do I?” With that, the intercom went dead. Shirley gave Sam an apologetic look, watching her slink back to the factory floor.

* * *

At 4.30pm the Boys with Clipboards marched out of Minamax, and back across the road to the rival Highlow factory. They took the elevator all the way up to the mezzanine and looked with concern at their own Very Important Whiteboard. Today’s results were even more worrying than the last. Production at Minamax was fantastic. The staff seemed highly motivated and were showing improvement every day. They glanced at one another, shaking their heads sadly. Clearly their own staff were slacking off and would need to be dismissed again. That Minamax was like a bloody rabbit, the way it was undermining them, and with that rate of production it’d start popping up everywhere in no time!