Microstory 410: Floor 33 (Part 1)

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I don’t know what people want from me. Never in my life have I hired or fired a single person. Have I been responsible for the company letting people go? I’m certain of it, but this was not my intention. In fact, there’s no way to find out whether anything I say has any impact on the labor force. I work in the corporate finance department. Obviously we handle the money, but it’s extremely complicated an nuanced. People send me data and I analyze it; that’s all. I determine what projects or departments are making us money, and which ones are failing to deliver, and also which new ventures we should pursue. I can’t help it if you happen to be one of the failures; that’s just how business goes. I do feel for these people, though, I really do. My job is to look at the numbers. I don’t know people’s names, and I don’t know how they’ve personally contributed to the success of our organization. Someone else is responsible for that information. I’m not saying this to absolve me of things I’ve done, but they have to understand that we don’t communicate with the managers on that level. We don’t mix the qualitative and the quantitative, and I dare you to reveal a company that does. This is the way man has been conducting business since the dawn of time. I’m absolutely not qualified to change things, for the better, or worse. I have been able to make myself a better person, at least. My old college roommate works somewhere else as a transcriber. Well, there’s no real way for the higher-ups to see how he makes the company money. Nobody buys the transcriptions themselves. They buy products which happen to include the benefit of his endeavors. So they keep shrinking his team and trying to add extra work at the same time, which pulls down productivity, which harms the company. It’s only because of him that I’m starting to suspect the same thing is happening here. What have we done that has harmed Analion? How have I contributed to our failures? Who was fired who should have stayed? Who has remained that should have left? I suppose the only real question is what can I do about it now? The answer, as always, is nothing.