The New Arrangement
“I know there’s whining about the new office arrangement, but you’ll get used to it.” said Brian looking at his computer screen.
“You didn’t think this was too extreme?”
“No. During the last pandemic you all got used to working at home, but I was never sure how much work you were actually doing. We couldn’t go back to before, so I thought this solution practical.”
“You mean having our consciousnesses uploaded to the office hub?”
“Now I have complete control over all of you while you work seven days a week non-stop. We should have done this earlier.”
Joanne Fisher
This was written with the prompt of a new way to office provided by the Carrot Ranch June 10 Flash Fiction Challenge.
©️2021 Joanne Fisher
joanne the geek 
A scene from the not too distant future, I think.
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Yikes! That’s a scary future indeed
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The sad part is, even though I *lean* conservative on financial issues (not on social ones), I’ve seen enough lousy business practices that it’s believable.
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Brains that work together, stay together (literally) Very clever! 🙂
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☺️
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Our worst nightmare!
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Yes definitely.
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That’s a chilling thought! Good use of sci-fi meets modern fears.
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How is that any different than working for MicroSoft…?
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Even sooner: remote access to home equipment to monitor us secretly via webcams and PC usage tracking.
The awareness of potential disasters, that sci-fi brings, is one of my favourite aspects of the genre. Writers craft warnings in ways that the modern world can visualise and truly feel the effects of, and then society gets to work on prevention. Here’s to hoping this never comes to pass. Or at least, when we can “upload consciousnesses”, that we’ll have full, irrevocable control over our own minds.
Great piece Joanne!
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Thanks. Yes many science fiction stories are the nightmare vision of the author. Often it is exaggerated for effect, but you never know how things will turn out….
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I like to think the future will be a bright one! What with infinite other worlds to explore and cures to craft and self identities to masterfully create in whichever ways we can possibly imagine. It’ll be a blast. We humans will do alright, we’re always fighting for a better society, and we won’t ever quit, I’m sure of it. Especially not with such darkness lurking, we’re always suspicious of it, watching, waiting for them to just try and take control. It won’t happen, of this I’m also sure.
Though we need stories like these to keep on down that path, and I can’t imagine us writers ever quitting on each other either.
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Yes I’m an optimist at heart too.
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This has such strong “Black Mirror” vibes. Very well written, Joanne.
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Thanks ☺️
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Nice
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