Page 56 - Like No Business I Know

Get in the POOL!

Operations Location. She must have noticed my bewilderment
because she struck up a conversation. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
she said. I admitted I was and asked her what I was supposed to do.
She told me that my job was to react to stimuli. “What?” I said.
“That’s right,” she said. “You are here because the Servotechs
determined that you fit the profile of some group likely to purchase a
certain range of products. They will test the marketability of their
latest model on a representative sample—you and probably a few
other men in here.” I thought about that. “You mean, all I need to do
is wait for them to come up with some do-it-yourself gadget or new
aftershave lotion and then give my opinion about it?” “No,” she said.
“They are way beyond that. You will simply go in the testing room,
put on the helmet and passively respond to what might seem like
unrelated neurological evocations of elements the Servotechs have
determined play a part in the decision made by an average
consumer—young adult male, in your case—to buy or not to buy.
That is the question we are here to answer. You can only guess at
what the product is. In fact, we old-timers had to figure out what the
point of this job is ourselves; nobody in the HRD would tell us,
probably because they didn’t want to influence our reactions.”

FRANCINE: You mean Fred never tells the people he hires anything
about the job?

RALPH: Not if he wants to keep his. He might have started out
doing something more important at Cheerful Robots, but I suspect
all he’s got left is his role as recruiter for the POOL. Sort of a shill for
the Servotechs.
FRANCINE: Don’t talk that way about my brother! He got you in
there, didn’t he? It’s not his fault if you couldn’t make the grade!
RALPH: Slow down there, old girl! I’m not blaming him—or anyone
in particular. I never had a chance to fail: at about three o’clock in the
afternoon a Servotech came in and fired all of us. Every last person,
seniority notwithstanding. They closed the POOL. Drained it. I’ve
got one day’s pay. We’re back to square one.

FRANCINE: I don’t understand. Fred told us it was a good job.

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