Small Connections

He pulls into the car park. Forty-five kilometers of nothing, now behind him. The factory sprawls on the edge of town. Badge click at the turnstile, a nod to the guards, the long walk past sheds and covered corridors to R&D.

Another swipe. Upstairs, a meeting room packed with chatter, door shut.

He hurries to his desk, heart thumping, fires up the computer, how could he forget. Calendar—blank. No invite. No meeting request!

In the kitchenette he brews a tea, pauses with Karen, the patent secretary. “What’s going on in there?”

“No idea. Big meeting. I don’t get invited either.” She shrugs.

“I don’t belong here,” he says, half-grinning.

“I think you do,” she says.

Back at his desk he pretends to work, enjoying the temporary quiet. The ceiling vent breathes hot air onto his head, makes him queasy. It’s freezing outside, he runs a desk fan anyway. People think he’s odd.

From the meeting room comes a surge of voices, then the crash-bang return to desks. No peace here.

Larry Rice, electrical engineer, appears at his side.

“Morning, mate. How’s it going?”

“Hey, Krispie, what was the meeting about?”

“Actually, the company’s been sold. Some big corporation bought the lot, here and overseas. Announcement soon. Word is your boss might be the new CEO of this unit.”

“Interesting.”

“But that’s not why I’m here. Our main customer’s going all-in on this new product. They hate our quality control system. I’ve told them a hundred times—our vision inspection can’t get the resolution at those speeds.”

“Wow,” he says, flat.

“And they don’t like the human element. Too much ‘interpretation.’” Krispie makes air quotes, rolls his eyes.

“Spoke to your boss. He said come see you, maybe you’ve got ideas.” He drops a folder on the desk. “So there you go. It’s yours now.” He grins with relief, walks off.

“Hey, I’m just a graphics guy!” he shouts after him. No answer. He stares at the folder. What the hell is he supposed to do with this?

That afternoon the email comes: confirmation, the company sold, immediate restructuring. His boss now CEO. And—what? Simon Grover his new manager. He reads it twice. Three times. Bullshit. Simon, the lab assistant next door. Simon, son of Clive Grover. Fast-tracked to senior management. After all his work—when’s his turn?

That Friday night: home, two dogs for company, bottles of beer and wine. He stares at the ceiling.

“I don’t belong there,” he mutters to his German Shepherd. She gives him a sideways, steady glance. He drinks himself paralytic, spiral of self-pity and rage. “I don’t belong in this world,” he cries.

Monday morning. Nine o’clock meeting. Faces slack, half-asleep, mumbling through the week ahead. Should do this Tuesday, he thinks. He starts drifting to the folder on his desk. What problem exactly? Why had Krispie given up?

Resolution too low, Krispie had said. But resolution of what? He flips through the notes. The customer wants a portable system, their own way to measure, results identical to manufacturing QC. The defect: ‘tainting.’ Whatever that means.

First step: find out. Lisa will know.

He grabs his coat, walks to the main factory lab. Lisa, in her white coat, arms extended in a fume cabinet. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey, how you going?” she says, handing him safety glasses. “Put these on before someone sees.”

“Sorry. You’re just the person I need.”

“Oh yeah? What for?”

“‘Tainting’—what is it?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I do, dummy.” She grins.

“Defect in manufacture. When the clear base goes through the machine and the coating’s wiped on, if the blade’s worn or misaligned, streaks creep through. That’s tainting.” She opens a folder, pulls samples. “Hold them to the light—see that streaky stuff? That’s what you’re looking for.”

“All the product this size?”

“Yep.”

“Interesting. How do you know good from bad?”

“Pretty girls like me,” she teases.

He frowns. “Huh?” She laughs.

“Experience. Expertise. That’s how we judge.”

“Right. Open to interpretation,” he says, penny dropping. “We can’t plant you at the customer’s office, can we?”

“What the heck are you talking about? I’m fine here, thanks.” She looks puzzled.

“Lunch tomorrow? I’ll pick your brain more.” He waves and leaves.

Back at his desk he drifts into thought. A YouTube talk on creativity comes back to him—the guy said creativity is just making small connections. The space of possibilities. Yes. That’s it. Small connections.

Lisa’s samples—flat, transparent. His photography film scanner—that could pick them up. Scan the defect like a mini inspection system. Build a holder, feed samples in. Transmission at high resolution—perfect.

He fills out paperwork to bring the scanner in the next day. Sends Lisa a lunch request. Minutes later: ping, she’s accepted. He follows up with an email: “Can you bring some tainting samples—good, bad, and in-between, maybe ten total? Ta.”

—-

With his scanner under his arm, he arrives at work the next morning. He hears her before he sees her, standing between the yuccas at the side of the building, arms folded, one hand on her forehead.

“Hey, Karen, you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah… I’m fine,” she says, voice tight, eyes red. “Just been told by my boss they’re shutting down our internal patent department. Looks like we won’t be working together anymore—not at this site, anyway.”

He nods, sensing the weight behind her words. He wonders, not for the first time, if his own name will be on the list soon.

“Yeah… with my brother, his liver problems… and now this… I’m just a bit down at the moment. But I’ll be okay.”

“Karen, come here,” he says softly. “Give me a hug.”

They hug, holding the quiet between them for a moment, both knowing more than they can say.

At his desk, he dials up Cam.

Phone rings… “IT, Cam speaking.”

“Hey, mate. Need a favour. I brought this scanner in from home—going to need the software installed on a computer. Can you slip it in without the paperwork? You know, before the thousand approvals start.”

“When do you need it?”

“Soon as possible.”

“Yeah, no problem. I’ll wander across now… and I can tell you all about my photography while I’m at it.”

Lunchtime, he waits for Lisa outside the labs.

Her tight blonde curls and blue eyes greet him with a smile. “Canteen?”

They sit opposite each other in the canteen, the low hum of chatter all around.

“So, Lisa—let’s have a look at these samples.”

She reaches into her bag and places several on the table.

“There you go.”

He picks them up, turning them over. “Okay, so this one—bad?”

“Yeah. Instant fail.”

“And this one here?”

“That’s the good one.”

“You’re good at this,” she smiles. “You should come join us in the lab.”

He lines them out on the table, shifting them around like a game of Monte.

“In my opinion, that’s the order, worst to best.”

She studies it and nods. “You know what? I agree.”

“So how do we turn this into data?” he asks.

Lisa leans forward. “I’d expand the set—ten to maybe thirty samples. Then I’d get thirty people to do exactly what you just did: rate them from good to bad. That gives us a real spread, a usable dataset.”

He grins. “That’s brilliant, Lisa. You’re fantastic.”

“Do you want me to organize and bring you the data?” she asks.

“Yes, please.”

“On one condition,” she says, blue eyes twinkling. “Never bring me to this awful canteen for lunch again. I want seafood pasta at the golf course.”

“Can I keep one of these samples?” She nods approvingly.

—-

He’s startled out of his daydream by a tap on the shoulder. He flinches, fingers curling as if to defend himself.

He turns around. Simon Grover and his horrible haircut.

“How are you?”

“Yeah… fine, thanks.”

“Sorry if I startled you. Just trying to proactively touch base, you know, leverage synergy,” Simon grins.

“Yeah, no problem.”

“As you can see,” he continues, chest puffed, “I’m the new boss. Moving forward, I’m all about alignment, visibility, and streamlined workflow.”

“Yes, I saw the promotion. Congratulations.”

“I’m going to be cascading down some key messaging and touching base with my team over the next couple of days—just informal chats about optimizing forward-facing deliverables. Three o’clock—does that align with your calendar?”

“Yeah, three o’clock is fine.”

“Fantastic. Let’s circle back then in meeting room B, and remember—stay proactive, stay agile!”

“What’s that thing?” Simon nods toward the scanner.

“Oh, it’s a scanner for testing,” he replies slyly.

“Keep it out of sight, please. It’s making the place look untidy.”

*You make the place untidy, you twat*, he thinks to himself.

Simon struts off, all self-satisfied. He clenches his jaw. *You fucking prick. Touch me on the shoulder like that again, I swear I’ll swipe you one day.*

He fires up the scanner, uses one of the medium format film holders, and places the sample in as best he can.

He closes the lid, flicks through the driver menus—transmission, yes, no, yes, no, sets black and white points. Resolution at 3200ppi. Hits scan.

The scanner screeches and groans, then spits out an image. He leans in. Perfect. In 256 levels of glorious grayscale it shows every mark of the tainting effect.

Now he just has to work out how the hell to analyze it.

Google: Image Analysis Software Free.

One name near the top: ImageJ—image processing, colocalization, deconvolution, registration, segmentation, tracking, visualization, and more.

He blinks. He doesn’t know what any of that means. But he has to start somewhere. Small connections.

He picks up his phone.

“Hey Cam, can you put some software on my computer for the scanner?”

“What you looking at?”

“Something called ImageJ.”

“No problem, that’s on the approved list. I’ll do it now remotely.”

“Thanks, pal.”

Damn, nearly three o’clock already. Karen is at his desk. “Don’t forget your meeting with the boss man,” she giggles and slides away.

He jokingly mouths “piss off.”

—-

A week later he gets a call from Lisa.

“Hey, what’s cooking, good looking?” she says.

“I’ve got your samples, all numbered up—averages from thirty people’s input,” she adds, sounding pleased with herself.

“Great. I’ll come grab them.”

At the lab Lisa asks, “So… what exactly are you doing with all this?”

“Making a digital you,” he says, pointing a finger at her.

“Oh wow. Don’t we have engineers for that sort of thing? Aren’t you the graphics guy?”

“Yep. But right now I shouldn’t even be here, so—ciao bella.” He collects the samples, neatly stacked in a folder.

The next few hours he spends meticulously scanning each one, hitting the same area every time. He’s read up on ImageJ, watched a couple of YouTube videos. He knows he needs a single ROI selection, something consistent. Opens a scan, places the ROI, runs the analysis, copies the data into Excel. Then repeats, over and over.

He picks up the phone. “Lisa, get over here, I need to show you something.”

“I’ll sneak out around two, coffee break. Wait for me.”

Lisa shows up with a mug in her hand. “Okay, what’s up?”

“Look at this. Your samples on the left, ordered bad to good. My scans and analysis on the right.”

She stares. “What… perfect match?”

“Well. Yeah. I think so. When it’s sorted by that standard deviation figure, it matches your sorting exactly.”

“From that box thing?”

“Yes, the box is a scanner.”

She grins. “Well done. Not as cute as the girls, but nice setup.”

“I think we have a viable working product.” He puts his hands behind his head, leans back.

“Do you know what ‘viable working product’ even means? Haha, I’ll catch you later.”

—-

Simon approaches, hands up, shaking them like Al Jolson. “No touch, no touch. I know you’re sensitive.”

“Hey, what can I do for you?”

“Just wanted to touch base—ETA on the Latimore updates. And what’s that thing still doing there?”

“Actually…” he taps the scanner, “I’ve had a breakthrough. Got a prototype.”

“What the heck are you talking about?”

“The tainting QC project. Krispie dumped it on me.”

Simon frowns, eyes wandering. “How the hell are you gonna fix what an engineer couldn’t? I’ve heard it all now. Go on then—what you got?”

He runs through the system, throwing in words like mean and standard deviation. Simon nods as if they mean something. Then he walks off.

Half an hour later he’s back. “Set that up for me in Room B. Customer’s coming—I’ll give them a demo.”

“I can give the demo,” he says, almost pleading.

“You’ve got Latimore corrections. I’ll handle it.” Simon pats the scanner like it’s his.

He sets it up in Room B, which is a nightmare because Cam has to come down and load the software onto the meeting room computer. Finally it’s ready: scanner, samples, big screen, all lined up.

Simon pokes his head in. “Exactly like you showed me, yeah?”

“Yes. Sample in the holder—I cut a temporary card to size. ROI, hit that button, read the number, compare to that. Simple.”

“Yeah, easy. You’ve done enough. I’ll come and get you if there are any problems.”

Back at his desk, he hears them coming up the stairs—loud voices, fake laughs. He thinks, *dickheads, the lot of them*. Among them is Clive, Simon’s dad. The proud grin says it all: *haha, my son’s so great, haha, he’s the boss now, haha*.

It makes him nauseous.

They pile into Room B and close the blinds.

Fifteen minutes later, Simon reappears. “The customer would like to see you.”

“Me? Oh. Okay.” He follows Simon in and is introduced around: technical manager this, QC manager that, shakes hands.

“So,” he asks, trying to sound eager, “what did you think of the system?”

One of them smiles. “We haven’t had a demo yet. Simon couldn’t get the thing to work—an IT issue, Simon tells us. Isn’t that right, Simon? We’re excited to see the results.”

He takes over, runs the demo, shows the correlation to the human eye. Explains his vision: custom sample holders, coded workflows, automated data collection.

“So you’ll be presented with a big green tick or a big red cross—this will align with your specification of acceptable product. Both companies in complete agreement, nothing left to interpretation,” he states proudly.

“This is very impressive,” the customer says. “Looks like the solution to our problem.”

Over the next few weeks, new scanners are ordered, Cam gets his guys coding a system, and tooling is fabricated.

He gets a call. “Hey, it’s Karen, I see a patent come through the system with your name on it!”

“Yeah, have you read it? Doesn’t even sound like the system I made—they speak another language, those patent guys.”

“Listen to this—‘statistical measure of the light intensity data in the region,’” he says in a posh voice, then laughs.

“Well done,” she says. “You do belong there.”

“How’s life working in the city? How’s your brother?”

“I love the city—sushi for lunch if I like, great coffee—and my brother is doing well, losing weight and exercising,” she says.

His system is working well. It’s placed in several locations, all providing the exact same daily results. There’s even talk of licensing to other manufacturers, making bespoke equipment, doing a deal with Epson for scanner technology. However, he has a nagging feeling that he may be a casualty of redundancies—they don’t make sense. Lisa lost her job when QC was outsourced.

He’s at his desk one afternoon, enjoying a cup of tea, half a design open. Simon taps him on the shoulder. He flinches.

“Can we have a quick chat in Meeting Room A?”

The words land heavy. He knows. He follows anyway.

Inside: Simon with his laptop, HR woman he’s never seen before, nervous smile plastered on.

“Look, you’ve done some fantastic work here,” Simon starts, hands folded like a priest. “This system you developed—it’s really set us apart.”

The HR woman nods, like a metronome.

“But the business is restructuring. The board feels we need to take a leaner approach.” Simon says *leaner* like it’s an inspirational poster.

He waits for the *but*. It doesn’t come. That’s it.

“So you’re making me redundant?”

Simon leans back. “Yes. But please don’t see this as a reflection of your value. We’re just moving in a different direction.”

*A different direction*. He wants to laugh. They’ll be scanning samples tomorrow on his setup. Different direction.

The HR woman slides a folder across. Inside: severance, job-seeker websites, some bullshit about ‘directioneering.’

He stares at the folder. “You know I’m the inventor on the patent application, right?”

Simon clears his throat. “Of course. It’s a company asset. You’ve made a lasting contribution.”

*Lasting contribution*. Another phrase from his little book of buzzwords.

He nods, stands, shakes Simon’s hand. His palm comes away damp.

Back at his desk, he grabs a few things, puts them in his bag. Doesn’t even log off.

—-

Five years later, he’s meeting Annie for a coffee by the coast. Annie is a fellow nomad, life on the road, no fixed abode. They met at a caravan park a year earlier.

“So tell me about your work,” she asks.

“Ha, I don’t think about it much, but I did get a patent. Or did I? Actually, I don’t know. Hold up.”

He pulls out his phone and searches for his name, old company, and patent.

Up pops the Google listing. “I found it, let me have a look.”

“Oh, it says the patent was abandoned.”