Flash! Fiction 3 by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

7

Our guide apologizes as he explains that we will not be able to see how these emails are answered, since the process is quite complex and sensitive in terms of privacy issues. We do learn, however, that each incoming email must pass through a rigorous quality control check that may involve as many as six committees before a response can be researched, prepared, edited, translated, interpreted, logged, filed, and sent, requiring an additional eight committees.

I ask where all these people are accommodated, since I noticed in the lobby that the Efficiency Ombudsman only takes up one floor of the building. Our guide answers that virtually all committee work is done on-line. Then I ask how they manage a virtual office for such a complicated organization. He points ahead to the double doors on the left-hand side of the corridor.

He says "That's 'The Room.'"

I shrug my shoulders, and the kids look interested all of a sudden.

"That's where everything happens," he continues.

Again, I shrug, and the kids come closer, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

He speaks softly, "That's where the computer processes the re-quest, simulates all possible responses and returns the most efficient response, based on a secret and complex probability calculation."

"So," I ask, "where do the committees come into play?"

"They're in the computer," he says.