Slightly Hungover Co-workers Prefer Communicating Through Slack

 
Illustration of an underwater bar with people and a large purple fish.

“Bar-Belle” by Devon Balwit

Monday, March 13th

Kara:

A party in the Kolkata Zoo Aquarium is like none other. Being surrounded by soaring, shape-shifting fish was such a regrounding way for us to celebrate our win in the inter-office mahjong tourney. And now, before a busy week grabs us by the tail, I need to draw your attention to an issue. The AutoShut technology introduced to our office-fridge a month back has not been received with homogeneity. While some of you seem happy to let go of the burden of shutting the fridge’s door, one or two among you have been apprehensive of its door suddenly shutting in the middle of you using it. I need to know where each of you stands. Reply in this thread with a LOVE if you want to keep faith in AutoShut and with a HATE if you want rid of AutoShut. And please, first clarify the reasons behind your choice. I’ll tally your votes and decide AutoShut’s fate before leaving tomorrow for my certificate course on Leadership and Accountability. Happy voting.

  • Guma

Would you believe it, I have never been troubled by AutoShut, and I’m someone who gets troubled by pretty much anything new. Like, when I moved to this city, I received a snake plant as a housewarming gift. Its handsome ceramic leaves are supposed to be easy to take care of indoors. Still, I managed to overwater it, causing it to rot. The demonic bugs that came to feast on its flesh infested my shoe rack for months. Compared to this, AutoShut has been a breeze to deal with. Just keep it.

LOVE

  • Tiri

What is wrong with us? We may be telecom engineers, but can’t we put one foot forward without leaning on technology? I’m tired of not being trusted to shut a door. The door of a fridge. The door of a gambling den masquerading as a drycleaning shop. Sometimes, people have to shoulder collective responsibility and not look for engineered solutions. Better awareness is the answer, not AutoShut.

HATE

  • Kian

AutoShut ensures optimal freshness inside the fridge. We, who are daily dissecting network topologies, cannot forsake optimalities. I vote that we keep faith and not revert to our pre-AutoShut inefficient state.

LOVE

  • Som

A few of you awoke to the perils of AutoShut after reading about the influencer who suffered a fractured wrist from his fridge’s door that AutoShut while he was pulling a drink out. But that’s just a drop in the Bay of Bengal. There have been numerous incidents, willfully buried by popular media, involving AutoShut’s development company Sensor Inc’s other malfunctioning offerings, like AutoRetract for MRI machines, AutoLoad for seeders, and AutoClean for ovens, that have left people with broken spines, punctured throats, and peeled-off faces. Hospitalizations caused by these auto-abominations have increased by 100 percent in the last month. Beware of AutoShut.

HATE

  • Lipin

Changed my mind thanks to Som. No to AutoShut.

HATE

  • Piki

The way we played and won has inspired me so much that I have ordered detachable mahjong tiles to be installed in my bathroom walls. Once done, I’ll splish-splash and click-clack in stratagems and meditation for hours. I don’t want to jeopardize that. A hard pass on AutoShut.

HATE

  • Hiso

My partner and I are about to welcome a baby into our lives. I’m afraid I can no longer take risks.

HATE

  • Kara

HATE wins by a vote of 5-2, and I’ll inform the head office that we have decided to get rid of AutoShut. Enjoy the pi day feast, everyone. Did you know fish will happily starve to death if they grow bored of the food on offer?

P.S. Congratulations on the baby, Hiso.

 

Monday April 3rd

Lipin:

There’s news from the head office. They have received information that Kara has abandoned her month-long certificate course and has applied to a bunch of three-year marine biology programs all the way out in Australia. Her response to every message is a string of fish emojis. She’s not expected to return to work. The head office will be putting me in charge temporarily. My first order of business will be to follow up with them regarding our pending request to approve AutoShut’s removal. But before that, I’ll just need to confirm if you still feel the same way about it. So we’ll have another vote.

About the Author

Subhravanu Das is an Indian writer living in Bhubaneswar. His work has been published in AGNI, Denver Quarterly, New Delta Review, and The Margins, among others, and included in Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf Top 50. More at subhravanudas.com.

about the artist

Devon Balwit wakes early, walks in all weather, and edits for Asimov Press and Works in Progress magazine. For more of her poetry, art, and more, visit: https://pelapdx.wixsite.com/devonbalwitpoet.

Peatsmoke