At Dirtlease headquarters, the morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the smell of New Jersey in the air. In the break room, the bean bag chairs were occupied, the red lights were at their dimmest, and someone had taken all the fidget spinners from the bucket near the door. Sharp objects and the pods in the cappuccino machine had been removed for the day. Some larger companies started the lottery on the 26th, but at Dirtlease, which had only recently knocked General Motors out of the S&P 500, a single day sufficed. People began to gather in the main auditorium shortly before 9:30 AM.
‘What about the people posted to the Greenland branch’, Joe Summers, the head of Best Practices, said to the guy standing next to him, Claude Delacroix.
‘I understand that they will participate remotely’, Delacroix said.
‘What about the Gaza Riviera office?’
‘That has been taken care of.’
‘Can’t we just dump on DEI?’
‘We have to respect the process.’
The young people, just out of B-school, assembled first. The men stood in a group and discussed a SportsBall event. Even though younger people had stopped having sex a decade ago, the women stood in a gaggle, looked over their shoulders, pointed at the men and giggled.
‘These Gen Xers, Emily said. She was the assistant to the vice-regent of Communications.
‘So horny’, her companion laughed.
‘Eugh.’
A sixty-something man whacked a woman across the ass with a yardstick. She shrieked and threatened to call HR.
‘Dream on, Schnuckiputz’, the man said. ‘DOGE dismantled HR last night.’
‘Then, I will to use self-help’, the woman said. She looked like a tall Australian actress who had large hands and made films about screwing younger men.
‘I’d like that’, the man said.
The lottery was conducted – as were team-building exercises, corporate training events, and the annual holiday party – by the Head of Scalability. He was an older White guy, a college friend of the Founder. Although he showed up every day and had a large glassed-in office, nobody knew what he did for a living. People said that the Founder allowed him to conduct these events in order to give him something to do.
‘DOGE is cutting the fat’, an analyst said to the guy standing next to him.
‘Ay-men to that’, the other guy said, and offered a fist bump.
Some of the original paraphernalia from the lottery was still extant. For most of the year, the Home Depot bucket that the Founder and the other early leaders had used during the heroic period, when the company was run from the Founder’s garage, was locked in a safe in the main office. After the company had rented a real office and hired its hundredth employee, the pottery shards had been replaced by slips of paper, but some of the original ostrakoi were now on display in a glass case in the reception area.
‘When they started, there were just three employees’, Summers said.
‘Those are brutal odds’, Delacroix said.
‘And if he had been a one-man shop?’, Summers said.
‘Oh, man’, Delacroix said. ‘The horror.’
.
Just as Scalability was setting the bucket on the dais, a younger guy from Payables named Steve came running up. ‘I thought everyone was working remotely, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh’, he said. Scalability gave him a fish eye. ‘You wouldn’t want me to leave a half-assed pivot table on my desktop, would you’, Steve said, with up-talk that betrayed nervousness. Summers had asked Steve to make a model from a raw data set earlier that spring. He thought the kid had technical brilliance but no common sense.
‘Who’s the laggard’, Delacroix asked.
‘A new guy from the University of Florida’, Summers said.
‘He looks like an idiot’, Delacroix said.
‘He was a sports scholarship’, Summers said.
‘So, why is he here?’
‘Fuck if I know.’
.
The Founder walked up to the dais, thanked Scalability and looked out over the room. People looked up from their phones, stood still, quieted down and listened.
‘When I started this company’, the Founder said, ‘It was just me and two friends from high school.’
‘And now it’s just him up there’, Summers whispered.
‘Shhh, Delacroix said.
‘And now, look at you’, the Founder said, looking out at the room. ‘Five hundred twenty-three here and two thousand spread out over the globe. Look to your right and look to your left. You are the company. None of this would have happened without you. Pat yourselves on the back.’
People in the auditorium took a moment to look around. People in the remote offices, on the jumbotrons, did likewise.
‘The odds favor you’, the Founder said.
A murmur went through the crowd.
‘As you know’, the Founder continued, ‘when we started the company, we kept the tradition of the lottery intact, but we updated it for the private sector. The basic process is the same. However, during the nine months leading up to the lottery date, myself and a small group of people consider the prize for the upcoming year. The idea is not merely to mete out the prize. It is to tailor the prize to the needs of the enterprise that are most salient now. By doing this, we keep a timeless tradition alive, but we also strengthen our culture and help the bottom line.’
Summers rolled his eyes. Delacroix jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow.
‘This is not a closed process’, the Founder continued. ‘We welcome suggestions from each of you. The idea for the prize for the year before last originated from a member of the housekeeping staff in the Tulsa office. We do our best to keep the consideration as open and transparent as possible.’
A buzz went through the local crowd. Heads on the jumbotrons bobbed.
‘The three final ideas for this year’s prize were sent out over Slack last week. We are here to find out which prize will be given and, of course, who will win it.’
From stage left, an analyst walked out and handed an envelope to Scalability. Scalability handed the envelope to the Founder. The Founder smiled, nodded his head and said a few off-mike words to Scalability. Scalability chuckled.
‘And the prize is –‘the Founder said.
Summers felt the air seep from his lungs.
‘Siobhan’, the Founder said. For emphasis, he crumpled the now-empty envelope and tossed it over his shoulder. In the auditorium, five hundred twenty-three people wished they were somewhere else.
.
‘I guess I haven’t been reading my Slack’, Summers said. ‘Who or what is Siobhan?’
‘Siobhan is the Mobius strip lady’, Delacroix said. ‘The one with the little green men.’
‘Elaborate’, Summers said.
‘You remember the woman who mutilated her installer certificate and tore out her manufacturer’s warranty and swore that aliens abducted her and did that?’
‘Oh, Jesus’, Summers said. ‘Yes.’
‘And then she sued to recoup the cost of the replacement stickers?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s office, claiming that we took the sales tax we collected on the sale of her home, kept it for ourselves and invested it in a criminal enterprise?
‘Uh-huh.’
‘And then bitched because we sent her a 1099 for the judgment that was paid to her? Well, she’s at it again. She called the State Code Enforcer and claimed that we were engaged in nefarious practices. Because of that, they are performing an audit on us. They want signed copies of the Installation Disclosures and Dispute Resolution Disclosures provided to each purchaser of a new home, and they want proof that each purchaser signed an information packet acknowledgement that was sent to the manufacturer.’
‘Don’t we just have to provide those disclosures to purchasers? The law says nothing about having them sign them.’
‘Codes says they have to sign them and give them back to us.’
‘That is not in the law.’
‘No, but it is a practice that the code enforcer requires.’
‘Doesn’t taking a disclosure back from the disclosee defeat the purpose of a disclosure?’
‘Yup.’
‘Do those disclosures even have signature lines?’
‘Nope.’
‘Didn’t we sell only three new manufactured homes since the Founder incorporated our dealer entity?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Wouldn’t it be a better use of public funds for Codes to go after big dealer entities?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is DOGE when you need it?’
‘Fuck you.’
Summers contemplated Delacroix’ response. He was not sure whether it meant, ‘Who would expect an incompetent, corrupt organization like DOGE to do anything right’, or ‘How dare you question our great leader’. He had worked with Delacroix for twenty years but he did not know his political views. In times like these, it was dangerous to ask. The statement also might also, he thought, have simply meant ‘fuck you’.
‘And are sellers required to keep copies of information packet acknowledgements sent to manufacturers’, he asked.
‘They just have to send them in.’
‘Did we send them in?’
‘Of course.’
‘So, how do we prove that we did that?’
‘The code enforcer’s office says we can get confirmation from the manufacturers that the forms were sent in.’
‘Really?’
‘We only have two information packet acknowledgements outstanding. Both were sent to Clayton. We have requested confirmation from Clayton that these forms were sent in.’
‘Do you think we will get that confirmation?’
‘I think Warren Buffet has better things to do than to respond to our request.’
.
On the stage, Scalability held the Home Depot bucket while department heads walked onto stage to draw for their teams. Summers saw the heads of Impact, Leverage, Communications and Solutions walk up on stage, draw small envelopes, and return to their seats.
.
‘Siobhan is a cross between a pitbull, a case of the clap and a kamikaze pilot’, Delacroix said. ‘She is like Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2. She won’t quit being a pain in the ass, even when she has no incentive to be a pain in the ass. She will be a pain in the ass until it kills her.’
‘What’s the prize?’
‘Well, they decided that they needed to get Siobhan to stop. They offered her a payout and she refused. They offered her a huge condo in Gaza, a private jet, membership at a private club in Florida. She told the Founder that she was not a rational actor and no amount of money would keep her from what she sees as her mission, which is being a pain in the ass to us now and forever.’
‘What else?’
‘They tried to get her interested in a hobby. They sent stamp collectors, cribbage masters, basket weavers, bird watchers, bridge players, golfers, D&D players, mycophiles, geocachers to speak with her. Nobody could catch her eye.
‘Oi.’
‘They tried to help her get a job. She said she was happy as she was, not contributing to society.’
The heads of Payables, Receivables and Synergies walked up to the stage and took envelopes out of the bucket. Scalability smiled at each department head and said ‘good luck’ before he or she walked back to their seat. When Herbert Kornfeld picked up the envelope for his team, he faced the audience, made a two-letter salute and shouted ‘Peace out to my Receeeeeivabo homies’. When the head of Payables, Bill Hutchinson, ascended the stage, he and Kornfeld stood nose to nose for a beat and fixed each other with hundred-yard stares. Then Kornfeld clomped down the steps and waved to his people.
‘Isn’t it unfair for the first clade to be department heads’, Summers said. ‘The odds favor larger departments.’
‘If an employee wins, bonuses go up’, Delacroix said.
‘How so’, Summers asked.
‘Bonus pool remains the same. The universe of recipients shrinks. The smaller the original set of recipients, the better for the survivors.’
‘You are a cold-blooded bastard.’
‘Like you aren’t’.
.
‘So what’s the prize’, Summers asked.
‘Well, the steering committee decided they needed a final solution to the Siobhan problem. They had offered her money, a hobby and a job. They couldn’t whack her, of course. That would be illegal. So, they decided she needed bunga-bunga. The winner takes one for the team.’
Summers’ face crumpled. ‘Isn’t there anything else they could have come up with’, he asked. ‘Have you seen her? Have you spoken with her? Asking a man to have sex with that is cruel and unusual.’
‘The winner could be a woman.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘The horror.’
‘Yes, the horror.’
.
‘Operations’, Scalability said. ‘Awesomness. Customer Enchantment.’ Department heads filed up, took their envelopes and returned to their seats. When they were all done, a sudden hush fell over the crowd. The people in the remote offices stared at the cameras like rodents.
‘All right guys’, Scalability said. ‘Department heads – open your envelopes.’ Suddenly, all the women began to speak sat once, saying, ‘Who is it? Who’s got it? Is it the Skill Team? Is it HR?’
‘HR is gone’, a woman in Communications said. ‘They got the ax last night.’
‘Motherfuckers’, someone said. ‘If that ain’t corruption.’
Bill Hutchinson from Payables held a slip of paper with a black dot on it. ‘It’s us’, he said.
‘You didn’t give him enough time to take any envelope he wanted’, a woman seated next to Bill shouted.
‘Be a good sport, Karen’, a woman from Operations said. ‘All of us took the same chance.’
‘Shut up, Karen’, Hutchinson said.
‘Well, everyone’, Scalability said, ‘That was done pretty fast, and now we’ve got to be hurrying a little to be done before the market closes in London. Bill – do you have any sub-teams who will draw as a group?’
‘We have a flat organizational structure.’
‘Well, then. The rest is straightforward.’
‘I think we should start over’, Karen said. ‘It wasn’t fair.’ Hutchinson, Scalability and the rest of the room ignored her. ‘Remember’, Scalability said. ‘Take the slip that you are given and keep it folded until each employee has one. Bill, you help Ivan. I don’t think he can navigate the steps with his wheelchair.’
‘I don’t think Ivan will be much help if he wins’, Summer said to Delacroix.
‘Shut the fuck up’, Delacroix explained.
Nancy, a girl of sixteen, a summer intern, went first. Her friends from the Primed for Success program breathed heavily as she stepped forward, switched her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the bucket. ‘Karen’, Scalability said. ‘Shilpa. Yiru. Cesar. Steve. Bill. Anastasia. Tomaš.’ The crowd was quiet. An intern whispered, ‘I hope it’s not Nancy’, and the sound reached the edge of the crowd. ‘It’s not the way it used to be’, old man Chestnut said. ‘Young people are so damn entitled these days. They think everything will be handed to them on a platter.’
‘Alright’, Scalability said. ‘Open the papers. Bill, you help Ivan, if he needs it.’
‘Steve’, Bill said. His voice was hushed. Steve made a grunting sound and then tried to wad up his paper and put it in his mouth, but two security guards grabbed him, choked him and forced his teeth apart. ‘Show us his paper, Bill’, Scalability said. Bill Hutchinson unfolded the paper and wiped some spit off his hands. It had the black spot on it, the black spot that the Founder and Scalability had made the night before in the corner office on the top floor of the building.
‘All right, folks’, Scalability said. ‘Let’s finish quickly.’
The two guards grabbed Steve by the elbows and started dragging him to a door in the wall at the back of the auditorium. The crowd began to hum. Kornfeld crowed ‘Ya motha-fuckin accounts payabo motha fucka’. The scenes from the remote offices disappeared from the jumbotrons and were replaced with the image of what waited for Steve behind the door. A large, hideously ugly White woman of about sixty-five wearing a red velvet teddy, a g-string and a pair of Halloween devil’s horns held a pair of handcuffs in one hand and a bullwhip in the other. To her side was a king-sized bed with red satin sheets and places for five-point restraints. The woman had razor-thin lips, with which she smiled cruelly. Steve said, ‘It isn’t fair’, and began to blubber like a child. The security guards dragged him like a sack of laundry toward the door.
‘Is that who I think it is in the room’, Summers asked.
‘Oh, yeah’, Delacroix said.
‘How long does it go on? Like do they, like, ever stop?’
‘Have you read In the Penal Colony?’
Summers was overcome with a feeling that the inside of his head was empty except for a guy taking notes. The inside of that guy’s head was empty, except for another note-taker, and so on ad infinitum. He wanted to curl up under a quilt in the fetal position. Outside his head, maintenance staff appeared holding folding camp chairs of the type that people take to watch fireworks or SportsBall.
‘I’ll get you a chair’, Delacroix said. ‘Wait for me here.’
‘The horror’, Summers said. ‘The horror.’
‘Yes, the horror.’