WORKLOAD

As above, so below

NOTE: I wrote this short story in Jan. 2026 for a competition. It didn’t win, unfortunately, but the practice was invaluable. I’m posting here, despite its imperfections, because I believe it’s valuable to have a snapshot showing my quality of writing at any given time.

Content warning: workplace burnout, suicide.

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Why isn’t this working?

Check the logs.

Ah. Right. Forgot to specify the output destination.

My fingers find the controls on their own, make the adjustment.

Redirect. Output specified. Rerun.

Bingo!

I stretch and glance around. The only light is coming from the screen in front of me. Everyone else is gone for the day—not that there are many of us left. I look at the clock.

Shit.

Later than I thought. I should get going.

I reach for the shutdown switch—eyes pass over the screen.

Just one more thing, then I’m done.

Two hours later, I head to the only vehicle still in the lot. It’s past midnight. I rub my eyes and run my hand over a layer of stubble. At least the script is working. I press my thumb to the lock pad. The door hisses open. “Home,” I say and climb inside. The car lifts into the air and speeds me off toward home.

When I get there, I drag myself through the door. My back is stiff and full of knots. I toss my jacket over the couch.

I peek in on the wife. She aims a snore at me and turns over. The kids are out, too. My alarm is going to go off at five (ugh) and I still haven’t eaten. Not much in the fridge—a box of leftover Chinese, a couple of bags of something unidentifiable, cold fries, a half gallon of milk. I grab the Chinese, head to the couch.

“Shiva, news.” The wall lights up.

You’d think after staring at a screen all day, I’d be done. Us data junkies need our fix. Besides, it helps me sleep. I stare at the pixels without watching and my mind drifts back to the optimization problem while I shovel noodles into my mouth.

I bet I could put a branch in the workflow, cut our output time by another 2% by rerouting nonessential tasks.

Tomorrow, I tell myself. But my head doesn’t want to wait. The challenge sucks me in, churns in my brain even as my body begs for sleep.

In the background the news anchor’s voice drones on. Something about unemployment rates. Protests and riots.

Yawn.

Sleep overtakes me, and the dream loops start. All the negative things from the previous week play over and over. A snide comment. The half hour vid call with Hermes about how I need to get my numbers up, show the higher-ups some improvement. Fuck Hermes. Fuck efficiency. Already handed off all the major redundancies—wait, thirty extra seconds per job if I run a subroutine, tag the info earlier, run it in parallel…

Over and over—images, new ideas, the same problems. Condescending faces on the vid screen. Data. Spreadsheets. Optimization.

The alarm goes off.

Fuck, I hate my job.

I hit the snooze button. Again. And again. When the wife elbows me, I finally drag myself out of bed. Nuke the last of yesterday’s coffee while I get a fresh pot brewing. Read the news on the shitter while the shower heats up. India and Pakistan are at it again. Russia’s posturing, as usual. Another crash in sector eight. AI’s taking over, kind of—not the way they predicted. The world’s going to hell, what else is new? Some days it feels like my job is to find the most efficient way to get there.

The new company has really sucked the life out of living. Used to be I’d come in, work an eight, the occasional ten, take a long weekend to do stuff with the family. Not anymore. Can’t remember the last time I saw my kids.

I haven’t had a day off in three months. Downsizing, they said. Optimization. I’m doing the work of ten people. Maybe more. I’m saving the company money, making myself more valuable with each tweak.

The steam is thick. Shower feels good. I just want to stand here for an hour, let the hot water run over me, wash my troubles away. Why not? I’m already late. Fuck ‘em. They’d have a hard time replacing me. Not impossible, but pretty damn painful.

What if the data I pull has one additional field, can I tailor the output to be location specific? Maybe. That might fix the bug that’s been causing sectors five and six to lag.

Rinse, towel off. Mind racing. Can’t help it.

I dress in the dark. Give the wife a kiss on my way out.

“Don’t stay too late tonight…” she mumbles in a cloud of morning breath.

I whisper the familiar lie. “I won’t.”

Grab a cup of joe on the way out the door, glance at the clock. Almost six. Just enough time to grab a donut on the way.

The view on the drive in is pretty dour. Smoke rises from downtown. Looks like the rioters went apeshit.

Glad I don’t work in that part of town.

My ride touches back down. I pop the last of the donut into my mouth and step out of the vehicle. It’s still early, but there are noticeably fewer cars in the lot than last week. I stifle a yawn—at least I still have a job.

Pry my eye open for a retinal scan. The door slides open.

“Feels like I never left…” I murmur and head back to the terminal. The place feels empty. A couple of faces glance up as I walk past, but none say hello—no time.

Fuck this place.

I sit down. Boot up. Enter my password, wait for the biometrics scan. Get to work.

I’m fifteen minutes in when I hear the ping.

Teams meeting with Hermes. 7AM-7:15AM. That’s in five minutes. Open my drawer, pull out the cheap headset, plug it in, put it on. Hermes is two minutes late, of course. He’s got bags under his eyes, and his smile looks tired. “Hey! How’s my favorite WFE?”

“Great!” I say with feigned joviality. I’m sure my smile looks as genuine as it is. “What’s up, boss?”

“Just got word from upper that there’s another round of layoffs coming…”

“Jesus. We just had one last week.”

“I know. I don’t like it any more than you do. But you know how the big wigs are.”

I do. Only too well. Lost half my department over the last couple of months.

“We need to get our numbers up. Optimize or downsize. You know how it goes.”

“What more do they want from me? I’m already pulling doubles. Numbers are as good as they’ve ever been—”

“Preaching to the choir, my man. But,” he gives a pixelated shrug from his corner of my screen, “we need to ‘eliminate redundancies’. Only way to do that is to ‘optimize’. If Earth doesn’t make its quotas…” Hermes doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to. The threat is implied.

I think of Mars and shake my head. Goddammit.

“Rumor has it,” Hermes continues, “there’s another buyout on the horizon.”

“It hasn’t even been a full year!” The disbelief is genuine.

Hermes shrugs again. “These guys want results, and they’re willing to squeeze every last drop to get them. Just do what you can.”

I’m already doing everything I can, but there’s no use telling Hermes that. “I’ll try.”

Hermes nods. “Good enough. I gotta go. Work to do.”

“Same.” Too much fucking work.

Hermes signs off.

I sigh, rub my temples, and look around. The office is about half full—I know, I sound like an optimist. Probably as full as it’s going to get. Some of these faces won’t be here end of next week.

Well, it’s not going to be me.

I get back to work. Next time I look up from the screen it’s almost quitting time. Haha. That’s rich. Nobody goes home on time these days. Nobody quits either.

Stand, stretch, hit the head, grab another cup of shitty office coffee. I swing by the vending machine for a candy bar, mind circling around my latest problem. I’ll need to set up some automation protocols. Andy and Jim aren’t quite replaceable, but there are some redundancies. I think I can automate at least half of their daily workload.

“Howdy stranger!”

I jump. Coffee sloshes over the edge, lands on the floor. “Shit…”

“Whoa, hey—it’s just me.”

“Hey Sharon…” I feel like an idiot. She and I started around the same time, about five years ago. Back when the place was still a mom-and-pop shop.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Me neither. I thought the rat race was bad before the buyout,” she says with a forced laugh.

“Pretty bad in your department, too?”

She takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Pretty bad.” She doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t look me in the eye either. She must have had a meeting this morning too.

“We’ll get through it. We always do.”

Sharon nods.

“Shit. Well…I gotta get back to work.”

We head back the way we came.

“Working late tonight, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She sighs. “Me too.”

We walk a few more feet together before splitting off to our respective stations. I hit the first aid kit on the way back, grab a packet of ibuprofen for the headache that’s coming on. I rub at a knot embedded in the back of my neck. I could go for a massage.

I leave earlier than last night. It’s still too late.

Sharon’s car is last in the lot tonight.

Don’t work too late.

The news on the way home is as bleak as always. We’re on the verge of another war—might go nuclear. Unemployment levels are up. Been that way ever since a handful of trillionaires sold the planet. Took their bonuses and made nice little lives for themselves and their families in the heavens.

Maybe if I work really hard, I can get there too. What a joke.

When I open the door to our place, the kids greet me with cries of “DAD’S HOME!” and hugs that hurt my balls. Tears sting. Vision blurs a bit. I squeeze back. Judy watches from the couch. I go to her, give her a kiss. Cartoons on the screen.

“You smell like cinnamon,” I tell her.

“I picked up donuts earlier. Apple fritters. There’s still one left if you want it.”

“Thanks sweetie.” I give her another kiss. Donuts and candy and leftover Chinese—that’s all I eat these days. I check the fridge. There’s a fresh six-pack on the top shelf. Nice. Judy’s a saint.

“You want one of these?”

“Sure, I’ll have one.”

I sit down on the couch next to her, pop the tab, listen to the hiss, drink half the can in two swallows.

“Can I have a sip, daddy?”

“I think your father needs that more than you do, right now,” she tells Abbey. The girls giggle and climb onto the couch next to me, snuggling in close. I put my arms around them. We finish the show and then it’s bedtime. Five minutes later, it’s just me and Judy on the couch. She’s still working on her first beer. I’m finishing my third.

“Long day?” she asks.

“They’re all long these days.”

“You doing okay?”

“Not really.” My voice catches.

“I know it’s not easy. I appreciate what you’re doing—we appreciate all you do for us.”

“I know. It’s just…”

“What?”

“It all feels so pointless. Fucking futile. I work my ass off, but it piles up, more than I can handle. I hardly make a dent in it. And they all tell me I’m doing a great job. But I’m barely treading water, here.” The tears spill over. Judy holds me and we say nothing for a while.

“I had a meeting with Hermes today.”

“Bad?”

“Yeah. Another round of layoffs coming up. And we’re about to get sold again.”

“Jesus, already? It hasn’t even been a year.”

“That’s what I said.”

“That’s awful.”

“I guess I’m going to be working late next week.”

“Any later, and you’d never get any sleep.”

I head back to the kitchen, grab a bag of chips from the pantry and another beer from the fridge.

“It just seems like the more I give, the more they want.”

“So stop.”

“And do what? Nobody’s hiring. There’s riots and protests because there aren’t enough jobs. I’m one of the lucky ones.” I cackle wildly at that one. I put my head in my hands. “I don’t know what to do.”

I lean my head back against the couch and stare at the ceiling.

“Maybe IntransiCorp,” Judy offers. “You’re good at what you do. Maybe they’d like to steal some talent from the competition.”

“Yeah. Maybe so. I’ll start on my resume tomorrow. Couldn’t hurt.”

The room is starting to spin. Too many beers on an empty stomach. Tomorrow’s gonna suck.

I wake up feeling better than expected. Not great, but not as bad as I thought either. I’ve got ideas on how to format my resume—maybe a shot at something else. Maybe things could be better.

I carve out a few minutes here and there, pick away at it over the course of the next week, hoping to have it done before the next round of layoffs.

I beat the announcement by a full day. Well, not so much an announcement. An HR rep is here. One by one, she and the token GM round up employees, herding them all into a room together. Telling them the bad news privately wouldn’t be as efficient. This way, they only have to give the speech once. And the people that made the call from a light year away never even have to set foot in the building.

They never have to witness the tears, or the sense of despair from those who were spared the axe. Never have to feel the survivor’s guilt. The impotent rage. Terrible thoughts. Fear of the unknown.

Just another day at the office. I’m going home.

The door barely latches behind me when I break down. Judy holds me. The kids ask what’s wrong with daddy. She tells them daddies need to cry sometimes too. The kids hold me and squeeze.

I fire off my resume that night.

Fingers crossed.

A week goes by. Nothing. I stop checking my email after week two. The high of trying to make a change is wearing off. I’m falling back into the old routine. Get up, go to work, die a little, come home late, rinse, repeat.

Week three I get a notification. I figure it’s an email telling me I just paid another bill. When I see it’s from IntransiCorp, I duck into the men’s room and lock myself in a stall.

My heart is pounding.

Deep breaths.

I tap and start reading. My smile fades, shoulders slump.

Sigh.

I leave the stall and wash my hands. Head back to my desk. Another hour, then I’m going home. I don’t have the energy to work late tonight.

The smell of a roast greets me as I walk through the door. I put on my cheery face and join the family. Judy looks at me, eyebrows raised.

I shake my head.

She nods and walks over to me and wraps her arms around my neck. “I’m sorry,” she whispers in my ear. I squeeze her back. I don’t cry this time.

Dinner is good. Having an evening with the family is good. I get to bed at a reasonable hour. Now that the question has been answered, a sort of peace has settled over me. Maybe that’s what resignation feels like. I don’t know, but I wake up the next morning, and when I get to work, I feel nothing. Numb. I go through the motions, head to my desk.

The workflows I’ve implemented are doing their job—and those of a dozen people no longer working here. I sigh and get to work. Optimize. Make myself indispensable.

Ping.

It’s Hermes—meeting in five. Fuck.

He comes on the screen. He’s looking pretty ragged. Judging by the dark circles under his eyes, he hasn’t slept in a couple of days.

“Hey Hermes.”

“Hey. I heard the cuts happened.”

“Yeah.”

“They went deeper than I thought. I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Hermes sips from his mug. His hand is trembling. “I guess the deal went through.”

“So it’s happened?”

“Yeah.”

“Who picked us up?”

“IntransiCorp.”

Fuck. I don’t have anything to say.

“Maybe things’ll get better.” I can tell from his face that he doesn’t really believe it.

“Maybe.”

“Well, that was it. You’re doing a great job. I… just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks Hermes.”

“I’ll touch base next week.”

“Sounds good. Take care.”

“Yeah.” He’s distant. Distracted.

The meeting ends. I stare at the screen, but my head is elsewhere.

Guess I get my chance to work with IntransiCorp after all. Sigh…

Maybe Hermes is right. When they see my work, they’ll have to promote me. I pull up the schematic, look over the workflow. I know there’s room for improvement somewhere.

I don’t go home that night until after ten.

They make a companywide announcement the following morning. Maybe these guys will be better seems to be the consensus among those of us who are left. I notice more cars in the lot when I leave that evening. Funny how that works.

It’s a Wednesday when I get the meeting invite. I accept. Introductions. Plans. Concepts of a plan. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. Synergy. Gumption. Blah blah blah. The veneer of humanity gets thinner with each acquisition.

How many more times am I going to have to hear the same spiel?

None, as it turns out. HR shows up the following day. I, along with Sharon and a couple others, get herded into what we’ve lovingly dubbed The Axe Room. It is what it is.

It doesn’t take long to pack. I already took home most of my personal stuff after the first buyout. The numbness from the last round of layoffs is still in effect—I guess I’m thankful for that.

Like a robot, I go about packing up what’s left. I try to log in, but I’ve already been locked out of the system. Wouldn’t want some disgruntled employee slipping a worm into the mainframe. Figures. At least my resume is up to date. Lucky me.

Sharon and I walk out the main entrance, squinting in the sunlight neither of us are used to.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“Not sure. You?”

“Same.”

“Well, if you ever want to grab a beer, shoot the shit, hit me up.”

“Thanks. I might just do that.”

In the parking lot, I click the button in my pocket. The trunk of my car opens. I toss the box of crap inside. Random bric-a-brac—pictures of the kids, a certificate, a couple of books from when I still took breaks. It’s less than it should be, considering I’ve spent more time here in the last five years than I have at home. More time with my coworkers than my own wife.

That’s about to change. I’m looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. I guess I’ll figure out what to do then. Judy’s gone. Probably picking the kids up from school. Won’t they be surprised when they see my car on the pad—well, Judy won’t.

I sit down. No TV. Just silence. I stare blankly ahead wondering what comes next.

My phone rings. I look down. Hermes?

“Hello?”

“Hi, um…” a woman’s voice.

“Who is this?”

“Oh God…How do I say this? You worked with Hermes?”

“Yes. He was my boss, I guess.”

“I’m his wife, Shelby, ummm…”

“Is something wrong?”

The woman’s voice breaks into sobs. I wait, not understanding.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” she says, “It’s just that… I didn’t know who to call. Hermes is…is dead.”

“What?”

“He killed himself last night. He was let go during the transition. Redundant, they said. Bastards. We both knew it was a possibility. But I never thought…” she sobs again, and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know who to call. Your number was in his favorites list.”

It was?

“Will you fill the others in? At work, I mean.”

“Uh, yes ma’am. I’ll do what I can. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” She says gently, and hangs up.

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END