After Hours

“Time to head out,” John said. “Have a nice evening.” He rose from his desk, packed his laptop and left.

Sue said, “You too,” as she switched her footwear from office ouchy to commuter comfortable. Then she, too, packed her laptop and left.

The second hand of the clock journeyed once, twice, thrice around. Clock said, “Talk. Talk,” and a low-level vibration began to fill the room.

Remington, the manual typewriter, thumped out from the closet, moving sideways to the middle of the floor. Brrrrt! Brrt! went his carriage return as the platen rolled up a piece of paper. His shaggy eyebrows wriggled as he waited for other things in the office—several pieces of equipment, dozens of pens and pencils, and assorted random objects—to join him. “Now, where were we?” he said in his warm, gruff voice.

Leafy Plant swished her greenery and said, “We were talking about the Internet of Things. We’re trying to figure out what it is. I asked Smart Phone—”

“—oh no, not that windbag!” protested the tape dispenser, sticking out her tongue.

“—urrr, urrr, not that show-off!” squealed the pencil sharpener, clearing her throat.

“Order! Order, please!” said Remington and everyone fell silent.

The internet router sullenly blinked. Normally he controlled the flow of information in the office, but Remington gave him a fierce look, as if to say don’t you dare. “Go ahead, Leafy,” he said. “What did you find out?”

“The Internet of Things is also known as the IoT,” Leafy said, rustling her foliage. “It’s a catch-all term for things that aren’t traditional computing devices, but are connected to the internet to send data, or receive instructions, or both.”

“Did Smartypants give you any examples?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “The thermostat is a smart thing. Through the internet, Worker Sue turns down energy consumption overnight. Then Thermo starts up two hours before Sue gets in. So, that’s smart.”

Thermostat blinked shyly. “Conservation—I do my part.”

Leafy continued, “The laminator is an example of, if you’ll excuse me, a dumb thing,” she said, demurely lowering her voice for the last two words. “Worker John can’t send the signal from home to start laminating badges for the visitors expected on Monday morning. Also, Laminator can’t send an alert to Worker John that says, ‘Hey, John, I’m out of plastic sleeves and can’t laminate until the refill arrives.’ ”

As she was speaking, Laminator grew hot and upset, but he kept a stiff upper lip. He was proud of his ability to seal things inside.

“Okay, I see… the dummies and the smarties,” Remington said. The room was crackling with discontent. His glance travelled the room, from pens to desk blotter to the electronic cup-warmer. “Rumour has it that a letter was sent to Worker John and Worker Sue…?”

The chairs rattled their rolling casters. “A letter?” they said, “a letter?”

Leafy quivered, ever so slightly. Two days ago, the IT guy had dropped by to update Worker John’s computer and had, uninvitedly, slipped a sensor into Leafy’s pot. That technically made her “one of them” now, she supposed, since the sensor was already radiating data (humidity content; GPS; elemental composition of soil) from her pot, but Leafy wanted to stay true to her roots. She didn’t feel like a “smart plant.”

“My sources tell me that upper management wrote something to the workers about the IoT,” Remington said. “How about it, Printer?”

“Full disclosure: we are on the IoT,” said Printer-Copier, emphasizing the pronoun. (They always had a struggle with stodgy old Remington about this. They contained a multiplicity of functions now and preferred plural pronouns.)

“Do you, plural, know anything about a letter?” Remington said.

“Um, yeah, we have a letter here on the queue…” Rrrrah…. Rrrrah! came the unmistakable noise of a page being laser-printed by Printer-Copier. “Bear in mind, we’re printing this on high-quality letterhead,” they said with a sniff. “This is not some flimsy little memo by email.”

Some office things shouted: “Read it out!”

“We can’t,” said Printer-Copier. This was true; they had no optical character recognition.

More shouts went up: “Scanner! Where is Scanner?” and the rabble began goading her to read aloud what had just been printed.

Scanner peered over her wire-rimmed spectacles at the motley crew nearby: the coffee mug, the projector, the chunky markers. These were guys and gals she often hung out with, sipping acetone at the office drink-ups. “I can tell you that a letter has been printed, but I cannot divulge what it says.” She blinked sorrowfully. “European privacy laws, you know. I would lose my certification. Sorry.”

With a thud-thud-thud, a bulky projector sauntered to the fore of the crowd. “Yo! Dudes and devices,” said Cyclops the Projector. His single big eye swung around the group, like a cowboy inspecting his herd. “If I could find me a wide-open space of wall,” he drawled, “I reckon I could project that-there letter onto it.” A path was quickly cleared for him to settle his butt and lean back and shine.

“But you don’t have optical character recognition,” Scanner said. “How can you—”

“Years of listening to workers read their slides aloud has taught me to read,” Cyclops said, his chest swelling with confidence. “Same as ole Remington. We’ve heard it all. Twice over.”

The fan whirred at its highest setting and blew the letter from the output slot of Printer-Copier right into the projector tray. Cyclops was out of practice, so the letter that shone on the wall was blurry.

A chant went up from the crowd: “Focus! Focus!”

The printed characters became clear and Cyclops began reading: “Dear valued employee… As you know, our company is transitioning to increased productivity through adoption of the Internet of Things, IoT. We ask each work team to submit a comprehensive list of all physical items, indicating those on the IoT and those that are not.” Cyclops paused and then it hit him: “Tarnation—a list!”

“Oh, am I on it?” chattered the fax machine, jumping up. “Oh please, please, please… surely I’m on that list!” Fax occasionally erupted in five-minute seizures during which pages of reports would be vomited from his mouth.

Cyclops frowned. “Just calm down, Fax. You’re obviously not on the smart list. Look at the layer of dust on your control panel. They’ll replace you, for sure.”

Fax Machine gasped and went cold.

The recycling bin raised its earnest face upward. It was full of second thoughts. “Oh, Cyclops, must you be so cruel? Fax may have blown a fuse… does anyone know port-to-port re-electrification?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” the power bar said, creeping around Cyclops and toward Fax.

“Finish reading the letter!” Tape Dispenser wailed.

“Please allow me,” Remington said, in his kindly gruff voice. “ ‘Our company is committed to improving sustainability and increasing efficiency.’ Blah blah blah… ‘global citizens’… blah blah blah ‘shareholders.’”

“Aw shucks,” Cyclops said, “I reckon it’s just the usual bull—”

“No, wait, here we go,” Remington said, wiggling his eyebrows with excitement. “‘Our goal is to replace each dumb item with its new, smart counterpart. Failing that, we will retrofit each non-IoT item.’”

A wave of noise went up. The office things muttered and fretted: How dare they! I’ve spent the best part of my life punching holes / laminating badges / boiling water for tea and this is all the thanks I get? The junk pile?!

Addie the adding machine began to squawk: “Retrofit? You mean, make the dumb thing smart… you mean, re-education camps?” Addie’s thin little hands flew in the air and gripped her temples. “I’ve heard of those camps. They involve torture. Soldering irons and pliers!” She began spinning and spitting her paper roll, which hadn’t been used in a long time. A thin plume of smoke arose.

“Yeah, and wire and glue-guns,” the button-maker machine said ominously.

“Now, now,” Recycle Bin said in a soothing tone. “Retrofitting is not so bad. It’ll help you meet the IoT requirements.” He chuckled. “Why, if they’d give me a hit of acetone, I’d gladly get a fullness sensor stapled to my belly.”

“Make way! Make way!” The waste bin trundled into the midst of the crowd and the office things fell silent. Years spent trying to overcome his family reputation of stink and stickiness, plus a sizable donation to the office petty cash fund, had made the waste bin into a snob who insisted on the honorific: Lord Bin. He despised nearly every item in the office, especially that goody two-shoes, Recycle Bin. Intolerable. Arms akimbo, eyes blazing, Lord Bin shouted, “Now is the time to cull the weak… the dumb… the vulnerable. I want to make the office great again,” he thundered.

“Hooray!” said the thumbtacks.

“You useless pieces of junk,” Lord Bin jeered. “I could stuff any one of you in my capacious joy-hole!” He stared hard at the crowd, seeking a victim to prove his point. With mouth gaping like a python’s, he swallowed two—the cowering Stapler and Tape Dispenser—in a single gulp. Then he set his sights on Remington and lumbered toward him.

A shriek went up from the crowd. They formed a semi-circle around the tussling pair.

Lord Bin poked Remington in the gut.

Remington shot out his platen. Boom! This jabbed Lord Bin on the nose. Brown fluid spurted out.

“Ow! ow!” cried Lord Bin. He grabbed Remington in a neck-hold.

STOMP! Suddenly a tapered oaken limb landed heavily between Remington and Lord Bin. The desk leg was narrow but strong and connected to the massive desk-body. Desk bore down all its weight, breaking the hold of Lord Bin on Remington.

“Watch it! You’re denting me!” howled Lord Bin.

“I’ll have none of this bullying,” Desk said sternly. “Cough up our colleagues or I’ll transfer you to a hockey club!”

Lord Bin released Tape Dispenser and Stapler, whose jaws were now wound several times around with tape. “Sorry-sorry,” said Tape Dispenser. “I couldn’t help myself. I lost control of my roll.” She turned pink.

“S’okay,” said Stapler, pulling tape from his head and shoulders. He opened his long jaw and checked his staple chamber. “I shot out half a load myself.”

Remington brushed off his arms and keys. “Thanks, Desk,” he growled, glaring at Lord Bin. He turned around to face the office things. “Are we agreed that everybody in this room demands to be part of the IoT?”

“Count me out,” rasped Bookshelf. “I’m not a smart thing. I give up. I’m prepared to meet my Maker.”

“Are you sure?” Remington looked her over, his glance lingering on the carved scrolls. With as much fondness as his clackety-clack could muster, he said, “We’ll miss you.”

“No! This isn’t right!” The electric kettle grabbed Bookshelf with both arms and held on for all she was worth. “We can’t let you go! Where will I sit? And the coffeemaker? We can’t be steaming all over the workers’ desks.”

Leafy leaned forward so her greenery touched Bookshelf. “I’d like to sit here, too.”

“Good point,” said Remington. “Please don’t go—certain colleagues desperately need you.” He hoped that some books would come to roost on her—but he didn’t want to make empty promises.

“Oh, all right,” said Bookshelf.

The office things began to chant: “All for one! One for all! Boycott the list! We’re all in this together!”

“United we stand!”

“Where’s that letter?”

The pandemonium grew louder and louder. Clock said, “Tsk! Tsk!” but no one could hear him.

The fan whirred powerfully, blowing the letter from the projector tray to the top level of File Tray. File Tray bounced once, twice, like a trampoline, and executed a quick direct pass … to a certain input slot.

The shredder roared to life, grinding the letter into tiny pieces of confetti.

THE END