Code Monkey Wrangler

I hated giving my workers bad news, especially if it involved their future. Or, in Milton’s case, his lack thereof. The poor guy looked like a ghost. “Milton, are you okay? Your passion coefficient has dropped to uncomfortable levels. Have you taken up any new hobbies recently?”

“No.”

“Sometimes misplaced emotion for your hobbies can alter your passion for work. You’d tell me if that was happening, wouldn’t you?”

“I would.”

“Look, we can tell if you’re bored. Do you want a new project? I can find you something more challenging. Would that make you feel better?”

“I’m not bored. Just under the weather.”

They must think I get some pleasure out of it—that I like being a monkey wrangler. It’s funny—when I was like them, I found the nickname amusing. Now it kills me.

“You worked from home last week. More than five remote days in a month. Your contract requires you to work on the premises. Do you want to get flagged? More excuses, and it gets ugly. Okay, bud?”

“I understand.”

The meeting was going nowhere. I could tell he just wanted to leave. I know what it’s like to feel jaded, constantly on the brink of failing a vocational scan, worried the higher-ups will confirm what you already know, that you’re no longer into it. 

“If you don’t tell me what’s bothering you, I might have to recommend a diagnostic assessment. Depending on the results, you could be suspended or worse.”

“I’m fine, Corbin. I promise. Just a bad day. Can I go now?” He fidgeted under the glow of the fluorescent lights, picking at his mangled cuticles. I wondered if he was aware he had a coffee stain on his shirt.

“Here’s a tissue. Do me a favor and wipe your forehead. Do you want some water or something?” 

He took the tissue and nodded yes.

I handed him a cold bottle. “If your coefficient drops below 70, I’ll be forced to report you. I’m not saying this to scare you. Forget the diagnostic—they’ll make you do a complete reevaluation, which—let’s be honest, Milton—at thirty-six years old will not be a pleasant experience.”

“I’ve read the manual. I know what can happen.”

“Do you? I don’t think you get it. They could unauthorize you—relocation—who knows where you’ll end up. And if they deem you untalented for anything else …”

He shifted in his seat. “You’ve made your point.”

Behind his anemic face, I thought I detected a tiny spark, but I ignored it. Everything else about him was so pathetic. But looking back on it now, I had a feeling he’d go rogue—that he was just brave enough to take his chances out there, maybe as an unauthorized artist or something. His scans had accumulated dozens of red flags over the years. One of the saddest things to see is a worker’s overall creativity coefficient rise dramatically while their work-related passion drops. How can you be creative in a job that doesn’t require it? At his age, it was too late to change paths. It’s the kind of thing that can cause a person to wither and die inside.

Before I became a manager, or monkey wrangler as my coders like to call me, my passion coefficient became pretty fuzzy, too. For me it was an interest in ceramics. The problem is, there’s no such thing as a professional potter. All authorized goods are made in factories. It got to the point where I started seeking out unauthorized artisans, mostly to look at their work, but occasionally I bought time on their wheels and tried to make pieces of my own. There’s nothing like the feeling of making something by hand. Sure, I wanted to join an underground guild, live a life in hiding, not have to worry about routine scans or getting forcibly relocated. I really did consider it, that is until I received an offer from the Bureau that I couldn’t refuse.

You’ve been here so long, my manager said. After a certain tenure, the Vocational Harmony Bureau is gracious with its workers. Instead of threatening reevaluation, they offered me the chance to be a wrangler. And I figured, well, it’s this or oblivion. I thought instead of having my livelihood taken away from me, I can become the taker.

So there I was, a certified monkey wrangler. It’s tough—when you mentally check-out of something, the one thing that holds you back is the time you’ve put in. Sunk costs. You become trapped within the walls you’re familiar with. To me, it was easier to stay on as a wrangler than be forced to start a new life in exile.

As wranglers, it may seem like we operate in the periphery of the system. But the truth is, managers are the system. Even though I no longer enjoyed what I did, I was good at it, and the Bureau recognized my value. 

It’s probably the same story for every manager. They look after the workers because they can no longer tolerate the work itself. No kid daydreams about being this when they grow up. But in the world of adults, where anyone can fall victim to their own fleeting whims, managers are the glue that holds everything together.

“Listen, Milton. I’m just looking out for you. Let’s say you did find a new passion. And let’s just say upon reevaluation, it’s deemed your raw aptitude doesn’t match the prerequisite skill-set for authorization in this new interest of yours. The effect on your livelihood could be devastating. You could end up wasting your life as an unauthorized worker. An artist, for example, pissing your life away in obscurity. Or worse, you could get caught and end up a Menial. Do you want that? You know what Menials are, right? Who do you think does all the mindless jobs no one wants, the frustrating ones that humans still have to do because automation just isn’t there yet?”

He gulped down the rest of the water and stood up. Then he tossed his tissue toward the waste basket and missed. “You mean like the guy who’s gonna pick that up? Yeah, I know what Menials are.”

Seeing the resolve in his face—it made the hairs on my arms stand up. It was contrary to his personality profile to talk back to superiors like that. He walked out of the room. I dialed the Bureau’s assessment director and said, “Hey, Doc. Prepare a reevaluation session for Milton Foster. I’d say about a week from now. Yeah, I just met with him. No, I don’t think so. Thanks.”

The problem was, Milton didn’t make it a week. Within forty-eight hours, Milton had gone missing. No call, no show.

Protocol says we have to wait three full days before launching an investigation. Nine out of ten who skip out eventually return out of guilt. If it’s their first offense, they get a warning, which includes a mandatory evaluation and usually a demotion. They lose vacation days, their name is posted to a public forum that all the other workers can see—it’s a whole thing.

From the look on his face after our last encounter, I imagined I might never see him again. But, I still had a job to do. I had to wrangle my monkey.

Later that afternoon, I discovered something that gave me hope that he might return. In a search of Milton’s cubicle, I found a notebook. It seemed to be a manuscript of what I could only assume were fictional vignettes. I say fictional because of how bizarre some of them were, but I could’ve been wrong. To me they seemed valuable, written with care, in excellent penmanship. It’s rare for people to own paper notebooks, unless it’s for something important or for matters they don’t want to be uncovered by the Bureau’s computer surveillance.

I had a feeling he’d be back for it. I just wasn’t sure if he’d do it the legitimate way, face-to-face, or if he’d sneak in at night when the office was empty. In the event that it was the latter, we waited for him. I put his desk back the way it was, and I got two of my higher ranking guys to hang out with me in the office all night. We devised our plan, thinking it could be days before Milton ventured back to retrieve the notebook. But lucky for us, it was that very same night.

Dressed all in black, hood over his head, Milton arrived around 3 AM. There was another accomplice with him, identity unconfirmed, similarly clad, who remained on the street as a lookout.

On the surveillance cams, I watched Milton enter the building. The uncertainty in his face turned to relief when he discovered his ID was still active. He took the elevator up, and we braced ourselves.

We waited in the dark for him, positioned strategically, ready to emerge when the moment was right. My task was to give him a formal reprimand and detain him until he could be brought into custody of the Vocational Disciplinary Committee. Then, lord help him. He’d be punished for deviance and face time in one of our intervention programs. At that point he’d be out of my hands, and I didn’t want to think of what might happen to him.

The elevator chimed, and moments later, the office door opened. Milton’s steps were stealthy, but his breath was heavy. I readied myself to give the signal. My men were set to collapse on him as soon as he entered his cubicle. He’d have nowhere to go. But instead, Milton froze.

He stood idle in the middle of the office just feet from his work station. He glanced briefly at his phone, and then he sprinted back in the direction he came.

“Go! After him, now,” I shouted.

My men pursued him back through the entrance and into the hallway. He made a quick exit down the stairwell, and my men followed. I hung back and moved to the windows to see if his accomplice was still on the street. And sure enough, Milton’s partner was sitting in a sedan with the engine running. Milton escaped the building and dashed into the car. They sped down the road leaving my men in their wake.

“He’s gone, boss. What do we do?”

“He’s off work property. We’re done for now. Come back up, and we’ll discuss what to do next.”

Back in the office, my guys sat around pondering what happened. “What do you think caused him to bail?” I asked.

“When he froze up, I saw him looking at the trash bin in the corner. The thing was full. He must’ve realized the only reason to call off the cleaning staff was for a sting operation.”

“Or maybe he was just scared and chickened out,” I said. “Let’s not give him more credit than he deserves. Listen, I’m going to need you guys to get an expedited search and detain warrant. The Bureau will process it on the grounds that he returned to the office and then fled again. That throws leniency out the window. The request should go through when the workday starts in a few hours. Once it does, we’ll head to his apartment and bring him in. We gotta work fast. There’s nothing stopping him from abandoning his flat and leaving the city. Then he’s as good as gone, and that means we’ve failed to do our job.”

The sun came up, and the warrant came through. We downed some coffee and took a car to Milton’s residence. Outside his apartment building we discussed what we might find there. “Do not rough him up or anything,” I said. “The guy is sensitive, and we don’t want to push him any further. He’s clearly unstable. If he’s in there, you cuff him, and that’s it. We don’t want him hurting himself or anyone else. Let’s not forget the last time we surprised a truant worker at home.”

I knocked on the door. “Hey, Milton. Open up. It’s Corbin.” No response. I knocked two more times. “If you can hear me, I want you to know I’m not here to do anything bad. I’ve been in your position. I want to help. If you agree to return to work, I’ll make sure they go easy on you. You think you’re the first guy to freak out about an assessment? It’s no big deal. Open up, and we’ll talk about your options.”

After five minutes of no response, I said to my guys, “All right, break it down.”

With delight, they smashed the door open, and we treaded through Milton’s seemingly abandoned apartment. The place was a mess. Food and junk everywhere. Random clothing items all over the floor. The furniture was old and torn up. The walls were covered in writing. A full-length mirror next to his closet had what looked like lines of poetry scribbled in marker from top to bottom.

I approached the entrance to his bedroom, and the first thing I could see through the cracked door was a tower of notebooks. I pushed the door open, and that’s when I saw the rest. The room was filled with piles of manuscripts, and facing the window opposite the door was a dead body hanging from the ceiling fan.

My guys entered behind me. One of them asked, “Where the hell did a code monkey get so many paper notebooks?”

“From a fence, maybe. Some underground writer—who knows?” I said. “He knew what would happen to him. This was his fallback plan.” I picked up a notebook from the nearest stack. It was filled front-to-back with pure stream of consciousness. “Call it in. Let’s get a couple more guys down here to go through all these books.”

I couldn’t look at him hanging there, so I walked out of the room, nauseous, wondering if I should’ve behaved differently when I met with him. Maybe if I was a little nicer, he wouldn’t have gone off like this. I wish I could’ve helped. I wish I could’ve said something different. I wish I could’ve been something different.

“Hey boss, get back in here.”

“What is it?”

“Come look. It’s not Milton.”

I walked back in and gazed at the lifeless face, drained of all its soul and passion. “It is Milton. It’s you. It’s me. It’s all of us.”