Busy Bunz
A Play in Two Acts
in the Public Domain (no rights reserved)
Email: MichaelDriver@mac.com
www.ForwardCommunicationLine.wordpress.com
Cast of Characters:
Blake Street: Caucasian employment applicant, age 20+
Charlie Conyers: Employment applicant, age 20+
Logan Walby: Employment applicant, age 20+
Luigi Adano: Employment applicant, age 20+
Kenya Smith: African American employment applicant, age 20+
Martha Sawyer: Caucasian Human Resources Staff
Harlow Winston: Caucasian Human Resources Staff
Joseph Shelby: Caucasian Human Resources Staff
Anthony Foster: Caucasian VP and Senior HR manager
Oligopolous Overbunz: Caucasian founder and owner of Busy Bunz
Scene: Employment offices of Busy Bunz, Inc.
Time: The present
ACT I
Scene 1
SETTING: There is an elevated platform across the back portion of the stage. A row of chairs arrayed across the back of the platform faces the audience. An actual, excessively large framed picture of the founder, OLIGOPOLOUS OVERBUNZ, depicted wearing gag glasses, nose and mustache, hangs prominently above the applicants. The frame is embedded with bright lights that flash rapidly whenever OLIGOPOLOUS OVERBUNZ is mentioned by full name. Identical flashing frames of the OLIGOPOLOUS OVERBUNZ picture hang in each of the offices. Steps on each end of the platform give it access to the lower portion of the stage from which exit is available. The main floor of the stage is divided into offices, each with a simple table serving as a desk with a chair on each side of the table. Optionally, there can be partitions between the offices that remain completely open on the front. A hallway stretches in front of the offices but its only indication is through action of actors as they pretend to read door plates and knock on doors. Unless specifically instructed to the contrary, any object that is called for or mentioned is indicated through acting and pantomime rather than as an actual stage property. The greatest possible amount of racial, gender and ethnic diversity should be portrayed among employment applicants, but some characters have required ethnicity.
AT RISE: Chairs on the platform are filled with employment applicants, neatly dressed and apprehensive, as they wait to be called. They squirm, grimace, roll their eyes and whisper among themselves as the public address system VOICE-OVER speaks; periodically, some express extreme anxiousness and a few even leave the stage. While the VOICE-OVER speaks, in addition to indicated actions, occupants of the offices variously read, talk on the telephone, grimace, roll their eyes, type on computers, file their fingernails, sleep, drink coffee, yawn, etc.
VOICE-OVER: Welcome to Busy Bunz, Incorporated where our buns are so doughy, you’ll be chewing for hours and if you become a Busy Bunz employee, your buns will be chewed for hours. Every day. Please be aware that we glaze before we graze. (VOICE-OVER laughs self-consciously and forced. Applicants appear to be perplexed.) Before getting started with your interview, please pay attention to a few announcements. This interlude was designed to provide valuable information for our prospective employees. If you find any of the information offensive, or if you decide for any reason whatsoever that Busy Bunz is not the right employment opportunity for you, please feel free to leave. Better to leave now than be fired later. In addition, these announcements provide an opportunity for our professional human resources staff to review email from yesterday’s pathetic applicants. It also gives them a chance to catch up on all those memos that other human resources professionals have written as well as giving them time to craft more of their own for no one to read. Likely, however, they’re just putting today’s date on old memos and not really doing a damn thing. We do a lot of that at Busy Bunz. You should be advised that this announcement is prerecorded. It will do you no good to reply or to react in any way other than to follow its instructions. Failure to follow the instructions will result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment even before you start to work. Obscene outbursts, tirades laced with profanity, threats against the founder, this announcer or any other employee of Busy Bunz, Incorporated are strictly prohibited and will result in immediate action against the offender. You are advised that the premises are protected by Private Dicks, Incorporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of Busy Bunz, Incorporated. You are further advised that Busy Bunz utilizes an array of electronic devices to eavesdrop on employees, visitors and callers. By entering the building today, you have agreed to these terms and conditions. All conversations on these premises, whether on a telephone or by other means, are recorded for training purposes and so we can all listen later when you’re not around and laugh our buns off. You are further advised that should you become employed by Busy Bunz, Incorporated, everything you do at work will be monitored, recorded and measured by every means available. The best way to stay below the radar is to take every opportunity to grovel. The best advice here, as elsewhere in life, is to go along to get along. In fact, “go along to get along,” is our company motto. It is officially suggested that you tattoo it on your buns. Before making some general orientation remarks, please pay careful attention to a few announcements concerning the application process. If you are applying for a job in the bakery, you are in the wrong place. First, please apologize to the people next to you who bothered to read the large signs in the lobby, then get back on the elevator and go to the sub-basement where you will be deloused before being issued a uniform, the provision of which will consume half your income. If you are applying for entry level employment in one of the numerous other extremely menial positions, you may be in the wrong place also, but there is no way to find out without waiting until you are called for an interview in which case you will need to return tomorrow and take the elevator to the basement. If you are applying for one of the many normally menial positions you are in the right place. If you think that any of the employment positions at Busy Bunz are not menial, you are in the wrong place. If you think that just because you have at least one college degree and have distinguished yourself in a variety of ways it means that you will be paid above minimum wage, you are in the wrong place. Busy Bunz, Incorporated pays every employee minimum wage except of course interns who pay us and the very few top positions in the company, the really big buns. If you have the right buns, Busy Bunz is the place for you. Finally, please look at the person seated to your right and the person seated to your left. If either of these is someone you would not like to look at during your yearlong probationary period, please ask them to leave. If you don’t want to look at them, neither do the rest of us. If you have any questions, please write them down and deposit them in the proper receptacle outside on the sidewalk. Now, we would like to provide a little background about Busy Bunz, Incorporated and our illustrious, distinguished and ever-present founder, Oligopolous Overbunz. The multinational behemoth that we treasure today as Busy Bunz, Incorporated has not always been so large. We can trace its modest beginning to the day that, while waiting for a big, bright, shiny new Rolls Royce limousine to pass as he was delivering groceries, six year old Oligopolous was splattered from head to toe with muddy water. “Someday,” he vowed, “I’ll own that mud puddle.”
(HUMAN RESOURCES STAFF in the offices turn their backs to the audience immediately before the OLIGOPOLOUS OVERBUNZ quotation. They each place gag glasses, nose and mustache on their faces and simultaneously turn toward the audience.)
HR STAFF: (in unison) Someday, I’ll own that mud puddle.
(HR STAFF again turn their backs to the audience as they remove the gag glasses before returning to their previous activities.)
VOICE-OVER: Little Oligopolous then rushed home and demanded assistance from his younger brothers and sisters, of whom there were many, as well as his ne’er-do-well father and consumptive mother. Soon, there were busy Overbunz children all up and down the streets delivering everything from aardvarks to zymurgy manuals. He paid his family the prevailing rates of room and board, keeping all other funds for capital investment. It wasn’t long before his buns were busy everywhere. Today they sprawl across the face of every continent. But you don’t necessarily have to travel far for success. You might be able to settle your buns in right here at Busy Bunz, Incorporated. There are lots of opportunities thanks to the extremely high employee turnover, something you may have guessed by now and if you didn’t, it means that you could easily fit in very well here. So, let’s get started, shall we? As your names are called, please report promptly to the office indicated. The number will be given once, so pay attention. If you forget the number, simply wander around aimlessly until you come to the elevator. Surely you will know what to do then. BLAKE STREET, Room 2002. KENYA SMITH, Room 2004. LUIGI ADANO, Room 2006.
(BLAKE, KENYA and LUIGI descend the steps to the office level. They pause in front of the offices, shake hands, nod affirmatively to each other, locate the office numbers to which they have been called and simultaneously knock on the doors. Each HR STAFF member is waiting behind their desk, holding a piece of paper.)
HR STAFF: (simultaneously) Come in.
MARTHA SAWYER: Hello, Blake. I’m Martha Sawyer. Welcome to Busy Bunz. Please have a seat while I look at your impressive resume.
HARLOW WINSTON: (laughs uproariously) Hang on a minute. (picks up telephone)
JOSEPH SHELBY: (pronounces name with drawn out comical emphasis, extreme smirks and a highly animated face) Luiiiiiigiii. (answers the telephone while laughing) Hello.
HARLOW WINSTON: (laughs, speaks on the telephone) Did you order chocolate ice cream?
JOSEPH SHELBY: (laughs) They must have gotten the order mixed up. I have the pizza guy.
(MARTHA WINSTON and JOSEPH SHELBY laugh heartily and hang up).
JOSEPH SHELBY: Well, Luiiiiiigiii, there may be something for you in the bakery but not in Busy Bunz, Incorporated itself, proper. We already have too many people whose names end in a vowel.
HARLOW WINSTON: (laughing) Tell me, Kennnnnya, or can you tell me, how I knew you were black even before you came into my office?
LUIGI: What?
KENYA: What?
JOSEPH SHELBY: It’s not exactly personal, Luigi. I’m sure they’re many of you people out there.
HARLOW WINSTON: Could it be the schools you attended? Or your address?
LUIGI: You people?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Why don’t you go on down to the bakery? If you’re any good, they’ll give you one of those big tall hats.
(LUIGI exits as JOSEPH SHELBY laughs. He then he picks up the telephone, placing a call, and resumes miscellaneous activities alone.)
HARLOW WINSTON: Or could it be the big “B” someone wrote on the corner of your resume?
KENYA: What?
HARLOW WINSTON: Yes. We still do that. Shocking, I know, after all these years of so called “progress,” but we still do it.
KENYA: That’s…that’s got to be illegal.
HARLOW WINSTON: Who cares? It doesn’t matter. It’s a tradition here at Busy Bunz. Besides, the government doesn’t have enough people working for it these days to check up on us. It’s just part of the great free enterprise system.
KENYA: But that doesn’t mean businesses are free to…
HARLOW WINSTON: (interrupting) We’re free to do anything we please.
KENYA: The law says…
HARLOW WINSTON: It doesn’t matter what the law says.
KENYA: The law says you can be held accountable.
HARLOW WINSTON: (laughing) What are they going to do? Fine us? What’s a little money? Busy Bunz has plenty of money to pay a chump change fine.
KENYA: This is…
HARLOW WINSTON: Ahhh. Calm down. You seem like a nice girl. You might get along well with the rest of the children here. You’re not a member of one of those subversive organizations, are you?
KENYA: Subversive organization?
HARLOW WINSTON: Yeah. Like a union. Or the NAACP.
KENYA: This is outrageous. I came here for a job not to be interrogated like a criminal.
HARLOW WINSTON: Relax, dear. Ha! (laughs) Relax. You do that, don’t you? You want to fit in…
KENYA: I didn’t come here for this kind of…
HARLOW WINSTON: (interrupting) What you have to realize is that when you’re on this side of the desk, you have to look out for the best interests of the company.
KENYA: (standing up) Clearly, our interests don’t coincide.
HARLOW WINSTON: Well, if you want to stay on that side of the desk forever, you can always go start your own business baking cupcakes in the hood. (laughing) Or serving up some crack or something.
(KENYA exits abruptly. HARLOW WINSTON laughs and goes into the corridor to knock on the office door of JOSEPH SHELBY.)
JOSEPH SHELBY: Come in.
HARLOW WINSTON: (opening door and approaching JOSEPH SHELBY) Got rid of mine.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Got rid of mine before you did. Almost a record.
(HARLOW WINSTON and JOSEPH SHELBY exchange high fives.)
HARLOW WINSTON: (shaking head negatively) Martha’s been awfully quiet. She must have a good one.
JOSEPH SHELBY: That’s too bad. All that work. Are you ready for another one? If we drag ’em out, it can take all the way to lunch.
HARLOW WINSTON: I can if you can. Everybody thinks we’re doing such a good job when we take a long time.
(HARLOW WINSTON and JOSEPH SHELBY exchange high fives again. HARLOW WINSTON returns to room 2004. Both pick up the phone in their office and speak, unheard, for a moment.)
VOICE-OVER: Charlie Conyers, room 2004. Logan Walby, room 2006.
(CHARLIE and LOGAN rise, descend to the office level, locate their appropriate destination, shake hands, nodding affirmatively, and knock on the door.)
WINSTON and SHELBY: (in unison) Come in.
HARLOW WINSTON: Please give me a moment to look at your resume.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Have a seat. (glances at resume) Tell me, Logan, what would you do if you suddenly encountered a herd of elephants?
(LOGAN appears about to answer but stops when JOSEPH SHELBY picks up the telephone and begins a lengthy, inaudible but highly animated conversation while completely ignoring LOGAN WALBY.)
HARLOW WINSTON: Well, Charlie, you may actually have something here. Let’s start at the beginning. You were born. And you graduated from high school. And while you were in high school, you worked part-time as a stocker in a grocery store. What did you do in that job?
MARTHA SAWYER: Okay, Blake. You have an impressive resume for such a young person. Let’s talk about what you’ve done. Where would you like to begin?
CHARLIE: I put stock on shelves.
BLAKE: Let’s start with the job at the nonprofit organization.
HARLOW WINSTON: That sounds perfectly edifying.
CHARLIE: It was what it was.
MARTHA SAWYER: Why do you want to start there?
BLAKE: It was only a part-time job while I was in high school but it sort of opened my mind up in ways that school didn’t.
HARLOW WINSTON: And what exactly was that?
CHARLIE: Putting stock on shelves.
MARTHA SAWYER: Why don’t you elaborate.
HARLOW WINSTON: What big purpose for your life did you see in that?
BLAKE: I did well in school but so much of it seemed to be just checking boxes: learn this then learn that then learn the planned other. But in this part-time job, I had a chance to see how things relate and to make some decisions about how they could relate even better for improved outcomes.
CHARLIE: Well, I suppose that if everything is in the right place, people can find them and I helped make that happen.
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you have a sense that this changed lives?
MARTHA SAWYER: Can you give me an example?
CHARLIE: If somebody was desperate to find a can of beans, there they were.
BLAKE: Yes. The organization provided counseling services to low income people, many of whom were unemployed. I saw a direct route to connect some of them with a job through a few of our donors. The elements were there all along, they just needed connecting. Everybody won.
MARTHA SAWYER: Very impressive.
HARLOW WINSTON: Direct. Utilitarian.
BLAKE: It made me see relationships differently with an eye toward finding opportunities.
CHARLIE: It’s just beans, I guess.
MARTHA SAWYER: Go ahead. It’s interesting.
HARLOW WINSTON: Okay. Then you were part-time at The Gap. Is that where you found purpose?
CHARLIE: No. I found a folding board. Actually, I was assigned one of my own.
BLAKE: It became even more interesting as time went on because I saw how things were interrelated or could become interrelated if they weren’t already. Because that’s what opens opportunities.
HARLOW WINSTON: A folding board.
MARTHA SAWYER: Opportunities.
CHARLIE: Just folding. Shirts and sweaters. That’s all.
BLAKE: Opportunities are everywhere if you look. I also began to see how school subjects are interrelated in ways they don’t teach us and that made learning more fun and a lot more meaningful.
MARTHA SAWYER: You’re observant.
HARLOW WINSTON: You’re dutiful.
CHARLIE: I didn’t want to be.
BLAKE: I had to learn to be.
MARTHA SAWYER: How so?
HARLOW WINSTON: Why not?
CHARLIE: I wanted something else. Something interesting. Challenging.
BLAKE: All the good stuff, the meaning in everything, was buried. It took being alert to notice things but also determination to understand them.
MARTHA SAWYER: But you succeeded.
HARLOW WINSTON: You kept going.
CHARLIE: I stuck it out. I endured what I had to endure.
BLAKE: I succeeded to a point but I always have to be working at it and never feel like I’ve completely arrived.
MARTHA SAWYER: Like you’re on a long trip somewhere?
HARLOW WINSTON: Just keeping at it.
BLAKE: A trip, that’s true, but a process, also.
CHARLIE: I keep at it but it keeps at me, too.
MARTHA SAWYER: You’re in the process right now, aren’t you?
HARLOW WINSTON: What did you most like best about your early jobs?
CHARLIE: Clocking out.
BLAKE: That’s right. I’m in the middle of the process now, but I’m also aware of new elements in the current experience.
MARTHA SAWYER: That makes it sort of fun, doesn’t it?
HARLOW WINSTON: What did you get out of these early job experiences?
CHARLIE: To hope for something better in the future.
BLAKE: It’s fun. It’s interesting and it makes me look forward to the next experience and putting new things together.
MARTHA SAWYER: In what ways?
HARLOW WINSTON: “Something better in the future.” You said that.
BLAKE: I’m now so impressed with education that I want to apply it to the job experience.
CHARLIE: Yes. Something better in the future. Through my job.
HARLOW WINSTON: Ha! You think this is a job?
MARTHA SAWYER: You think people will prosper materially and otherwise through work?
BLAKE: That’s what I expect. That’s what I’ve done. At least prospering sort of spiritually, I guess you would say. And I want to add materially to that.
CHARLIE: Everyone has to work.
HARLOW WINSTON: You think this is work?
MARTHA SAWYER: Are you prepared to be let down?
BLAKE: No. And I don’t think I will be let down. I don’t intend to let that happen.
CHARLIE: If it’s not work, then what is it?
HARLOW WINSTON: I’ve been here a while now and I’ve yet to figure it out. But whatever it is, it ain’t work.
MARTHA SAWYER: Prepare yourself, Blake. Prepare yourself.
HARLOW WINSTON: (opens a huge binder on top of the desk) Here. Read this.
CHARLIE: (incredulous) All that?
HARLOW WINSTON: As much as you have time for. (begins miscellaneous activities, including a telephone conversation, while CHARLIE reads)
MARTHA SAWYER: (hands papers to BLAKE) Here, Blake. Read through this and then we’ll talk about it.
JOSEPH SHELBY: (hanging up the phone and turning toward LOGAN) Now. Ahhh… (looks at paper) Logan. Now, Logan. Where were we?
LOGAN: You asked me what I would do if I encountered a herd of elephants.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Oh. I gave you the elephant question. And what was your answer?
LOGAN: I didn’t answer yet. You were talking on the phone.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Well? What’s your answer?
LOGAN: If I encountered a herd of elephants, I would whip out my cell phone and take some pictures. Then I would call you.
JOSEPH SHELBY: (with apparent horror) You would call me?
LOGAN: Yes. To thank you for hiring me at Busy Bunz because otherwise I would never be in such an exciting place as wherever it was that I would encounter a herd of elephants.
JOSEPH SHELBY: (breaking out in uproarious laughter) That’s great. It’s wonderful. I’ve never had a good reply to that question before. Okay. Here’s another one: Are you willing to move at your own expense anywhere, anytime Busy Bunz wants you to move?
LOGAN: Sure. Especially if that’s where the elephants are.
JOSEPH SHELBY: (gravely) Cute isn’t cute.
LOGAN: But stood corrected is stood corrected.
JOSEPH SHELBY: You got it. Have you thoroughly considered what it means to work for Busy Bunz?
LOGAN: I have no idea what it means.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you have a plan of action to follow through on after gaining employment?
LOGAN: No.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you have any goals to accomplish at Busy Bunz?
LOGAN: No.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Is there any particular segment of Busy Bunz, Incorporated that you are especially interested in?
LOGAN: No.
JOSEPH SHELBY: You don’t know much about Busy Bunz, do you?
LOGAN: No.
JOSEPH SHELBY: You’re just looking for a job aren’t you?
LOGAN: Yes.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Doesn’t much matter what, does it?
LOGAN: No.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Are you prepared to roll with the punches?
LOGAN: I don’t guess I have any choice.
JOSEPH SHELBY: What does that mean? That you don’t give a shit?
LOGAN: Not at all. It means that I really want to accomplish something worthwhile but I recognize the state of the economy and the lack of employer demand for recent liberal arts graduates with no work experience to speak of. And it means that I know I have to start somewhere.
JOSEPH SHELBY: (pauses for a while, leans forward, stares at LOGAN, blinks repeatedly) You may work out here just fine. Then again…we’ll see.
(shoves a binder across his desk, flips it open, demonstrates as he speaks) Read this. On one side is the official job description. On the opposite page is my explanation of what actually goes on with the job and what the people really do. Don’t ever say anything about this notebook to anyone. Ever. (shoves another stack of reading material forward) Read this, too, if you can stomach it. It’s official Busy Bunz, Incorporated human resources authorized and approved propaganda that tells you how great we are. (shoves a stack of picture albums across his desk) Then look at these pictures I put together. Don’t ever tell anybody about these, either. They’ll show you what we really do every day. There are also pictures of some of our staff parties. If you’re still here when you’ve looked at all this, you have a good shot at a job with Busy Bunz. (picks up the telephone and begins an animated, inaudible conversation)
BLAKE: (handing some papers back to MARTHA SAWYER) Ahhh. These were in the stack of documents you gave me to read but I don’t think you meant to give me these particular papers.
MARTHA SAWYER: (examining papers) Let’s see. Okay. You’re right. I didn’t mean to give you these. Did you read them?
BLAKE: Only enough to realize what they were, then I stopped. As I came to them, I set them aside until I finished what you meant for me to read.
MARTHA SAWYER: (chuckling) Well, even if you read a little, you got an eye full.
BLAKE: (grinning) It was something of a surprise.
MARTHA SAWYER: Little enough is good enough. (pauses) But maybe, in your case, it might be the right thing to do to look at some of this. I think you might appreciate it in a helpful sort of way. You’ll get a realistic picture of what we do, anyway. Let me just read through the official questions the HR department wants us to ask.
HARLOW WINSTON: (concluding miscellaneous activities) Okay. I tell you what. Why don’t you stop with the notebook a few minutes and let me run through at least some of the official HR department interview questions. We’ll try to push through this quickly.
JOSEPH SHELBY: (concludes activities, appears to be bored, fidgets, turns toward LOGAN) It’s getting late. I think we’d better go through these required questions.
MARTHA SAWYER: Have you ever seen a shrink?
HARLOW WINSTON: Have you ever stolen anything from a previous employer, besides, of course, the time you worked there?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Why did you decide to seek employment at Busy Bunz when there are openings at Walmart and McDonalds?
MARTHA SAWYER: Have you ever sneezed into a water fountain?
HARLOW WINSTON: How can Busy Bunz help you achieve your life’s ambition?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you have a life’s ambition?
MARTHA SAWYER: What is the most important thing a supervisor ever said to you besides “it’s five o’clock?”
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you expect to receive a paid vacation after two years of employment?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you expect to last two years at Busy Bunz?
MARTHA SAWYER: How much education do you really think you need to work here, if any?
HARLOW WINSTON: If a client of Busy Bunz asked you out, would you charge a fee but not report it to the company?
JOSEPH SHELBY: If Busy Bunz asked you to hold onto some money for a while in your personal bank account, would you talk about it?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you expect to receive mileage reimbursement for making deliveries in your own vehicle after hours?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you expect to be paid for making deliveries in your own vehicle after hours?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you expect to receive workers’ compensation if you get the clap at work?
MARTHA SAWYER: Would you be willing to babysit for your supervisor when his wife is out of town?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you hold American religious values regardless of whether or not you attend services?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Have you ever had an altercation in the parking lot of a previous employer?
MARTHA SAWYER: Have you ever urged your supervisor to engage in a pornographic act with himself?
HARLOW WINSTON: Why did you leave your previous employment to work for an employer who pays minimum wage? Is this the best you could do?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Would you be willing to sign a petition asking to reduce the minimum wage?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you agree with Busy Bunz that the cost of employee benefits should be deducted from your wages?
HARLOW WINSTON: Have you ever belonged to a labor union or a book club other than one for romance novels?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you read liberal news magazines or poetry?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you watch at least twenty hours of television each week? If not, what the hell do you do with your time?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you ever stay up past five AM looking at pictures on the Internet?
JOSEPH SHELBY: You don’t actually read on the Internet do you?
MARTHA SAWYER: Have you ever voted for other than conservative candidates?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you have any objection to using your own computer, telephone, desk chair and file cabinet at work?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Have you ever sued an employer for wage theft?
MARTHA SAWYER: How many days did you miss from work last year due to hangover or drug overdose?
HARLOW WINSTON: Name five things you learned in your previous employment that you didn’t know before you learned them.
JOSEPH SHELBY: What are three things you did not learn in your previous employment that you expected to learn?
MARTHA SAWYER: Give me an example of a complicated or intractable problem you solved during your previous employment.
HARLOW WINSTON: What is the definition of intractable?
JOSEPH SHELBY: How do you believe intractability might apply at Busy Bunz?
MARTHA SAWYER: What would you say to a supervisor who asked you to change everything about a report you had just spent a great deal of time and effort writing?
HARLOW WINSTON: What would you say to a supervisor who told you to investigate a certain subject and to write a report on it reaching conclusions that are supplied to you in advance?
JOSEPH SHELBY: What would you say to a supervisor who told you to rewrite a long report and complete the rewrite before you leave for the day if the supervisor told you this ten minutes before your scheduled time to leave for the day?
MARTHA SAWYER: Are you willing to falsify documents when the company would find it expedient to have it done even if it is unwilling to explicitly direct you to falsify those documents?
HARLOW WINSTON: Can you take a hint?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you understand the evil involved in falsifying documents for your own enrichment and the good involved in falsifying documents for the benefit of Busy Bunz?
MARTHA SAWYER: Did you know that there is no sexual harassment anywhere on the premises at Busy Bunz?
HARLOW WINSTON: Did you know the reason there is no sexual harassment anywhere on the premises at Busy Bunz is because we have a policy against it?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you agree to follow the policy forbidding sexual harassment anywhere on the premises at Busy Bunz?
MARTHA SAWYER: Did you know there is a cheap motel around the corner?
HARLOW WINSTON: What do you consider your greatest accomplishments up to this point in your career?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you believe you can replicate those accomplishments at Busy Bunz without any resources being provided and in the face of active opposition from your supervisor?
MARTHA SAWYER: Are you willing to allow your supervisor to run roughshod over you without complaint?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you complain when co-workers touch your stapler?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Has anyone ever moved your cheese?
MARTHA SAWYER: If it takes a manager one hour to do something can you do it in half the time then praise the manager for telling you how to do it?
HARLOW WINSTON: Have you ever arranged for an emergency phone call to rescue you from a meeting?
JOSEPH SHELBY: How many days did you miss from work last year?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you smoke regularly, not at all or only socially?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you have a disability? If so, what?
JOSEPH SHELBY: You don’t really expect Busy Bunz to cut you any slack for a disability, do you?
MARTHA SAWYER: Are you pregnant or do you intend to become pregnant or is your wife pregnant or does she intend to become pregnant?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you believe all that hooey about needing time off to take care of a baby or an elderly parent?
JOSEPH SHELBY: If you die on the job, do you expect Busy Bunz to send flowers to your funeral?
MARTHA SAWYER: If another Busy Bunz employee threatens you, are you prepared to overlook the threat in order to prevent interruption of the work flow?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you expect anyone in authority at Busy Bunz to actually take you seriously?
JOSEPH SHELBY: When solicited by headhunters do you restrain yourself or do you shamelessly plead with them to find other employment for you?
MARTHA SAWYER: Have you ever gone postal?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you keep a handgun, rifle or machete in the trunk of your car?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Have you ever called in a bomb threat in order to avoid work?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you really expect Busy Bunz to close in the event of a bomb threat? Well, we don’t.
HARLOW WINSTON: If asked to run an errand for Busy Bunz will you also take the opportunity to do your own errands? If not, why not?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you steal from petty cash on a regular basis or do you do it irregularly in order not to get caught? Do you believe it matters?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you expect annual performance reviews to reflect an accurate portrayal of your work or do you understand that they’re merely pro forma exercises in a waste of time intended you make it look like we’re trying to do what is expected?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you understand that your annual performance review will be generated by a formula meant to maintain an average numerical score overall and that there is nothing really individualized about it?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you understand that your annual performance review score is intended to restrain your wages and maintain profit for Busy Bunz?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you read business and leadership books for fun and profit or do you just say you read them?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you ever read anything that is not required?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Have the sound effects of your smartphone game ever disrupted a meeting?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you clean up after yourself in the break room or do you leave it for the intern?
HARLOW WINSTON: Are you willing to sign a non-compete agreement?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you understand that that non-compete agreements at Busy Bunz cover everything including breathing?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you have any idea what businesses Busy Bunz is involved in?
HARLOW WINSTON: Do you know how many hundred times more than your wages the CEO at your previous employer made? Are you okay with that?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Are you willing to contribute to Bunz Charities, a ahh nonprofit organization operated by Busy Bunz, Incorporated?
MARTHA SAWYER: What was your contribution to the improvement of business during your previous employment?
HARLOW WINSTON: When sales dipped at your previous employment, were you willing to kick in to protect the company’s bottom line?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Have you ever alerted a federal or other governmental agency about questionable practices occurring in businesses operated by your previous employers?
MARTHA SAWYER: Are you willing to snitch on employees at Busy Bunz who may make calls to governmental agencies?
HARLOW WINSTON: Are you accustomed to providing periodic gifts of significant value to your supervisor? If not, are you willing to begin making periodic gifts of significant value to your supervisor?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you object to kicking back part of your wages out of gratitude for the opportunity you have been given?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you often sleep in meetings?
HARLOW WINSTON: Have you ever called a meeting but did not show up in order to show how important and busy you were?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you ever plagiarize? If not, why not?
MARTHA SAWYER: Do you believe whistleblowers should receive a day off in honor of their service or receive all days off forever, without pay, of course?
HARLOW WINSTON: Have you ever tried fasting during lunch as a means of staying awake the remainder of the day?
JOSEPH SHELBY: Do you expect to earn enough to eat lunch?
MARTHA SAWYER: That’s it.
HARLOW WINSTON: No more questions.
JOSEPH SHELBY: The end. Glad it’s over?
LOGAN: Whew.
CHARLIE: Amazing.
BLAKE: Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
MARTHA SAWYER: That’s Busy Bunz.
HARLOW WINSTON: That’s what Busy Bunz is about.
JOSEPH SHELBY: That’s Busy Bunz in a nutshell.
MARTHA SAWYER: Congratulations. After lunch you’ll have an interview with my boss. He’s empowered to make a job offer.
HARLOW WINSTON: Next up for you after lunch is the big boss.
JOSEPH SHELBY: Hang in there. After lunch you’ll be up for the next interview.
HR STAFF: (in unison) Remember the words of our esteemed leader, Oligopolous Overbunz. (As the picture frames flash repeatedly, the HR STAFF applies their noses and glasses before speaking again in unison.) “Someday I’ll own that mud puddle.”
(The lights go out.)
(End of Act I)
VOICE-OVER: It’s time for a short break. Breaks are always short at Busy Bunz. Take advantage of this time to stretch your legs. Stretch anything you can because here at Busy Bunz, we’re shrinking your mind. Not to mention your career, your self-esteem, your potential, your income and on and on. To ease up on the tension, you will be relieved to know that the framed picture of Oligopolous Overbunz will not flash when the founder and brilliant capitalist is mentioned during intermission. Think of this as a gift. But we want to mention Oligopolous Overbunz frequently because he is the reason we are here. Keep that in mind as you settle your ample asses back into your comfortable seats after intermission. In the meantime, cups of mud are on sale in the lobby for five dollars. We want to celebrate the stunning success of the amazing Oligopolous Overbunz during this intermission. A special premium edition biography of Oligopolous Overbunz is on sale in the lobby for one hundred dollars. It comes with a muddy jacket and an inscription signed by Oligopolous Overbunz himself. For the cheapskates among you, or students struggling to repay loans from the Oligopolous Overbunz Student Advantage Bank (no need to ask whose advantage), an online edition is also available from Amazon at cut-rate pricing thanks to Jeff Oligopolous Bezos. Please expect no inscription, signature or mud on this cheap, digital edition. And do not confuse this inspiring story with the scurrilous fiction promoted by another so-called biographer whose false — totally false — allegations appear in a different book covered in merely simulated — that is, fake — mud. It is most definitely not true that Oligopolous Overbunz first tasted sweet success when he stole cookies from the windowsill of an old lady and sold them, sweeter success when he hired the old lady, and success still sweeter when he fired the old woman and replaced her with undocumented immigrants. Don’t believe this lie. Some of them actually had forged papers in their possession. Be careful what you believe and who you believe it from. And remember, you can always trust Oligopolous Overbunz. Now, in a note about your personal comfort during intermission, you will be pleased to know that buckets in the restrooms have been replaced by real toilets that conveniently operate with the insertion of money, not coins that nobody carries, but real folding money in the denomination of five dollars or more. Sorry, these toilet money receptacles are not equipped to change large bills but they surely accept them. Urinals are available for a mere one dollar. As Oligopolous Overbunz often says, “that’s not discrimination, it’s just life. Get use to it.” To encourage you to seek relief in our restrooms, we have poured up some jug wine into impressive bottles, now on sale in the lobby for only fifty dollars. Drink lots of it. Between gulps of our delicious wine, enjoy stimulating conversation with your friends. Oligopolous Overbunz is sure that you will want to compare how the company you work for stacks up against Busy Bunz and the companies that your friends work for. Here are some suggestions to make your businesses just as wonderful as Busy Bunz and your careers in management as stunningly close to the spectacular success of Oligopolous Overbunz himself as counterfeits, imposters and losers can possibly come:
If you’re satisfied that things are already as bad as they could possibly be, you’re not doing your job.
Put a gorgeous chick on the front desk but make employees come in the back door.
Dogs are meant to be kicked. Wusses are dogs. Hire wusses.
Employee benefits lead to socialism.
Employee benefits are like taxes. The lower the better. None at all is best of all.
Does some pinhead in your company want to start that profit sharing nonsense? Show him some public property — the street.
Got some do-gooder in your business that wants to improve company culture? Give him two bits to kick-start his own enterprise somewhere else. In other words, fire his ass.
Want to reform the tax code? Tell that congressman you pay to vote for loopholes. Lots of loopholes. Lots of big loopholes.
Keep public benefits low. Then avoid paying taxes to pay for them.
Always let middle-class suckers pay the upkeep on the poor.
Devalue conscience by everything you actually do. But praise it to suckers and encourage them to rat out other employees.
Identify your company exclusively with yourself. And make plenty of charitable donations, but not out of your own funds. Make sure you’re giving away money collected from your employees. You’ll be surprised at what suckers they are. Your managers, too.
Start your own bank on an island somewhere and hide your own damn money in your own damn bank on your own damn island.
You’re a citizen of the world just like the pinheads claim to be except you actually own some of it.
Don’t forget which ocean your island is in. Don’t forget where you hangar your jet. Above all, don’t forget to keep close to your helicopter for a fast escape.
Make sure your bodyguards know that they are “assistants” and make sure your assistants know they’re bodyguards.
Make sure your safe rooms are well stocked.
Use lots of waffle words and double meanings.
Your HR director is a skank. Chances are, he or she knows it. But let them pretend otherwise and they’ll screw your employees nonstop without you doing anything.
What’s a little body fluid among managers?
If your employees have expectations — any at all — it’s because you’ve been soft on them in the past. Don’t let this happen again.
Management is a clusterfuck intended to be a distraction from the fact that you’re making more money than anybody realized.
If you’re a manager who really thinks someone cares if you miss time from the office, you’re proving that you’re as stupid as we thought you were when you were hired.
Go in your office and close the door. Take a nap. Set an alarm every couple of hours, wake up and raise hell. Nobody will bother you the rest of the time.
Plagiarize heavily in internal memos — stuff you copy out of technical journals of an unaffiliated industry. Your employees won’t understand a word but they’ll think you’re so damn smart they’ll be afraid to question you on anything.
No questions at this time? Then, it’s time for a nap. Or a drink. Or golf. Or whatever you claim you do.
Got a patch of grass outside your building? Don’t go to the expense of a landscape service. Make an employee cut it.
It helps to have an assistant who is alert and who will see that things get done and that you are informed of the bare minimum of what you need to know and who will leave you alone the rest of the time which is most of the time.
Find some bright young assistant whose job is exclusively devoted to your special projects. They can keep managers busy with studies, demands for useless information, and they can write long meaningless reports that makes you look like some sort of fearsome genius for overseeing all this work you never pay attention to.
By all means, join industry associations and arrange to win some of their awards from time to time. You don’t actually have to do anything, and you benefit from the reverence these hollow honors earn for you in the general public and with your dumb employees.
Give speeches now and then, sometimes to highfalutin sounding organizations and universities, especially where you can get something out of it.
You are your main charity. Others should be encouraged to give to you.
If philanthropy doesn’t help you make money, you’ve wasted your time on the wrong charity.
Do you really read all those memos? Pardon me while I laugh my ass off. You must be new.
The wisdom of Oligopolous Overbunz could roll on forever but we need to allow you a few minutes to reflect on the wonders you have witnessed during the first act and consider how they apply in your own jobs and businesses. Toward that end, we will go silent for the short time remaining in the intermission. This will be a perfect opportunity to guzzle another bottle of wine. You should be informed that the business manager of the theatre will be fired immediately upon conclusion of this performance if wine sales prove insufficient. Also, be sure to visit the pay toilet where you can flush away your life savings. (Intermission continues silently until the VOICE-OVER resumes.) Intermission is about to conclude. You have just enough time to buy another bottle of wine that you can sneak back to your seat for consumption as you watch the second act. You may need it. Prepare for an emotional roller coaster. The best way to prepare is to purchase a box of tissues in the lobby, on sale now for only five dollars a box. You can generously share the box up and down your seating row, unless, of course, you prefer the good ole American capitalist way of individual consumption. For that purpose, purse and pocket size packages of tissue are on sale in the lobby for ten dollars, the option I’m sure you will select so that you can sit in your own miserable seat and drink and cry alone while flashing the label on the bottle and the fact that you opted for a ridiculously expensive pack of tissues. So, get ready now, we’re about to resume with the second act where you can watch Oligopolous Overbunz have sex in his mud puddle with a soggy stack of hundred dollar bills. Just kidding. The money is simulated. Oligopolous Overbunz would never waste real money on sex with anyone, including himself. In other matters, it has been noticed that no one picked up a Busy Bunz employment application, available for free in the lobby. Oligopolous Overbunz wants you to know that your failure to do so has been recorded. And now, the time you have been waiting for, everyone please return to your seats, everyone, that is, who does not belong to a labor union. Labor union members are advised to hurry out the back door into the dark alley where thugs hired by management are waiting to beat the shit out of you, it being understood that you cannot be beaten senseless given that, as labor union members, you are already senseless.
Act II
Scene 1
Setting: The Human Resources office at Busy Bunz, the same as before except that instead of three staff offices, there is now only one.
At Rise: BLAKE, CHARLIE and LOGAN are in the upper waiting area. ANTHONY FOSTER occupies the only remaining office below.
CHARLIE: Well, that was…ahh…ahh…
BLAKE: (interrupting) Different?
CHARLIE: Bizarre.
LOGAN: For sure. And totally unexpected.
BLAKE: Sort of like everything every evil HR person ever wanted to say but knew better than to actually say it.
LOGAN: But they said it.
CHARLIE: We heard it with our own ears. And somehow we got selected for another interview. How did that happen?
BLAKE: My interviewer was actually pretty good in spite of everything else.
CHARLIE: My interviewer was just…
LOGAN: (interrupting) Mine didn’t give a shit.
CHARLIE: It makes me wonder what the next round will be like.
VOICE-OVER: You’re about to find out. Blake Street, you’re up next. Look sharp, Blake. You may be the next dimple in the ass of Busy Bunz, Incorporated. Head down to Anthony Foster’s office.
(BLAKE rises, shakes hands with CHARLIE and LOGAN.)
CHARLIE: Good luck, Blake.
LOGAN: Break a leg, Blake.
CHARLIE: Come back and tell us all about it.
(BLAKE descends to ANTHONY FOSTER’s office, pauses, knocks and enters upon request where he finds ANTHONY FOSTER coming from behind his desk to greet him, shaking his hand warmly before returning to the chair behind his desk.)
ANTHONY FOSTER: Come in. Come right in, Blake. Glad to have you here today.
BLAKE: Glad to be here and happy to meet you, Mr. Foster.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Tony. Call me Tony. We’re all first names here. No last names at all, you know, except for our founder, Oligopolous Overbunz.
(The framed picture begins to flash. ANTHONY FOSTER rolls his eyes.)
ANTHONY FOSTER: (examining apparent documents) Okay, now, let’s see, Blake, you wouldn’t have gotten this far if you weren’t probably pretty good maybe so let’s just cover a few basics and then go from there.
BLAKE: That’s fine with me.
ANTHONY FOSTER: So. You’re white. That’s always a good start. (ANTHONY FOSTER leans forward and points over his shoulder with his thumb toward the framed picture. He speaks confidentially.) He’s white. He likes to hire white people. (resumes normal voice) And you don’t have any visible disabilities. That’s good, too. (ANTHONY FOSTER leans forward again and speaks confidentially with assurance, again pointing with his thumb over his shoulder toward the framed picture.)He’s got all his fingers and toes. He likes that in people. (leans back, resumes normal voice) And you’re a Christian, I assume. (leans forward, speaks confidentially, points) He’s a Christian and he likes to hire within the faith. (leans back, resumes normal voice) You are a Christian, aren’t you?
BLAKE: (leaning forward, pointing toward the framed picture) Whether I am or not is none of his business.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (shocked) What? My dear young Blake! This interview has suddenly changed.
BLAKE: This interview needed to change. The earlier interview, the one with Martha Sawyer, was objectionable in some ways, especially when the official questions were posed rhetorically, because even then it was subterfuge. But I expected better from management at the next level. And when you started with that deceitful racial business, well, that was just shocking. Way, way, way out of bounds.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (anxiously gesturing with his thumb) It’s him. It’s him. It’s all him.
BLAKE: (pointing at ANTHONY FOSTER) It’s you. It’s you.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (recoiling) Me? Me? I only do what I’m told.
BLAKE: That makes it you, doesn’t it? You’re the one taking action, so it’s you. Whether you agree or not, whether you want to take that action or not, you’re the one doing something here, so it’s you, isn’t it?
ANTHONY FOSTER: (apparently confused) I don’t quite follow you. I don’t see how you can come in here and…and….We all take instructions.
BLAKE: And act on those instructions? Carry them out?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Of course.
BLAKE: And you consider it your responsibility to carry out those instructions?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Of course.
BLAKE: Then your actions are your responsibility. You can’t take action and fob off the responsibility for that action on someone else, even if it’s your boss.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Look, young Blake, I just want to make a living. I have a family to support. You’re not to that point in life just yet, but when you have responsibilities, you’ll understand.
BLAKE: You have responsibilities but not the responsibility for your actions?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Obviously, you’re just too immature to understand. I misjudged you earlier. I assumed you were brighter than this.
BLAKE: Obviously, you’re just too jaded to understand. I misjudged you earlier. I assumed you had a higher understanding than this.
ANTHONY FOSTER: You’ve got awfully big balls for such an inexperienced youngster to come in here looking for a job and then talk to your elder that way, an elder who happens to be able to determine whether or not you have a job.
BLAKE: I intend no disrespect; neither do I accept disrespect.
ANTHONY FOSTER: You sound like some sort of protester who’s gotten cornered by the authorities and who’s trying to explain but can’t.
BLAKE: And you sound like the classic authority who’s trying to change the subject because they’ve allowed their real authority, their moral authority, to be eroded by convenience. That always leads to excuses that get thinner and thinner until the excuses, not to mention the authority, wear away altogether giving full throttle to the nefarious power of control.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (strongly taken aback) Good, God, man. Where does someone as young as you find all that?
BLAKE: The same place you lost it.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (crestfallen, head bowed) The soul. It’s the soul, isn’t it? That’s where it’s from, isn’t it? And where it was lost, isn’t it?
BLAKE: I didn’t say that.
ANTHONY FOSTER: You didn’t need to. Just like you should not have needed to say anything to start with.
BLAKE: I had to say something.
ANTHONY FOSTER: I know. I gave you the reason. And the opening.
BLAKE: I didn’t come here to cause trouble.
ANTHONY FOSTER: No one does. It’s just that you’re the first to look under the rock.
BLAKE: I doubt that. I may be the first to say something about it, but I’m not the first to have seen what’s happening.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Really? You think so?
BLAKE: I’m sure of it.
ANTHONY FOSTER: No other applicant ever let on that they knew.
BLAKE: They just didn’t tell you. They didn’t indicate that they knew, but they knew.
ANTHONY FOSTER: So all this time I’ve just been fooling myself?
BLAKE: Some of your applicants knew and simply moved on after the interview even if you offered a job. The rest, my guess is, almost everyone who works here, knew on some level but wanted the job and decided to play along. So, you haven’t been the only one pretending. Almost everyone has been lying to themselves but playing along with the storyline.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (brightening) So, after we get through talking you’ll move on to some job somewhere else and I can interview the next applicant who doubtlessly will either move along or play along and everything will be back to normal.
BLAKE: No. It’s not that easy, Tony. The genie is out of the bottle for you. You can’t just stuff it back in and go on with life the way it was before.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Why not? You clearly won’t be around to remind me.
BLAKE: Because you’ll remind yourself. You’ll keep thinking about it. You can’t get away from yourself or even ignore yourself after you’ve once confronted something like this.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Oh, yes I can. I have a family to support. I have to think of them.
BLAKE: So. You have kids.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Two. And a wife, of course, and all the rest that goes along with them.
BLAKE: So. I would think that you’re concerned about teaching your children right from wrong.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Certainly.
BLAKE: Setting an example is not always easy.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Especially these days. But some things basically never change. A person can still go far with a sound foundation of basic principles to follow. Like good as opposed to evil.
BLAKE: Courage as opposed to cowardice.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes. Exactly.
BLAKE: Tell me something, Tony. How does acquiescence teach courage?
(ANTHONY FOSTER appears flummoxed. He is silent and withdrawn behind his desk, shrinking in his chair, turning his back on BLAKE and burying his face in his hands. At last, he emits a tremendous sigh. His shoulders collapse.)
BLAKE: (sympathetically, then assertively) It’s tough, I realize. It’s a hard thing to face. But ultimately the question has to be confronted. Let me ask again. How does acquiescence teach courage?
ANTHONY FOSTER: (turning slowly to face BLAKE) Isn’t survival more important than anything else?
BLAKE: Survival is rarely a singular objective. Survival is not usually a stand-alone issue.
ANTHONY FOSTER: But doesn’t survival require courage?
BLAKE: Only if survival is the sole alternative to destruction.
ANTHONY FOSTER: There. You have it. Survival. Which is damn courageous if a person can manage it.
BLAKE: But most of us have more options than mere survival. The option to thrive, to grow, to prosper in mind and realization. Our physical needs are then met, as well.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (rising fiercely) You don’t get it. You’re too young to understand it. It’s not your fault that you don’t understand because you’re so young but when you have a family to take care of, you’ll be saying something different. Then, you’ll understand.
BLAKE: Could it be that having a family, children to nurture and guide, is all the more incentive to demonstrate commitment to strength? Doesn’t it better instruct the young to question vanity and stand for justice than to pander to wealth and cower in blind obedience?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Life is not a test tube experiment. The laboratory is the world itself and it’s real. Children are not brought into this world on a whim and when…
BLAKE: (interrupting) Largely, largely, we give ourselves too much credit for the value of our intent. Sometimes we even pose intention as equal to the objective itself. Worse yet, we often conflate attempt with attainment. But please continue.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (pauses, off stride) What I was going to say was predictable. What you said was not.
BLAKE: Say what’s on your mind anyway. Let’s meet this head-on.
ANTHONY FOSTER: What I was trying to get across to you is that all of us have responsibility and when there are children involved, it’s a special responsibility, not simply to teach but to provide for them. Those of you without children have to get ready for them so you still have the responsibility to provide. You have to be laying the foundation of a future which means providing and providing means stability and stability means income and consistency and you can’t maintain income and consistency if you’re battling your employer all the time. So, I guess it all comes down to maintenance which stands for income and consistency. Maintenance. It stands for something solid and dependable that families need, especially children. There. I’ve said it. And you’ll learn it by the time you’re ready for real responsibility.
BLAKE: Obviously, I’ll have to concede youth and inexperience. It wasn’t long ago that I was a child, myself. But I was an observant child. Most children are. You can’t simply dismiss what the child learns by seeing what is happening around him. That’s the point I was trying to make. Children absorb. They learn more than adults realize.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes. They do. And what I want my children to learn is that their father goes out every day and works hard to earn money that enables their lives to be better.
BLAKE: I had not wanted to make this so personal but I guess there’s no other choice. From what you’re saying, your children are learning that a good parent goes all out for keeping food on the table. Maintenance, as you say.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Exactly.
BLAKE: And I suppose it’s safe to conclude that they, too, will go out into the world with the overarching objective to put food on their children’s table. Next generation maintenance.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes. Responsibility met. Courageously met, too.
BLAKE: And what will happen when they encounter adversity out there in the world? What will happen when some boss tells them to do something that’s clearly wrong? Or maybe it doesn’t even reach that point. Maybe the boss simply acts out in some way that’s obviously against all decency and the best interest of his employees. What will your children do then?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Well, they will just have to…
BLAKE: (interrupting) You’ve raised them. Don’t you think it’s likely they will follow your example?
ANTHONY FOSTER: (angrily) I’ll tell you something, youngster. It takes plenty of guts to come here every day and do my part to keep a business going that provides for so many people.
BLAKE: And what does this business provide? A spot on a creaky merry-go-round surrounded by a mud puddle, a rut, trodden deep by workers too busy to stop and unable to hop aboard? And where would they be going if they did?
ANTHONY FOSTER: (after a long pause) Merry-go-round.
BLAKE: Think about it. Who gets the merry and who does the go-round?
ANTHONY FOSTER: But…(pauses)…responsibility…
BLAKE: (interrupting) Does responsibility have to be sunup to sundown foraging for roots and berries? Is it necessary for responsibility to mean nose to the grindstone economics? Survivability and nothing more? Can’t responsibility also be about fulfilling higher needs that coincidentally put food on the table?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Survivability first. And foremost.
BLAKE: Since when does survivability require a gated community or penthouse apartment? Or luxury cars or five star meals?
ANTHONY FOSTER: You have no right to renounce someone else’s symbol of attainment.
BLAKE: Symbol of attainment or badge of unmerited privilege? Not only do I have the right to renounce it, but an obligation.
ANTHONY FOSTER: And you sure as hell have no business denouncing the means of certainty.
BLAKE: Means of certainty?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Safety and security. Consistency and reliability. The nest of surety that nurtures children into adulthood and preserves their path into the future.
BLAKE: Ahh. The gated community.
ANTHONY FOSTER: And all that goes with it.
BLAKE: By that I take it that you mean the protection of responsibility and the means to execute it.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes. Maybe now you’re getting it. Protection. And projection, too, because security enables the execution of responsibility.
BLAKE: It’s very much the opposite, Tony. Protection enables fear and promotes withdrawal. Protective action is merely defensive, retreating into the shadows and hiding. How is responsibility then fulfilled? Risk is the dynamic that advances progress.
ANTHONY FOSTER: But without security there can be no maintenance of all the things needed to sustain survival. Everything would fly apart and it would be impossible for progress to take root. Risk jeopardizes everything.
BLAKE: Value is already lost if all we do is put it on a shelf and guard it. Honoring and protecting preserves only the form of value, while its quality dissipates with lack of use. Like muscles that diminish without exercise.
ANTHONY FOSTER: But security is a matter of maintenance, the protection of essentials.
BLAKE: Essentials?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes. Essentials.
BLAKE: Like food?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes. Like food.
BLAKE: If we stock our cupboard with cans of food and devote ourselves to protecting that cupboard, taking care to replace cans as they are consumed, we tether ourselves to a static process. It becomes an end unto itself. It becomes a ritual that mesmerizes instead of a principle that liberates. Protection…security…eventually causes us to wither from the lack of expanded nourishment available through progress.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Progress. Humph. My principle is protection first, then progress.
BLAKE: That may sound good but it doesn’t work that way. Protection has a way of crowding out progress. Protection tends to absorb all our energy. We think there can never be enough security. And when we see the food piling up in the cupboard we start to think we need even more before we attempt some progress. Just let a little setback come along — and it will — and we double down on protection and suffocate the slightest impulse for progress. Where is your principle of protection first if there can never be a second?
ANTHONY FOSTER: If there can be only one, clearly it must be protection.
BLAKE: Just as clearly you’re avoiding the issue of progress.
ANTHONY FOSTER: We’re just going in circles with this.
BLAKE: How better to avoid the question of progress if we do nothing but circle another issue? Again, I ask: Where is your principle of protection first if there can never be a second?
ANTHONY FOSTER: A better question might concern this progress you’re touting. What is it? And why do you seem so sure there is even such a thing as progress?
BLAKE: The definition of progress is simple, clear, direct, no unwound circle or tangled spiral but this: Progress is the forward pace we take toward understanding. The certainty of progress is the greater understanding that we experience.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (after a period of agitation) Understanding. Is that all there is of progress? Just understanding?
BLAKE: Isn’t that enough? It has to be sufficient and we know it so because it’s step by step to an acknowledged goal, one proved to be attainable. Progress because of steps. Sufficient because those steps lead to where we need to be. That place is completed understanding. Those steps are pieces of understanding that find the whole. That one is the worthy of all effort. Each step sheds its past while leading to another. That’s progress until there is no other and that is understanding. What greater could there be?
ANTHONY FOSTER: (pause) What I understand is a need for protection.
BLAKE: If that is the place where you decide for yourself, if your current understanding is not prepared for further steps at present, then do not impede those of others. In fact, in your position of authority, you have a responsibility for providing facility to those who can surmount the protection that restrains yourself and would inhibit the progress of others if imposed.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Wouldn’t that put me in violation of my principles?
BLAKE: Why should you foist your principles upon others? Surely that is not in your job description.
ANTHONY FOSTER: But it is. It really is. In an unwritten kind of way.
BLAKE: That would be error birthed from previous error. If one is invalid, so is the other.
ANTHONY FOSTER: But still my job.
BLAKE: As you wrongly see it. I am sure that you are in the possession of many qualities and abilities that have enormous and wide-ranging potential. But you must not confuse hoarding or protection of those abilities with duty rightly administered.
ANTHONY FOSTER: You seem to have answered one of the questions you have been pestering me about.
BLAKE: That being?
ANTHONY FOSTER: As you ask: Where is protection first if there is never a second? At least you have answered the question satisfactorily for yourself.
BLAKE: And that answer?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Don’t make me say it.
BLAKE: But you’ve already said it. Now, again. Remind me. Make it clear.
ANTHONY FOSTER: What? That in protecting only and not going further that I choose not to participate in dubious folly, in unknown ventures?
BLAKE: Dubious folly and unknown ventures that in sum amount to progress. There you squat, refusing to budge. And that is the answer?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes. That is the answer.
BLAKE: Then you have supplied the answer yourself, not me.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Humph.
BLAKE: But what does that answer mean?
ANTHONY FOSTER: I’ve had enough of this talk already.
BLAKE: It means stagnation. And not stagnation only, for what stagnates falls in upon itself and diminishes. And so it is that your vaunted protection is a march backward, away from progress, to the opposite of understanding.
ANTHONY FOSTER: To the opposite of understanding? And where would that be?
BLAKE: To inertia. And not only to inertia, but in and of inertia. For that is the ultimate destination of protection and only protection, the state which is a lifeless lump seeming devoid of consciousness.
ANTHONY FOSTER: You make it all sound so bleak. But still, protection. It’s protecting something.
BLAKE: You call total and complete inertia something? You mean that the dead appearance of form completely lacking, not merely animation but wit and apparent consciousness, is something? That seeming lifelessness into which inertia retreats means that there is nothing remaining to protect. It makes stepping out upon risk all the more necessary.
ANTHONY FOSTER: What you say might be interesting to a person with no experience in the world, no real job history to draw on. But it leaves somebody cold that has a position and really knows about things. What you’re promoting is too vague. And it has no application in the real world.
BLAKE: The real world you mention is a world of appearance. The understanding I reference is spiritual. Not religious, mind you, but spiritual, for lack of a better way to put it. Enduring essence. The world of appearance and the spiritual realm reflect each other. They’re twins. They mirror each other. Action and understanding. Until a person is prepared to step wholly into the frame of spirit, they must play their role with the temporary substitute of action.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Action. Yes. Now we finally agree on something.
BLAKE: Okay. I’ll go along with that. But make the action advance the work, not hover about protecting position already won.
ANTHONY FOSTER: It’s my call to make. It’s my action.
BLAKE: Then make it count. This is exactly why work is so extremely important. How a person works and what they do to accomplish their work in that world of appearance we call reality guides the trajectory of their understanding in the lasting world of spirit.
ANTHONY FOSTER: I suppose I can see that. Maybe.
BLAKE: Take the kinds of action that advances understanding. That means risking a step forward, perhaps into the unknown, but forward, sure, ahead.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Or action that conserves what has already been gained.
BLAKE: Then you’re back with inertia, which, we’ve seen, is no progress at all but a step backward.
ANTHONY FOSTER: That again.
BLAKE: Can you not understand what I’m trying to make you see? It is extremely important both to you and the people you encounter. You are positioned in a chain of potential progress both for yourself and applicants whose employment frames action for their progress toward understanding. Therein is your own progress manifest.
ANTHONY FOSTER: My position contains responsibility to help maintain the business so that we may all be employed.
BLAKE: The business will wither and die if it is not nourished by the progress that springs from risk. Each of those so employed must be empowered to branch their activities based upon the illumination of inner knowledge. Rewards are certain to be reaped as both understanding and sufficiency of supply. Work, progress, understanding are intertwined. The workplace establishes the environment and provides the conditions for progress to be made and for understanding to emerge. All who are engaged upon the path of human life must work. The workplace then becomes important both as atmosphere wherein to thrive as well as launch pad from which to explore the possibilities.
ANTHONY FOSTER: I am skeptical of what sounds appealing and of what asks me to step into open space for proof of grounding I cannot see.
BLAKE: And you should be skeptical, too. The height of folly is to follow a siren’s song to the shoals of calamity. Test first the past, and if it is found wanting, test the terms of risk I describe both in your mind and in your place. Be tentative before you are bold but do not allow fear to turn into retreat. Take comfort in each step but do not linger long before advance. Thus, you will have the answer for yourself and for those you counsel. And all will forge ahead in confidence.
ANTHONY FOSTER: That sounds deceptively simple. It’s bound to be much more difficult in practice.
BLAKE: Partly yes and partly no. It requires more patience than making flip decisions. It requires thought and evaluation at every stage. You can’t just let it go and hope for the best. You have to cultivate at every opportunity which means more effort through and through. But the results, once up and running, push themselves toward greater and greater fulfillment. In the long run, it’s easier and the rewards are bountiful.
ANTHONY FOSTER: That’s not the way we operate here at Busy Bunz.
BLAKE: Nor is it the way many companies operate but more and more of them are and they’re finding it to make the difference between success and failure. And you know what failure in business means.
ANTHONY FOSTER: It means the business closes. That’s what we, here at Busy Bunz, are working to prevent.
BLAKE: And when the company closes, jobs are lost.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Exactly.
BLAKE: So why not do something positive that benefits Busy Bunz and all these employees you’re hiring that are on the road to failure? You’re in a position to do just that. For the business and the people.
ANTHONY FOSTER: That’s not what we do at Busy Bunz.
BLAKE: I understand that. You acknowledge it, too, which means you understand it but refuse to do anything about it. All you’re doing is spinning plates.
ANTHONY FOSTER: What? Spinning plates?
BLAKE: I saw some video once from an old TV program where some guy was spinning plates on the ends of sticks. He would start one after another until he had a whole bunch of them spinning at the same time but all he could do, all he had time to do, all his effort — all of it — went into keeping those plates spinning. Apparently, that was entertainment once upon a time. Maybe you remember it. Here at Busy Bunz and so many other businesses, it’s called work. But it’s really nothing at all, is it?
ANTHONY FOSTER: That’s insulting.
BLAKE: It’s insulting to workers to require such ridiculousness of them.
ANTHONY FOSTER: That’s the way the world works. Get used to it.
BLAKE: But it doesn’t have to work that way and those who do that so-called work are waking up to that. So are some of the employers. Together they are discovering progress and understanding what benefits everyone.
ANTHONY FOSTER: That sounds like chaos in the workplace. What you’re overlooking is that there has to be strong management and that means workers who take direction.
BLAKE: What you mean by management is really control, isn’t it? That’s what it comes down to. What I’m talking about is cooperation, employers and employees working together to create the best possible environment, creating the terms and conditions, motivations and actions that result in progress. The substance of work which is the creative, respectful atmosphere of the workplace and of the minds of those who occupy that workplace must be of the highest quality in order to achieve understanding.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Understanding? Making a profit is the goal of business.
BLAKE: The business will prosper when all workers together, including what is now called management, cooperate as a single body. There are steps that must be taken to reach that understanding and you are in a unique position to guide those steps. You know, what with the hiring and the training and the other activities performed by Human Resources. You do a lot of things, don’t you?
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes. We do.
BLAKE: If you did them differently, if you spent your time developing instead of directing, instead of controlling and constraining, you could do a lot more and the outcome would be much more satisfactory to everyone, workers and company alike.
ANTHONY FOSTER: But we must follow directions like everyone else. We have assignments, expectations, goals and duties that we are required to follow.
BLAKE: But you’re also in the position to branch out from those specific requirements. You can make some of your own and tailor them to produce benefits for everyone. You can do that on your own.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Doing anything on my own would break the mold at Busy Bunz. Consequences are unstated but nonetheless real.
BLAKE: It might prove that the consequences themselves produce benefits. It might also be that the risk we perceive is no risk at all but a path forward.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Words. Words, you say. Just words.
BLAKE: Words have meaning when attached to action.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Haphazard. Unknown. Haphazard and unknown. A dangerous combination.
BLAKE: Action is or should be deliberate. That’s why the opportunity you have to take action on behalf of everyone is so important. And it’s why work can and should be progress we make together under mutually developing benefit.
ANTHONY FOSTER: None of that is so easy or so good as you make it sound.
BLAKE: Not so easy at first, that’s true, but after a while a relaxed flow develops that lives on its own and invites our passage. As for good, we make our own and it’s best constructed in concert with our fellow workers.
ANTHONY FOSTER: What you’re not getting is how unrealistic you’re being. Businesses don’t work like that.
BLAKE: But what so many businesses don’t get is how much better things would be for them if they would accept their workers as partners. All workers at all stations together join their customers to make a business. No segment of those workers, whether they call themselves managers or even owners, have the human right to seize control and exercise dominance.
ANTHONY FOSTER: You’re living in a dreamworld.
BLAKE: It’s a dream that must become manifest. Otherwise, the awakening, emerging soul of the world will withdraw and go dormant. Unable to reflect its progress in form, no people, no workers, no management, no owners are safe from the stress of unnatural relations. Dissolution would follow as the only course available. You can help change that. You can come to the rescue.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Don’t put all that on me.
BLAKE: It’s on all of us to an extent appropriate to our needs, our capabilities, our comprehension and our position. Despite resisting the recognition of it, you are outstanding in all these. You need only the courage to take a step.
ANTHONY FOSTER: And if I stay at Busy Bunz and work within the company along the lines you suggest — just speaking hypothetically now, no commitment to actually do it — this new direction I would be taking would be so much at odds with the rest of the company that it would be a constant battle.
BLAKE: That’s true for a while. You would have to figure out how to bring everyone else along with you. It would have to be done a little at a time over a long period.
ANTHONY FOSTER: A slow, bloody battle for years and years. That’s not an attractive alternative to maintenance, to preservation of established comfort.
BLAKE: But in the end, it would be worth it for everyone.
ANTHONY FOSTER: And if — again, hypothetically — if I were to quit the company and go elsewhere…
BLAKE: Another company would likely be much the same as this one. It’s possible to find existing sterling businesses, but they are rare.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Then — hypothetically — if I were to quit this company and go on my own, I would have the principles you discuss but with less security and much greater uncertainty about income and even the possibility of success.
BLAKE: Yes, basically, that’s about it. On your own you could align with others of similar inclination and together build something new. Or you could retain complete independence alone. Either way, you would be in a position to front your activities with the same substance as their foundation. That’s solid work. It makes for a solid life.
ANTHONY FOSTER: So, the choice, at least as you present it, is to either stay here and work for change at Busy Bunz or quit my job and step out into the unknown by myself or with others.
BLAKE: To use current language, disrupt from within or find your own gig.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Disrupt from within. By that, I know you mean construct something different, but what I know all too well from my position here is that disruption leads to expulsion.
BLAKE: Not necessarily and not if it’s done skillfully. But even if that’s the result, you would have inserted doubt and skepticism among some other Busy Bunz workers, especially the management, and who knows where that may ultimately lead? For sure it would be helpful.
ANTHONY FOSTER: I suppose it couldn’t make things worse. Unless, of course, I was fired because of it.
BLAKE: And if you’re pushed out, it could be the best thing that ever happened to you. Somehow you would connect where you ought to be and where better things could happen.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Being pushed out with no place to land is never good. That’s exactly the kind of thing that preservation is meant to prevent.
BLAKE: But it can also be exactly the kind of risk that is most productive.
ANTHONY FOSTER: It seems to me that there’s something wrong when being tempted by risk is even possible.
BLAKE: What’s wrong with that is that it means there is something wrong with where you are if you can be tempted. Happy, productive people aren’t tempted and risk is meaningless for them because they’re already in the right place doing the right thing.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Maybe so, but hesitation seems like a natural reaction that could prevent catastrophe.
BLAKE: Not if disaster has already occurred. Then, it’s salvation. And so many businesses are hopelessly mired in their own disasters that they’re the ones that need saving and if they refuse the helping hand, it’s time to move on where you will be appreciated and have an opportunity to thrive.
ANTHONY FOSTER: If all that is true, then temptation is freedom instead of the money we usually assume it to be.
BLAKE: If you see that, you can find the rest of it.
ANTHONY FOSTER: So, now…now…
BLAKE: So now you’re at a point of decision. Either stay at Busy Bunz and try to make the critical difference that is sorely needed among workers here and the business itself, or step out on your own and make something entirely new.
ANTHONY FOSTER: This is an odd feeling. Me, the human resources executive, vice president, even, flailing about like a newbie in the job market.
BLAKE: Don’t take it personally. It’s not a personal failing. See it as a step forward.
ANTHONY FOSTER: I’m not sure what to do.
BLAKE: Test the direction according to your heart. This is the point at which mind abandons the field to a higher understanding.
ANTHONY FOSTER: What do you think I should do?
BLAKE: It’s not for me to say. Only you can answer. But I suspect that your heart has been feeding your mind with answers that it simply refused to acknowledge.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (pausing) But what about you? Why are you even here? After hearing you in so much detail, I have to think you came here with answers. At the very least, answers for yourself that in no way included Busy Bunz.
BLAKE: (laughing) You’re right. I have some things in mind.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Objects to pursue.
BLAKE: No. Developments. But only should their elements congregate. To pursue an object is to force a preconception, mistaking it to be preordained.
ANTHONY FOSTER: What, then, are you doing here?
BLAKE: I decided to look into Plan B first. Having something already in mind of my own creation, I thought it might be best to check out the existing landscape before getting started. Just in case.
ANTHONY FOSTER: And, so, you decided…
BLAKE: Coming here, the first interview, and now, talking to you, it’s confirmation of my own.
ANTHONY FOSTER: And me?
BLAKE: You’re in a very different situation. You’re already mired in your Plan A. For you, Plan B would be your own, requiring not just disengagement but cleansing, too, and thoroughly. Then again, if you stay, given your surroundings, you must perform the same cleansing continuously.
ANTHONY FOSTER: So, which plan should I choose?
BLAKE: Again, you’re the one that must decide. And you have options.
ANTHONY FOSTER: How should I evaluate my options?
BLAKE: Consider the mud puddle. (gesturing toward the framed picture) His mud puddle. You’re in it but it’s not yours.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (distracted, staring into space away from BLAKE) Consider the mud puddle.
(BLAKE rises unnoticed by ANTHONY FOSTER and moves silently toward the door before turning to face him.)
BLAKE: I enjoyed talking to you. A challenge always cements confidence and commitment.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (rousing his attention after pausing to focus on BLAKE) This has been different. Very different. And helpful but troubling, at the same time. Thank you, I guess.(pausing, seeming to begin, hesitating again before finally speaking) What will you do?
BLAKE: I have something in mind. A service business. It’s not set in stone but I’m gradually putting the pieces together in my mind. It’s something that could involve a number of different aspects. Something that could be a single focus or go in different directions or all of them at once. It depends on how things develop. And on the people who join me.
ANTHONY FOSTER: (gradually becoming distracted again) That makes sense. Yes…yes…I can…I can see that…
BLAKE: You have my number. Give me a call sometime. I’d like to hear how things are going for you. Maybe we could get out of this building away from…(gestures toward framed picture)…and have lunch somewhere.
ANTHONY FOSTER: Yes…yes. Good idea. I’ll call…
(BLAKE pauses a moment before he closes the door.)
ANTHONY FOSTER: (completely overcome with thought) Consider the mud puddle.
(BLAKE leaves ANTHONY FOSTER alone in his office where he stares downward without moving. As the other applicants talk in the waiting area, ANTHONY FOSTER begins to pace his office in anguish. Lighting for the office dims but remains strong enough to illuminate him. BLAKE returns to the waiting area where CHARLIE and LOGAN jump to their feet and greet him vigorously.)
CHARLIE: Did you get the job?
LOGAN: You were in there long enough. We were wondering what was happening.
CHARLIE: Tell us.
LOGAN: Give us some tips before we’re called.
BLAKE: (taking a seat and gesturing for them to sit) It may be a while before you’re called. Then again, I really don’t know.
CHARLIE: What? I thought we were next.
BLAKE: It might not be that simple. Mr. Foster may not be quite ready to talk to anyone just yet.
LOGAN: What do you mean? What happened?
BLAKE: Before I answer that, let me ask you something.
CHARLIE: Okay. What?
BLAKE: All that time that I was down there with Mr. Foster, what were you two doing?
LOGAN: We talked.
CHARLIE: We talked a lot.
LOGAN: We kicked things around.
CHARLIE: Like what to expect in our next interview.
LOGAN: And what happened in the last interview. It was…it was…
CHARLIE: interrupting) It was weird. Like nobody could make this stuff up but it really happened.
LOGAN: Then we talked about what we had expected it to be like.
CHARLIE: And sort of compared everything with what we’re looking for.
BLAKE: Which is?
LOGAN: Not this.
CHARLIE: We decided to go ahead and talk to the next interviewer as long as we’re already here but we’re sure we want to do something else.
LOGAN: So, tell us what happened with this Mr. Foster.
CHARLIE: Yes!
BLAKE: Okay, but one more thing first. None of us knew each other before today, right?
CHARLIE: That’s right.
LOGAN: Yeah, that’s right.
BLAKE: But it sounds like that the two of you got fairly well acquainted while I was talking to Mr. Foster.
LOGAN: Yeah. I think so.
CHARLIE: It was a good conversation. We seem to hit it off well enough.
LOGAN: Just like with you except that we haven’t talked to you much.
CHARLIE: But you seem to be kind of…kind of a leader type person.
BLAKE: My point is that none of us knew each other before today but we respect each other and have some things in common. I think that some of our objectives and expectations mesh.
CHARLIE: And?
BLAKE: That’s not the case with Busy Bunz. There are probably some good people here and Mr. Foster can be one of them, but I think this place has the potential to waste a lot of possibilities. I’d say that’s what Mr. Foster is thinking about right now.
LOGAN: Those possibilities are our lives.
BLAKE: Exactly.
CHARLIE: I wasted enough time stocking beans. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against beans, but…
BLAKE: So, the question is, what are we going to do?
CHARLIE: All I know for sure is that I have some abilities that need to be put to good use.
LOGAN: And energy that needs direction but that’s capable of performing well.
BLAKE: It sounds like you had a productive discussion.
CHARLIE: You still haven’t told us what happened in your interview with Mr. Foster.
BLAKE: We had a good conversation, too. And basically, what happened is that we reached the same conclusions that you did. At least, Mr. Foster is coming to those conclusions.
LOGAN: So what are you going to do? And what are we going to do?
BLAKE: I’m thinking about starting something new. A service business positioned to adapt to changing developments.
CHARLIE: What would it do?
BLAKE: It depends on what develops.
LOGAN: Well, whatever it does, it would need a salesperson.
BLAKE: Not necessarily. Instead of creating a product and going out and trying to convince people to buy it, I want to jump into development and keep the business centered on adapting to come what may.
CHARLIE: Isn’t that what most new businesses do?
BLAKE: That’s what they think they do. The reality is that they start with an idea and hang onto it for dear life until they have a product and then they hang onto that for dear life while they try to sell it. In the meantime, life passes them by. And so do opportunities.
LOGAN: But it still requires selling, doesn’t it?
BLAKE: It requires communicating. Communication is always a core value. I want to identify other core principles, let some ideas grow out of them and see how they develop.
CHARLIE: Okay. Ideas. Thoughts aren’t a product. You don’t put concepts on a shelf. And they start interacting with each other until something happens.
BLAKE: Until something develops.
CHARLIE: Develops. I get that. But since you mentioned ideas, you must have some.
BLAKE: (laughing) Plenty of them.
LOGAN: Like what?
BLAKE: First, remember that we need core principles and we need to stay aware of them constantly.
LOGAN: Core principles. Like doing well by doing right?
BLAKE: Core principles are more than just ethics. Core principles are the dynamic values that animate fulfillment. I mentioned communications. There’s also engagement and creativity and much, much more. But keep your eye on fulfillment because it’s the meaningfulness that belongs to everyone associated with the business including customers. When workers and customers are fulfilled by developments, everyone receives value. That can’t happen without core principles.
LOGAN: That’s like the opposite of what we encountered at Busy Bunz.
(ANTHONY FOSTER suddenly stops pacing. He pauses and glances around before racing to the waiting area where BLAKE, CHARLIE and LOGAN are talking.)
CHARLIE: But back to ideas. I see that there are ideas all through what you’re talking about, these core principles and what they mean to everybody. But if you have core principles, you must also have ideas that come from them. And there were ideas before them, too. And you even said you have some ideas about a business. So, come clean. What are you thinking?
BLAKE: Okay. Here it is: business services.
LOGAN: Business services?
(ANTHONY FOSTER pauses unnoticed in dim light at the edge of the waiting area, listening carefully but with apparent eagerness.)
BLAKE: Yes. Business services. A lot of start-ups are looking for ways to do many things that don’t have to be done all the time and that they can’t afford to have staff around all the time to do. A lot of existing businesses need part-time help with things, too, but don’t want to hire for them.
CHARLIE: Sounds like a temp agency.
BLAKE: Not at all. It would be just a few people in this company that would specialize and concentrate on specific aspects and offer their expertise to other businesses on a contract basis, either briefly embedded or as consultants. Exactly what services, that is, the variety available, would depend on what the people in our company had to offer.
LOGAN: Our company?
BLAKE: That slipped. But maybe.
CHARLIE: I like this.
BLAKE: Why don’t we go to the coffee shop around the corner and talk about it.
LOGAN: Good idea.
CHARLIE: Yes.
(BLAKE, LOGAN and CHARLIE turn to exit on the opposite side from ANTHONY FOSTER who rushes toward them.)
ANTHONY FOSTER: Blake! Wait! Can we talk just a moment?
BLAKE: Tony! Of course we can talk. Charlie and Logan, I would like you to meet Anthony Foster.
LOGAN: (shaking hands) Hello, Mr. Foster.
CHARLIE: (shaking hands) Mr. Foster.
ANTHONY FOSTER: I’m very glad to meet you. Thank you for coming here and thank you for your patience and the freshness you bring. It turns out to be just what is needed. (turning to BLAKE, speaking hurriedly with increasing enthusiasm) Look, Blake, I know you’re about to leave. I’m glad I caught you. There’s this idea. I’ve been thinking about it for years. It has to do with hiring and personnel administration. It has to do with providing some badly needed HR services to small companies that they can’t afford to do themselves. They overlook potential when they can’t access opportunities. I overheard a little of what you were saying to Charlie and Logan about your plans and I think my idea would fit right in.
BLAKE: (beaming) I knew you had something. I was certain of it. And you’re right. Your expertise is a perfect fit. I’m glad you caught us right now. This is the foundational moment and you’re right here. Let’s go get some coffee and talk.
CHARLIE: This is exciting.
LOGAN: We’re off to our future.
ANTHONY FOSTER: With courage for adventure.
(As BLAKE, CHARLIE, LOGAN and ANTHONY FOSTER begin exiting the waiting area opposite from the side where they entered after leaving the HR offices, OLIGOPOLOUS OVERBUNZ arrives at the waiting area from the HR offices below. He shouts at the others and shakes his fist at them but they exit without acknowledging or even apparently hearing him.)
OLIGOPOLOUS OVERBUNZ: Stop! Stop where you are! Try to take advantage of me, will you? Don’t take another step! Stop right there, you ungrateful swine!
(Realizing that he has been ignored, OLIGOPOLOUS OVERBUNZ stares momentarily in disbelief as the others exit. Then, he shrugs and turns to face the audience.) It’s still my mud puddle.
(The lights go out.)
(The End)
For a copy of Busy Bunz in the traditional play format, click here.
in the public domain by Michael Driver (no rights reserved)
Follow on Twitter: @mdMichaelDriver
