Invader Jacob

[Story] Prologue_7_Birthday

It had been a good couple of days since his first day at his job, five to be exact. Mind you it's not a job job in terms of weekly pay but its a source of income nonetheless. Turns out, due to how many people that occupy the civilian ship known as the Lark Mark Mk. 20, there was a severe lack of job opportunities that he could feasibly apply. Whether it was for cleaning the public restrooms or maintaining the ship and its demands, it was all taken. 

He had done his research in his spare down time. Many mayors from different ships discuss this kind of issue to the higher ups and eventually decided to remove altogether the lower waging jobs like the janitors, public sweepers, and whatnot to relocate the money to the more unpopular/dangerous jobs such as cleaning highly unstable chemicals in new developing tech and chemicals, going outside of the ship for external damages that cannot be repaired by the ships auto fixer, double to quadrouple checking each and every activity in relation to ai training, and the list just goes on and on.

What he had thought of as a job turned out to be as what the internet calls it, The Fake Job Job or FJ Jobs for short. At first, there was a natural opposition and a public outroar for those working at those kind of occupations. It was a whole mess really, it was archived and preserved all the way back in 2347 and still brought up 'till this day. As the saying goes, a journalist managed to interview one of many people that had bore witness to an event such as that. There were riots that were reminicint of 19th century Civil Rights Movement, with both people holding both crude to expensive signs in numerous civilian ships, namely the "poor people" ships, shouting the loudest of them all. The online space spreading all sorts of hate, harrasment, criticism, you name it. Eventually, with the voices of the people becoming unbearable and the data gathered by the simulations which predicts their current trajectory, they had caved in to the demands to the people and reverted their verdict.

In a twist of fate however, although there were many that were grateful, some businesses tried the rule in a more small and controlled space, experimenting it if you will. Turns out, there were some that were willing to work with little to no pay at all due to how they truly love their work, how they were passionate about it and all that. Plus, they were some of the most nicest people the past patreons had experienced in comparison to those who were either forced by themselves or others to work for the salary despite how they loathe its ethics, morals, and etc.

This bussiness model had grown for quite a few decades until it was established by the new leaders with a suprising amount of positive feedback despites its original concept a few decades back. Although this bussiness practice is not implemented by the lower class ships and their employment issues, the middle to upper class were implemented willingly or were forced to.

The Lark Mark 20 was in the middle ground of being considered as a lower class or middle class ship. The classification of each ship was calculated by a series of economic to population calculations, and by the amount of notable landmarks and technologies the ship held, the ship was marked as a middle class.

Jacob groaned and rubbed his eyes as he copied what he had typed on his document file and copying its text on his phone app. He currently held a Redmi 10, as his previous ones were given away or replaced by his many mistakes in his 17 now 18 years of living. It was more annoying than dreadful when he thought about not being able to fix his phone and/or charger when the inevitable damges and scrathes happen. He honestly could not think straight when it would happen and would do something that he would either be horrified by or be embarassed when looking back at it. He shudders at the thought.

Now stretching his back along with his arms and legs, he got up frrom the computer to go grab something to munch on. Honestly, he had thought of something to treat himself on his birthday but held that thought when he saw someone scurrying at the edge of his peripheral. He thought it was someone dangerous but when he saw Kyle's unmistakable goofy ah outfit, he rationalized himslef into thinking that they were planning a surpise birthday for him. After all, he and a couple of guys he had befriended, knew about his birthday as he had remarked to himself a week ago about his birthday coming up and was overheard by his buddies.