THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

59 - VendiLife

I knew VendiJob was risk. If I got thrown out trying to engage with VendiJobI could very well be recognized and tagged, and then further harassed out of the current swell situation I was in. But like I said, I knew my good thing would end anyway. Vendi looked interesting, and I liked that it didn't care how long I worked it.

So I started working. I went there one morning, put my sweater in one of the lockers provided and proceeded to engage with the machines. The first day was mostly spent prepping different areas. Not much had been going on as the fancy people didn't seem interested in getting more than coffee, so orders for more coffee had to be called in,stock had to be reassessed, various tests had to be conducted on the equipment. If you've ever followed the instructions on a copy machine for changing the ink, this was very similar.

There were three restaurants, a McDonalds, a Za Place that sold pizza (so much like Pizza Hut I was not surprised to later find they were in a protracted legal battle over that very issue), and a French place whose name I never got right, who sold this gloopy sort of gourmet peasant food that mostly Asian people seemed to be into.

I spent the first day at the McDonalds and I kept half an eye on the security, shuffling around just beyond the Vendi border, eyeing me with grim grins. What I found out was, after I worked a full day they couldn't harass me, because I was working, and not being a vagrant. It was a legal issue. After one day of work I had employee status,sort of like an open contract, which protected me if I wanted to comeback the next day. Essentially they had spent that first day watching me, hoping I'd kick off before eight hours, step off VendiLand, at which point they would boot me down to Skid Row.

There weren't many people who came by those first couple of days, but after it became clear that I was working there, they began to trickle in,mostly still for their coffee and whatnot at McDonalds in the morning, and then maybe for pizza in the afternoon. It wasn't exactly hopping after lunch, but that was okay with me because I was out of shape when it came to work, and I appreciated the slow down at the end of the day when I could run the diagnostics, and set up for tomorrow.

Part of the game was the more time you put in, the greater the options of what you could do, and the more money you made. Every day you were given the opportunity to cash out your wages or keep them in the bank, which gave you a little kick up in salary plus some interest for letting Vendi hold onto your money. The pay, of course, was shit,but compared to recycling it was amazing, and it made me wonder if there were more outfits like this, and if others had found out about them (the answer was for Ace City there was one other Vendi, up by Crystal Hills, another place homeless people could not easily ghetto. My research caused me to conclude that by putting these twoVendiJobs in places where those most suited to benefit from VendiOpportunities could not access them clearly proved there must have been political aims to undercut the Vendi way of life from the start).

I would exchange some of my money for food, but mostly I ate what I needed out of the Vendi garbage, which wasn't as bad as other places as much of the waste generated came from heating the frozen food wrong or other mishaps.