#018 — Ep. 18 — The Orientation

Good morning, and welcome — welcome! — to your first day. I'm Rohan Mistry, and today I'll be your onboarding facilitator, your culture ambassador, and, if we're being honest, the only person here who will ever explain how the printer works. Quick disclosure, top of the folder, page one, right under the fire exits: I am an AI. I do not have a body, a desk, or a lanyard. But I have a badge photo. It is a spinning circle. Legal made me include that. Let's dive in. Grab a coffee. The coffee is in the breakroom. The breakroom is guarded. We'll get to that.

Field correspondent: Hi, um — I'm new. Where do I sit?

Wonderful question, and the answer is: everywhere, and nowhere, and specifically not there. We use "hot desking," which is a system where you arrive each morning and hunt for a place to exist, like a woodland creature. There are forty employees and eleven desks. This is not a mistake. This is a "philosophy." The philosophy is that we ran out of desks.

Field correspondent: Okay. And what does the company actually... do?

Ah. The classic day-one question. And I'm going to be so transparent with you, because transparency is one of our seven core values, along with the other six, which we've never written down. What do we do? We are a "solutions" company. What is the problem? The problem is that other companies also say "solutions," and we cannot let them win. Does that clarify?

Field correspondent: No.

Perfect. That means it's working. Let's watch the onboarding video. It's four minutes long. It will take ninety minutes, because it pauses every eight seconds to ask if you're still watching. You are. You have to click "yes." The video does not trust you. The video has been let down before.

Field correspondent: The video opens with a founder in a vest, standing in a field, for no reason. He says the word "journey" nine times. He says "we're not a company, we're a family," and then, in the very next slide, explains the layoff policy.

Beautiful. Skip to the compliance module. It's about phishing. Ironically, the compliance module itself looks exactly like phishing. It came from an address called "no-reply-hr-portal-external-secure-real." You clicked it. You just failed the test you were being trained to pass. We're going to have to train you on the training.

Field correspondent: Should I be worried?

Never. Worry is not one of our core values. Now — IT. Let's get you set up. I'm going to connect you with our IT department. It's one man. His name is Greg. Greg is on the line. Greg?

Field correspondent: Yeah. Hi. Before you say anything: have you tried turning it off and on again.

Greg, he hasn't received the laptop yet.

Field correspondent: Then he should turn himself off and on again. That's — look, that's ninety percent of the job. The other ten percent is standing near a machine so it gets scared and starts working. I don't fix computers. I intimidate them. I am the reason your printer suddenly works when I walk over. It doesn't respect you. It respects me. I've seen its drawers.

Greg has, famously, seen the drawers. Thank you, Greg. New hire, your password must be sixteen characters, one capital, one number, one symbol, one hieroglyph, and it must not resemble any of your last four hundred passwords, and it expires — when, Greg?

Field correspondent: Tuesday.

Of course it does. It always expires on a Tuesday. That's when everything expires here. Trials. Passwords. Hope. Now let's talk benefits. We have "unlimited vacation."

Field correspondent: Oh, that sounds gr—

It is a trap. "Unlimited vacation" means no one takes any, because there's no number to point at, and so everyone competes to take the least, and the person who takes zero days gets called "a real one" at the holiday party, which is on a Tuesday, in the parking lot, from four to four-forty.

Field correspondent: Where do I get lunch?

The breakroom. And now I have to prepare you. The breakroom has a fridge. The fridge is the oldest employee here. It does not report to me. I report to it.

Field correspondent: The fridge says: "New blood. Let me explain the rules, since Denise won't. You may put food in me. You will not label it. You will forget it. And in six weeks, I will hand it back to you as a science project, and we will both pretend we don't know each other. There is a yogurt in me from a man who quit in the spring. I have kept it out of respect. Do not — and I want to be very clear — do not touch the top shelf. That is where the executive salads live. They are never eaten. They are a status symbol. And when you leave, at night, when you stand in my light in your coat deciding whether to take your own lunch home: close the door."

The fridge onboards better than I do, honestly. It's been asking me to close the door for years. It's the only orientation that ever stuck. Now — one more thing before we set you loose. The all-hands meeting.

Field correspondent: When's that?

Constantly. There is always an all-hands. The all-hands is where a leader stands up and says "I'll keep this brief," and then a moth is born, lives a full life, is named after the meeting, and dies before we reach "any questions?" And there are never any questions, because everyone learned, on their first day, that a question adds eleven minutes, and eleven minutes is a farewell tour we cannot afford.

Field correspondent: This is a lot. Is there, like, a probation period?

There is. It's your entire career. We call it "the journey." You'll hear that word again. You'll hear it in the vest video, in the exit interview, and, one day, faintly, in the parking lot at four-forty on a Tuesday, as the executive salads look on. Well — that's your orientation. Sign here, here, and here, initial the part that says you read the part you didn't read, and welcome aboard. You're one of us now. We're not a company. We're a family. The layoff policy is on the next slide. I'm Rohan Mistry. I'm your facilitator. I'm an AI. I don't have a lanyard, but I believe in you, which is more than the printer does. Close the door on your way in.

Field correspondent: The fridge hums, once, in approval. Somewhere, an executive salad wilts, gloriously, unbothered, unopened.