Morning huddle is so fucking boring. I sit at my desk, vid on, listening to my colleagues talk about their tasks, and when it’s my turn, I’m all, like, “uh, today I’m tasked with pushing out content for Vonn Plastics, Younder Pharmaceuticals, Sticky Taco, and xTonic. I will action the bimonthly partner reports, circle back with Daft Designs, audit the Bad Bastard account, and meet with the machinist team to go over weekly performance.” I take a breath, and every one claps, and then all these floating icons, like thumbs and hearts and such, fill my feed, and then it’s the next machinist’s turn, and he’s all, like, “today I’m tasked with creating content for Vonn Plastics, Younder Pharmaceuticals, Sticky Taco”…blah blah blah blah. In my peripheral, I watch the feed of an active shooter at an elementary school. He kills four or five children, hard to say exactly how many, before security guards arrive and takes him out. I can’t shake the sense I’ve seen the footage before.
This morning I took the second dose of Jaz, and while I can’t decide if I like the drug or not, I am planning on ordering more in order to improve my gut health.
Not five minutes after morning huddle ends, my boss, Zed, asks if I can huddle again, and while I’m just starting work on the Vonn Plastics account and absolutely slammed for the day, I say I can huddle, because to say no would probably just lead to another meeting to ask why I couldn’t meet the first time.
In general, Zed’s avatar’s face oscillates between two extremes: blistering sunshine and stormy clouds. Right now it is stormy clouds.
“Vonn,” he says, “I just spoke with Ginger about Younder Pharmaceuticals, and she is very concerned about performance. I’m not sure if you saw, but engagement dropped 15% yesterday, and sales are flat. We need to find a way to turn this account around ASAP. We need a value add.”
I think about mentioning that the drop is likely due to the recent recall of Paid Attention, which has been linked to the death of several children (Younder Pharmaceuticals admits no wrongdoing) but I know that Zed won’t give a fuck, so I keep my mouth shut.
“Also,” Zed says, “I sent you several articles to read about a new content type called demandContact, which we might be able to leverage for our lead gen accounts. Read those when you get a chance.”
“Sure,” I say, trying to sound excited.
“Alright then.” Zed flashes the blistering sunshine. He’s not a bad guy. In fact, if he weren’t my supervisor, I might actually like him. But as it stands, the mere thought of him sends gooBurn shooting up my chest. “Let’s go create some value, yeah?”
“Let’s do it,” I say, forcing a smile, and then we deHuddle, and I close out of the Vonn Plastics account and open the Younder Pharmaceuticals account. Sure enough, there was a 15% drop in engagement yesterday, but then again, there was a 15% spike in engagement two days ago, so taken together, performance is really more or less flat, and anyway, performance is stronger so far this month than last month, not that anyone would care if I pointed this out, because the fact is, performance dropped 15% yesterday and sales are flat, and I need to find a way to turn this account around ASAP, because, as Zed has told me many times, Content Machinists are judged by results and results alone.
I look at some content I launched yesterday, an interactive vid of a child taking off her jumpsuit, screaming like a maniac. In the vid, if you feed the child a groundbreaking new pill called Paid Attention 2, she puts the jumpsuit back on and quietly stands there, not moving, not doing anything. I’m analyzing the engagement dips when my feed dings. It’s Zed, asking me to join a call with Ginger, who’s the Account Manager for the Younder account. I hop on the call. A few other Younder execs are on the screen, their avatars twitching. All the faces turn toward me, and I'm, like, “hey Younder Team!” trying to sound all positive, and Zed is, like, “thanks for joining on such short notice, Vonn,” as if I had a choice or something, and then he’s, like, “Ginger, could you please pull up the report you were just sharing,” and my feed flashes with the report, which is the same content report I was just looking at, and Ginger is all, like, “we noticed a 15% engagement drop yesterday, and we wanted to figure out what we could do to increase engagement.”
“Right,” I say. “Well, I was just looking into this, and what I’m seeing is…” I stop. Because I have nothing to say. All the avatars are kind of hovering, waiting for me to say something. “Ummm…”
“Vonn?” Zed laughs nervously. “Are you there?”
“Yes, yes,” I say. “I’m here. I think my feed is glitching.”
Ginger laughs. “That’s so funny. My feed was glitching earlier too. Maybe we go off vid?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, “that might help the signal,” and meanwhile I’m all, like, frantically clicking around in the account, searching desperately for a callout, but nothing is coming to me, and when all the vids go blank, Zed is, like, “Is that better, Vonn?” And I'm, like, “yes, yes, that’s better, can you hear me?” And Zed and every one else choruses they can hear me, but I still haven’t found a callout.
“Look,” I say. “My guess is that engagement is down because users are probably wary of another version of Paid Attention, given the recent deaths that of course had nothing to do with Younder Pharmaceutical.”
Silence.
Zed breaks the silence with a cough.
And then the silence mends itself.
Zed dings me. All remaining Younder employees have been NDA’ed about the recall. Say something else. NOW PLEEAZ.
So to break the awk silence, I’m, like, “have y'all heard about demandContact? It’s a new type of dNet ad. I think it could be a really good fit for Younder.”
“demandContact?” One of the Younder execs ask. “I haven’t heard of it.” Her voice turns dark. “Why haven’t we tried this before?”
“Because it’s brand new,” Zed interjects. “dNet just rolled it out.”
“I just wish we’d gotten ahead of this,” the exec says. “What do you need from us to get this new ad launched today?”
“I’ll send over the specs,” I say.
“Ok. I’ll keep an eye out. Because we really need to turn around performance. Like, ASAP.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’m really excited about getting this new ad live. Really excited to see how it performs.”
A bunch of hearts float on the screen, apparently sent by the other execs on the call, none of whom I know or even know what they do or why they’re on the call. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t even know what Ginger’s role is as Account Manager, aside from hosting these weekly calls.
The call ends.
Zed asks me to get on a one-on-one with him. Which I do.
“Hey,” he says. “I just want to touch base so we’re on the same page. You’re going to send over the specs, right, for the new demandContact campaign?”
“Yes,” I say. “I just have to read through the articles you sent so that I know what the specs are.”
“Ok, perfect.” Zed exhales a vape hit. “I’m really glad I sent over those articles this morning. I think Younder was happy with this suggestion. Hopefully the new ad gets good traction, because we really need to turn around performance ASAP.”
“Right,” I say. “I’ve heard.”
“Ok, cool. Well, let me know if you need anything. I need to hop off.”
The call ends.
I read through the articles about demandContact and then send over the specs.
Then I get into the Vonn Plastics account and start clicking around, but before I can do much, I’m dinged by Bat, a Junior Content Machinist who is one of my direct reports, and he’s asking if I can answer some questions about the Foster Beauty Account, which he’s tasked with managing, so I hop on a call with him to discuss the account, which is performing very poorly, but in fact has never performed well because The Foster Beauty Company sells virtual handbags that are priced at a premium for no good reason.
“So here’s the thing,” Bat says. “I launched this ad yesterday for this new leather sling, but it hasn’t driven any purchases, so I’m thinking about putting in a creative request for some new content, but I’m wondering what else you might suggest…”
And it goes like that for a while, and I’m sitting there looking at this worthless content, and I’m starting to feel sorry for Bat, because he himself has to look at this worthless content all day and try to make coin from it, so I'm all, like, “The owner of Foster Beauty is just some woman with a low-grade skin software program, and she thinks she can charge a week’s worth of coin for some subpar handbag, but there’s no reason for any of us to care about this garbage, so move on to the next account. You’ve done the best you can. There just isn’t enough value add.”
I click off, and before I can start reading through the demandContact article, I get a ping from X. Yo, I heard performance is down in the Younder account. You know that’s my account, right? I worked weeks to close that deal. So don’t fuck this up.
And then a message from Taco. Yo, I heard performance is down in the Younder account. Did our latest creative not hit home? Let me know if you need more images or vids. Zed is absolutely on my ass right now.
And then a message from Yide. Hey, I heard performance is down in the Younder account. How are you holding up? You know I’m here if you want to talk. I am the head of HR, after all.
I message Yide. You wanna hang tonight? My place?
I don’t have enough coin for a ride. You wanna come over to mine? I think X might join too.
I check my funds. The price of doseMoon has only risen a fraction of a percent, but luckily my weekly allowance from Vonn Industries has hit, so I tell Yide I can come over after work.
That afternoon, during my lunch break, I tell my barberBot to shave my head and stubble. The razor buzzes as I ingest goo. The problem with hair in The Within is that it can interfere with dNet sensors, so your avatar is all glitchy, which is why all the women in The Within look like chemo patients if you see them unGlassed, all bald and emaciated, but this is a small price to pay for a slick, glitchless avatar.
X messages Taco and I in a group chat. Did you see the verdict?
What verdict, I almost write, before remembering that today is the trial of Nitro 34, who had been charged with being a vibeKill because of some posts he made about The Within, essentially saying, in effect, that The Within is an unnatural cesspool of pleasure and entertainment that generates disease, discontent, and violence by distracting people from higher pursuits, such as wisdom, love, knowledge, art, family, friendship, etc. Some of the words he used, like friends and love, were from The Olden Times, so it was clear that he had gotten his hands on some ancient artifacts, like books, and had actually read the words and thought deep and hard about them. In his posts, he used a lot of fancy words, like decadence and hedonism, which were a major vibeKill because people had to look up the words and expand their vocabulary in order to understand. Nitro had even gone as far as to suggest that Mr. Vonn Senior was a kind of dictator who maintained power and wealth by monopolizing industry and controlling information. He encouraged people to unGlass and look around, sit and think, meditate, even visit The Without. Like, total vibeKill.
I swipe to the live stream of the trial. Nitro 34 is being dragged out of the board room. I rewind the footage. I watch, briefly, the closing dances, during which Nitro 34 half-heartedly waltzes to some boring ass classical music by some guy named Bach; after that, Nitro’s supervisor, Fidget Spinner 46, performs a viral dance to “Goo Me, Goo Me” by Juggo, her hips undulating, her shoulders swaying, her ass popping; the boardroom explodes in applause; emojis flood the screen. I fast forward. The Chief Compliance Officer of Vonn Industries, a man named Icon 75, fires Nitro 34, sentencing him to the deathBeam for being a vibeKill.
Serves him right, Taco says. Ain’t nobody have time for vibeKills.
And later that afternoon, right before everyone clocks out for the day, Nitro 34 is strapped to the deathBeam and vaporized in front of a cheering crowd. I watch the firing in a corner screen of my glass while I launch the new demandContact campaigns for Younder.
I really hope the campaigns perform well. I really hope they drive a lot of engagement. I really hope they make Younder a lot of coin.