Having reached the tenth floor and arrived at their respective, adjacent cubicles, Danny continued, “I mean it dude, Israeli agents in cahoots with America are systematically sabotaging Arab Union factories.”
“Man that’s Old World shit. Israel has been at peace with the Arab Union for ten years. There’s no more sabotage or espionage.”
“That’s just what we’re supposed to think.”
Though in a better mood induced from caffeine and the positive psychological association of the taste of coffee, our Jerry had to cut this enlightened conversation short, “Well man, I got a lot of shit to do today. We can continue this at lunch.”
“Dude, you don’t work.”
“Yeah, yeah. Fuck off.”
Now, while the consummate work of shithole was patriotic and edifying, our benevolent protagonist could claim neither of these adjectives for his work. Our Jerry was merely a datajockey, as they referred to those in his line of work. The Triple H maintained a fascinating stream of data for nearly every resident in the city and state of New York. Equally impressive facilities collected data for every major metropolitan area in the US. The system remained federated for the time being; they were not collecting information on a national scale yet.
Mr Blauer’s measly job was handling a negligible percentage of this data. A pebble amongst this mountain. He observed, analyzed, organized and never editorialized this constant stream. His life was a blur of tables and spreadsheets, numbers and graphs.
Now, you may be inquiring as to the nature of these magnificent numbers around which our beloved protagonist’s life revolves. Well it is really quite simple. These numbers are everything.
The 2021 Act of Human Health, Hygiene and Sanitation Services not only created the department of the same name, but also set into motion the directive for which these earnest datajockeys work. This act installed so-called Health and Wellness Monitors in every urban and suburban household in America (the rural HWMs came later), simultaneously improving the health of the country and creating thousands, no millions, of jobs.
These splendid devices collected samples daily. Blood samples. Stool samples. Urine samples. Air. Hair. Skin. Fingernails. Sweat. Tears. Anything. Everything.
Mr Blauer certainly did not dream of being a datajockey his whole life—quite the contrary in fact. Jerry grew up in a fairly musical family. Those who were not musicians nonetheless had musical inclinations. He was always surrounded by music, and at a relatively young age he became musically active, beginning piano lessons at five and guitar at nine. The skill did not immediately come easy to him as it did so many of his family, but he worked hard and became respectable at both instruments, though his love was for guitar. In and out of bands from the age of thirteen he endlessly imagined he could someday make a living off music. A common dream with uncommon satisfaction.
Until his unfortunate employment at shithole a year ago today, our beloved Jerry was even doing quite well for a musician. Yes, it is true, he brought in roughly 51% of his earnings from a locally owned, independent bookstore, a fast-dying trade itself, he did indeed make money from performing his music. He still hopped from band to band, a so-called hired gun, but it was money, and it was music. It made him happy. At least relatively so. He still wrote his own music on the side. And this was enough to keep his inner creative turmoil busy.
But life’s little, quaint responsibilities have a way of squelching every artist’s desires. For Jerry this came in the form of a child. Little darling Barrett Dylan. What a ghastly and pretentious name. The instant you hear such a name you know the parents are so up their own ass with artsy-fucking-fartsy bullshit….I’m sorry. Your honest narrator will try to refrain from injecting his own judgments into the life and decisions of our dear protagonist. Nonetheless, devoted family man that he wished to become, Jerry felt it necessary to join the ranks of the hapless nine-to-fivers he detested. He knew his child and dear wife needed something steady and stable. Steadiness and stability: the death knell of any artist’s career. Art cannot be steady and stable! The very definition forbids it.
But all artists must grow up some day. His wife’s uncle just happened to be a sector head at the recently created Department of Human Health, Hygiene and Sanitation Services. And they were looking for datajockeys. What luck! Though of course, the uncle did not use the term datajockey, but rather the more enticing health statistics analyst. Yes, it is not terribly more enticing than datajockey, but it certainly sounds more important.
Now—of course—all jobs, from the most menial to the most illustrious, are important in their own way. As all creatures and beasts serve a function in each ecosystem, all careers are necessary for the function of society. Insects are vile creatures. They pester, and they do not invite the poet’s inspired verses like a soaring eagle or a majestic tiger command. No, they merely eat away at the decay and filth of putrescent life. Biology assigns these tasks to each order of life. Likewise human life is an ecosystem with its own modes of putrefaction, real or figurative, which requires the low rungs of society, the nobodies, the losers. Therefore the winners know they need the losers and make it their civic duty to keep them down and out. If there were no garbagemen the city would pile high with waste. If there were no dishwashers, mountains of disposed dinnerware would be as ubiquitous a sight as cracked concrete—though the business of manufacturing such dinnerware would immediately become very profitable.
….I digress. Forgive me for my spurt of useless babble.
Cheers,
The Flying Dutchman.
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