Humancorp Incorporated

by Andrew Stanek

  “General insanity, which I think we already talked about,” Clarence said.

  “Firing me for that would be discrimination against the insane,” said Sean, crossing his arms.

  “Sold company trade secrets to the Chinese,” Clarence added, glancing at a thick wad of papers in the file.

  “Now that’s just silly,” said Sean. “How could I sell company trade secrets to the Chinese? That’s impossible! I don’t even know what we do here! Besides, the Brazilians offered to pay much more than the Chinese.”

  “Insubordination and lying,” continued Clarence, his tone increasingly bored and flat.

  “I keep telling you, the Board of Directors really did fire you and made me the new manager,” declared Sean.

  “And above all else, you’re suspected of stealing at least a thousand different items both from the company and from your co-workers,” Clarence said, brandishing the majority of the remainder of the file at him.

  “But I really wanted most of that stuff,” complained Sean.

  “Lastly, you also interfered with our attempts to hire someone more competent to replace you by telling job applicants that they had to shank a guy to get a position here,” concluded Clarence.

  “That’s true, isn’t it?” asked Sean.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Uh oh,” Sean muttered, more to himself than to Clarence. “I guess I shouldn’t have shanked that guy, then.”

  Clarence sighed.

  “I can see you don’t have any remorse whatsoever or any intention to change, do you Sean?”

  Sean wasn’t paying attention; he was busy taking another swig from his hip flask.

  “Oh yeah, and you also drink alcohol at work,” Clarence added, smacking the flask out of his hand.

  “That’s not alcohol,” Sean said with annoyance. “It’s water.”

  Clarence sniffed it gingerly.

  “It’s definitely alcohol, and on top of that you always get drunk after you drink from this flask.”

  “Yeah, well, we Native Americans and dodo birds have very low tolerance to alcohol.”

  With another sigh, Clarence shook his head.

  “Between your compulsive lying, kleptomania, and destructive, violent tendencies, Sean, I’m sure even you must be able to see why we can’t keep you at this company. We’re going to have to fire you. Also, on the personal level, I feel I ought to say that you really annoyed the heck out of me. You always parked in my space.”

  “Parked in your space?” Sean repeated.

  “Yes. I sort of wonder how you manage it without owning a car...”

  Sean wasn’t smiling at all now. He crossed his arms even harder than before and frowned.

  “Oh, I see, I see,” he said. “This isn’t about my lying on my job application or pumping raw sewage into the office or beating up a homeless guy for his jacket or selling trade secrets to the Chinese at all! This is all about you, isn’t it, Mr. Pittward? It’s all about you and your precious parking space.”

  “It definitely is not,” said Clarence.

  “Prove it. Name just one good reason to fire me. Just one good reason.”

  “I’ve already named about a dozen, but okay, let’s talk about your poor job performance rather than your disciplinary infractions and illegal activities. After reviewing the terms of your employment with HR and the Legal Department, I have discovered that it is actually deeply necessary, from time to time, for you to do some work, and you’ve never done any, Sean. In fact, you just admitted that you don’t even know what we do here.”

  Sean was still crossing his arms.

  “That doesn’t sound like a very good reason to me,” he said grumpily. “If you’re so smart, you tell me what we do here.”

  Clarence snorted.

  “Mr. Woods, I’ve worked here for twenty years. Do you really think I don’t know what we do here? Why, we make-” Clarence paused and frowned. “We make... We make...”

  His brow furrowed.

  “Damn it, I know this,” he swore to himself, then suddenly he rose from his chair, fat as he was, waddled over to the door, and threw it open. “Hey, what do we even make here?” he shouted to the office. “Does anyone know? Maria?” he asked, calling to a curly-haired woman in a nearby cubicle.

  “We make gardening equipment for the army,” she shouted back.

  “I’ve never heard that before,” Clarence said with a frown. “I thought we were some sort of email factory.”

  “No, that’s not it,” called Derrick, a tall man from further down the hall. “I think we make coffee antifreeze for Starbucks.”

  “I think we’re animals’ rights attorneys for the malaria parasite,” said Stacey, a woman in a pantsuit.

  “I thought we were a front for a Peruvian drug cartel,” said Wayne, a man with long hair who sat at the opposite end of the office.

  Clarence coughed again.

  “Well, whatever we do here, I think we can be pretty sure that you’re not doing it well. Or at all.”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely fair,” Sean said. “We might be bureaucrats. There’s no way of knowing.”

  “It’s good enough for me,” Clarence said gruffly, sinking his flabby backside down into his extra-large chair. “In fact, the Legal Department has informed we have so much evidence against you we could safely beat you up on the way out without incurring any legal liability, but that’s a bit tedious. Let’s keep this simple. Sean, you’re fired. Clean out your desk and get out.”

  “Right, and which desk is mine again?” Sean asked.

  “Out,” barked Clarence.

  “Fine,” Sean said with a sigh. “I guess I’ll just have to make the most of it and steal as much stuff as I can.”

  He looked around Clarence’s office and spotted a handful of attractive, sparkly, glimmering ornaments on Clarence’s desk. Sean grabbed these and started to shove them into his jacket or down his shirt, quick as he could.

  “Obviously, I’m gonna have to get security to show you out,” Clarence said, picking up his phone to call security.

  Sean grabbed the phone and stuffed it down his shirt.

  There was a pause.

  “Well played,” Clarence said.

  Meanwhile, in a frenzied bid to grab one of the lamps and laptop off of Clarence’s desk, Sean slipped and accidentally slammed the lamp into Clarence’s goldfish tank. The glass of the tank shattered and water gushed out across the floor of the office, soaking everything, and Goldie, Clarence’s faithful goldfish, ended up flopping helplessly on Clarence’s desk.

  “Goldie, no!” Clarence shouted, reaching over and scooping up the poor, floundering fish.

  The fish twitched a few times, then lay still.

  Clarence snapped.

  “No!” Clarence shouted. “Goldie! Your companionship is all I have left after I lost my parking space!”

  He looked at up at Sean, his face reddening like a beet.

  “You!” he screamed at Sean, then he stood and, still cradling the goldfish in his clubbed fingers, added, “I’m going to make sure you never work in this industry again!”

  “Great!” Sean said brightly. “What new job are you going to get me then?”

  Clarence walked over to the door, wrenched it open, and shouted, “Security!”

  In a matter of seconds, two burly security guards arrived from the lobby, seized Sean under the armpits, and started to drag him out. Behind Sean, Clarence was roaring at other subordinates to bring him a baggy full of water for Goldie and to call the veterinarian.

  “No, wait,” Sean complained, as the various things he had stuffed down his shirt spilled out onto the floor. “I’m innocent! It was self-defense! That fish was trying to kill me!”

  However, the two muscled thugs ignored his pleas as they hauled him into the lobby, where they happened to transport Sean past Wayne and Stacey, two of Sean’s co-workers. Wayne and Stacey totally ignored Sean as they were locked in their own conversation.

&nbs
p; “If we’re not a front company for a Peruvian drug cartel, then why do I have all this cocaine?” Wayne demanded, brandishing a huge bag of white powder at Stacey.

  The security guards did not stop to consider this as they tossed Sean out bodily onto the street, where he landed in a pile of smelly garbage that someone had inconsiderately placed in an alley very near the entrance to their office. It somewhat improved the grungy smell that constantly hung around Sean. Then, the security guards threw a cardboard box out after him with a handful of his possessions inside it.

  “And we want that box back,” one of them advised him in a low baritone as he scrambled to gather it up.

  “Do I at least get some severance pay?” Sean asked.

  “No,” Clarence hollered from out a nearby window.

  With a sigh, Sean gathered himself up and stood with the box of his various possessions under one arm then, shifting the box, put his hands on his hips. That had been very rude of Clarence, in Sean’s opinion. Obviously, Clarence was trying to make Sean feel bad about this whole experience, but it wouldn’t work. Despite his termination, and regardless of anything Clarence said, Sean was secure and indeed happy in the knowledge that he had given that job his absolute best effort, and Sean’s mother had always taught him that it wasn’t important whether you succeeded or failed as long as you tried your best.

  Then, Sean reached down his shirt and took out Clarence’s cell phone, which he had managed to steal on the way out without security noticing, then used it to summon a cab via an illegal ride-hailing service that he would stiff on the fare once it took him home.

  Thus began the first step on Sean’s spectacular journey into the magical world of unemployment, and thus towards Humancorp Incorporated.

  Chapter 2

  Sean lived in a very small house on the outskirts of the bad part of town, where traffic was scant and a lot of the cars and other vehicles parked on the road had broken windows or flat tires. Buildings were sparse here, and most of the nearby houses had overgrown yards covered with weeds. Sean’s house itself sort of matched Sean’s jacket. It was run down and falling apart in some places, with peeling paint and broken roof tiles giving it a patchwork appearance. Those parts of it that were painted were colored an eggshell shade of white, as were most of the rooms inside the house itself. Sean never had any talent for interior decoration and therefore hadn’t done any. Nothing more than a handful of pictures of Sean and his mother on the hall table livened up the inside. To be sure, life in this house was a modest existence, but it was the best Sean could afford on his meager salary and (subsequent to his rough termination from his job with Clarence), his unemployment benefits. Even so, it had its own honest pleasures, like a television and a scenic view of the nightclub down the street.

  After being fired from his job, Sean spent most of his time at home. This was the natural choice since he didn’t have a car and the local library, the grocery store, the church, and the graveyard quickly kicked him out for various flavors of theft. One afternoon, Sean had been sitting on his tame off-blue sofa with nothing better to do than watch television. As usual, it was about politics, which always annoyed Sean. Newscasters seemed to have adopted a strategy of constantly talking about politics to get attention.

  A male newscaster shuffled his papers and started the broadcast.

  “In the news today, Donald Trump trumped his way through another Trump at the Trumphouse,” the reporter said. “But will Trump’s trumpeting across Trump country really trump the Trump stories that have been building up in non-Trump media? Trump’s trump team is coming up trumps by trumping up Trump issues. Trump trump Trump trump Trump trump. More on that later. But first, in basketball, the Cleveland Cavaliers are going up against the Golden State Warriors in Oakland this Sunday in the NBA finals. The Golden State Warriors are favored to win, but will a strong showing by the Cleveland Cavaliers upset expectations in what promises to be a fantastic game of basketball? Someone certainly thinks so! For his opinion on the game, we now go live to Donald Trump.”

  Sean turned the TV off. This was all very depressing and miserable, what with the Cleveland Cavaliers and all, and Sean quickly moved off the couch. Enough was enough. He couldn’t just sit on his butt listening to political news about basketball all day! The world was passing him by! There was so much to do, and see! So many places to go, many of which were much better than here! And right then and there, Sean had resolved to find a new job, and not just pretend to in order to keep drawing government benefits.

  So he’d gone through the lengthy process of looking for a new job. After a series of internet searches and glances through the morning paper he’d snatched from his neighbor, Sean located a series of prospective employers who he optimistically imagined might be desperate or foolhardy enough to hire him, then drafted his CV and his cover letter and sent out his resumés. One by one, the rejection letters started to trickle back.

  “Dear sir,” the first one had read. “Thank you for your interest in our company, but we feel we would rather gouge out our eyeballs with an angry porcupine than even suffer through the hideous farce of a job interview with you. We enclose in this letter a map to the nearest bridge and a coupon for discount jumping shoes. Please do what’s best for society.

  Yours sincerely,

  McDonalds

  RE: Cashier’s position.”

  Another letter from a local company was not much better.

  “We wouldn’t hire you if you were the last candidate on Earth,” it said. “We attach a bill for the time you wasted in forcing us to read your resumé and the damage done to our reputation and brand from merely having received your letter.”

  “Having reviewed your resumé, we are dispatching several technicians to your house to neuter you,” said a third response.

  Despite these initial failures, Sean remembered his mother’s advice about giving it his best and kept trying.

  “Thank you for your interest in joining the US Army, but we are looking for someone more qualified for this particular position. RE: Cannon fodder opening,” said another letter that smelled strongly of cordite.

  “You just don’t have what it takes to become a professional drug addict,” came a rejection from the local crackhouse.

  “Die, die, die!” another one simply declared.

  The worst came last, though.

  “We were very impressed with your CV. You’re hired. When can you start?

  Best,

  -University of California at Riverside, Sociology Department

  PS: We look forward to having you as our newest adjunct professor and hobo. Please find your new filthy beard attached.”

  The funny thing was that Sean couldn’t even remember sending the application for this one.

  And so, with the weight of these compounding failures getting him down, Sean sighed heavily. He kept trying, but no acceptable affirmative responses arrived. He passed his days despondently in front of his television, ignoring increasingly frantic and panicked phone calls from UC Riverside, watching the news and sports. As his morale dribbled away, Sean began to lose faith he would ever find a new job. At last, with his self-confidence fading, Sean decided he would have to turn to the one person he knew he could always count on for support. He scooped up his phone and called his mother.

  In this modern computerized era of Facetime and Skype and whatnot, Sean decided to make a video call. His mother appeared on the screen of his phone. Sean’s mother was a gray-haired woman in her early sixties, looking more grandmotherly than maternal. Her hair was gray with flashes of dark here and there and she wore a loose sweater that she had made herself, plus black-rimmed glasses with lenses that made her brown eyes seem unnaturally large. Though her face was wrinkled and her hair was a bit untidy, Sean’s mother exuded an air of warmth and acceptance that made everyone feel naturally comfortable around her. Her name was Pearl, Sean seemed to recall, and she had been Sean’s mother for almost his entire life. She winced and recoiled slightly when she
first saw Sean, then directed a somewhat fixed smile towards him.

  “Hello, dear,” she said.

  “Hi, Mom,” Sean said. He didn’t dare call her Pearl because he wasn’t totally sure that was her name. “How are the begonias?”

  “Dead, mostly,” she said sadly. “Unfortunately, someone stomped all over them. I asked your father to stop, but he just wouldn’t. You know what he’s like during basketball season.”

  “Yeah,” Sean said sympathetically. “Look, mom, I’m calling because I have a problem.”

  And he told her everything about how he’d gotten fired and the various failures of his efforts to find a new job.

  “I think I need your advice,” Sean said earnestly.

  “Oh, Sean,” his mother said with a sigh, holding her head in one hand. “You remind me so much of your father. You’re both unemployed.”

  From somewhere behind them, a man shouted and smashed a huge pot of begonias.

  “I can’t believe they fired me,” said Sean with some despondency.

  “I always said that joining Al Qaeda would come back to haunt you, dear,” his mother said absently as she threw heavy objects into the background in an effort to save her remaining begonias.

  “But it wasn’t that Al Qaeda,” complained Sean. “People are always making such awful assumptions about me.”

  “Now listen here, Sean,” said Pearl as she caught Sean’s father in a headlock off-camera. “I know things are looking pretty bad for you right now, but I didn’t raise you to be a quitter. That’s not the kind of attitude that got you to where you are today.”

  “I’m an unemployed wastrel,” Sean said.

  “Exactly,” his mother cut in. “We’re not quitters in this family. Not me, not your father. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  “I’m gonna kill those begonias if it’s the last thing I do!” his father shouted wildly from somewhere to the left of the shaking camera.

  “See?” asked his mother between heavy punches. “Remember, Sean, you shouldn’t fear failing. The only true failure is being too scared to try. As long as you give it your best and keep working at it, I’m sure you’ll find success in everything you do. Think about it. You could be an astronaut, or a lawyer, or a - a hippopotamus. All you have to do is put your mind to it.”