Indices Unmeasured

The safety restraint lock latched into place on the first try, and the guest’s eyes opened at the twitch of my joy. They smiled back at me with blankness. They were cute but clueless.

Good. That’s the ratio.

We’d been sending repair requests for weeks. At most of the procedure stations, the thick metal knob was just too big for its intended slot, and the device rarely locked shut without some jamming. Technicians who did such things, who jammed things shut and forced things into place, especially during a procedure, received the most complaints and were punished with fewer, shorter shifts. The managers assured us that the maintenance crew was working around the clock to make all of the necessary repairs, but our request was of low priority since the work could continue on with just a bit of jamming.

I needed my shifts, and I needed them long.

So I learned the broken thing. I learned it until it wasn't broken anymore, until I fixed it myself.

Technicians weren’t invited to the design meetings where our workstation settings were predetermined. We would have suggested neither a rotating disc floor nor a sharp-edged container at the exact height of the average elbow. The Design Team had sent human observers, sure, but they’d never stood there and performed a procedure. They didn’t know how ridiculous it was to have the syringes in the top drawer and the vials in the bottom. It was a Safety Team order that such things as needles and chemicals should be separated by three decisions: Which vial pairs with which syringe; whether the guest is conscious at the time of vial preparation; and at what point in time each station rotates in front of the family viewing screen. If they had worked here for even one shift, they wouldn’t need a protocol to tell them how to do their job. How to match colors. How to follow the posted procedure. How to respond to a timer.

You have to build the knowledge that they never give you. You have to fill in the gaps on the floor, on your feet.

Besides, why publish the decision-making process when its mere existence indicates the harm it’s trying to mitigate? People are smarter than that. They didn’t come here naively. The problem was that guest safety had become machine work, along with design and anything else that influenced guest satisfaction. For every price tag, there was a team of optimizers who had determined its worth, and so it was.

So you work within it. Precisely, and without flinching.

Today is Blue Procedure. Blue syringe, blue juice, blue timer, blue steps. The guest is still smiling up at me when my blue-gloved fingers push their hair behind their ear and drop the microscopic transmitter into the wax bed of their tympanic membrane without a hitch.

Two for two. I'll play the Lottery on my way home.

We circle past the family just in time to witness their contentment at the look of joy upon the child in my chair.

Technicians whose kids did not cry received the most compliments and were rewarded with congratulatory messages in their inbox. We’d seen the data. The frequency waves were not harmful to the child or anyone within a 30-meter range along any of the measured indices. Usually, the implant would root during week one, excavate through week four, and fully integrate by week seven, just in time for Red Procedure.

At the end of my shift, I adjust the internal settings on my implant. The one I found on my pillow one night after a bout of flu. The one no one mentioned, put there by design. I knew by the satin wave of ease that washed away that feeling of forever noticing something was too tight.

I go home. The kids I processed carry the same signal, for now. I was on the floor for a full eight hours.

Thank God for not jamming today.