Shadow Walker

Fired

"Hancock. Take a seat."

Dec lowered himself onto the desk chair opposite Stanley, startling when it swivelled beneath him. Stanley, keeping one eye on his gantt chart, rolled his chair to the side so he could see Dec around the fifty-inch screen.

Stanley's glasses slid down his nose, going in the direction everything else seemed to be going on his face. His ponytail, streaked with grey, hung limp. His hairline had crept backwards, exposing the eggshell white of his forehead. His expression, which rarely wavered from anything past menial boredom, had drooped around the edges, giving him the look of a man defeated by the elements, as though life had stamped on the leather of his face one too many times, softened it past supple and into limp obscurity.

"Hancock," Stanley said, leaning on the diamond press of his fingers under his chin. There was a long pause while he rolled his lips around his teeth, as though rolling words around his mouth, mutely testing them out. "I have some unfortunate news for you."

Dec heard Stanley's next words before they came, as though the impression of them had been branded in his mind since Tim had pulled him aside.

"We're going to have to let you go."

Stillness followed his words. And in that stillness, Dec could feel his heart pushing against his ribcage. He took three deep breaths. This isn't happening, he told himself. It's not happening.

Stanley went on, turning his computer screen so his gantt chart was facing Dec. A dizzying grid of numbers blurred into one big muddle of black on white.

"Take a look at our inventory management system," Stanley said and Dec forced himself to keep his eyes on the screen, though the glare of it made his head hurt. "This is where we optimise our transport selection to decrease costs for our company and for consumers."

He touched the screen a few times, bringing up a series of brightly coloured pie graphs. "This is where we consolidate load availability and optimisation. Each load has its own graph, each graph is then collated into hourly, daily, weekly and yearly configurations."

The pie charts flashed and blinked, disappearing into line graphs.

"And this is where I work out our scheduling. How many people we need on the floor, how many trucks, how many sorters, pick and packers, drivers to move each load efficiency and to minimise the risk of occupational health and safety issues."

Stanley was flicking through charts faster than Dec could absorb them. The charts flicked past Dec's eyes, a blur of lines and numbers. It could've been a child's first scribble on a blank sheet of paper for all it meant to him. Stanley went on rambling, but Dec heard nothing but the pounding of blood in his ears.

Just as he began to wonder if Stanley had forgotten he was there, his voice changed pitch, slowed to stress importance. "Here, in red, is where we fall short. My charts tell me we're overstaffed on the floor. In order to maximise efficiency, and make money across the board, we must severely decrease our workshop numbers."

Dec shook his head, could feel his shock slowly turning to anger. "I get it," he said. "I cost too much. You're going to replace me with some young tyke like Grubber. It's not going to work. Grubber breaks everything he touches." He leaned forward. "Is that on your fancy chart? How many boxes each picker breaks?"

Stanley's finger hovered over the screen, stilling for the first time since he'd begun his convoluted explanation. Dec could tell his outburst was unexpected. He guessed Stanley wasn't used to dealing with the faces behind the numbers.

"We're not replacing you with some 'young tyke', Hancock." He swivelled the screen back around, so that it was no longer facing Dec. "We're rolling out an automated system."