“The Assistant’s First Day”
In the Company Building, work sounded like clacking, chugging, whirring, and ticking; keyboards clacked, printers chugged, shredders whirred, and clocks ticked. It is remembered to have once been a source of intense bother for many employees, but over time, it became a kind of familiar drone, an unquestioned part of the work life. Throughout the Company, employees were encouraged to consider it a necessary byproduct of the work they were doing, and to frame it as a sign of motivation to work as hard as the employee in the neighbouring cubicle. If one made the effort to ignore each individual sound, and focussed on the uniform and actually quite soothing buzz, then one could avoid distraction. Every cubicle generated its own contribution to the buzz as each was equipped with a screen, a keyboard, a printer, a shredder, and a clock. Everything that an employee required to do his job was provided; there once were other amenities in the cubicles, but those were removed a few periods ago, surely because of their superfluous and disruptive nature.
On the sixth floor of the Company Building, in the cubicle #643, was a senior employee, one who had been working for the Company since its move into the very building in which he still found himself. The day of his hiring, the Employee recalls the great honour he was given by Management. Or was it the Supervisor? He was never actually sure about which of his superiors was most important. In any case, what mattered to him was that he was told that the sixth floor was reserved for workers that were considered, as it read in the memo, “essential drivers of the company’s performance”. He still felt grateful to the Company’s generosity, even decades later. The select few workers which were deemed “primary contributors to the fulfillment of the company’s mission” were assigned cubicles with a window, an even greater honour of which they were rightfully deserving. The Employee acknowledged that had he qualified to have a window, distraction would have been unavoidable. So much so that his personal cubicle’s walls were a sterile gray and devoid of anything that could risk causing a loss of focus, just as he wanted it. The Employee was fortunate to be of quite a small stature, making his cubicle seem relatively spacious in comparison. However, that extra space that was not occupied by his physical body was entirely taken up by towers of piled up documents. Each tower represented hours, days, and years of the Employee’s work; they were his very own pillars of pride, however he could never actually find time to send them all off to be approved by the Supervisor. Over the years, the Employee’s chin had inched closer to his keyboard, causing his back to have curled into a well-adapted ‘C’ shape, allowing him to reach every key with a speed and precision that could have been considered impressive to some. His eyes, which once stung due to the harsh light of the screen and blinked in constant protest, had adjusted, hardly ever needing the momentary relief of snapping his eyelids shut. As far as he was concerned, this ability set him apart from the other workers, for it added around 12 more minutes of valuable time to each of his days.
Typing away, the Employee was ready to print a completed assignment when yet another memo labeled ‘URGENT’ appeared on his screen. Management had implemented the policy of labeling all new assignments as ‘URGENT’ which he assumed aimed to promote productivity and boost efficiency. However, this particular memo was unlike the regular notifications of a new assignment, it was directly from the Supervisor. It read: “Dear valued team member #643, management has evaluated your recent outputs and has deemed them concerningly unsatisfactory. An increase in outputs is needed. Management requires every team member to meet their quota. Please take the time to cross check your submissions for any mistakes. If failure to meet quota occurs, adequate corrective measures will be employed.”.
He must have been wasting time and not realizing it. Was it his blinking again? Maybe it was his fingers, it’s true that they had gotten less agile with age. It could be his curved posture that hindered him, distancing the flow of energy from his brain to his hands. Maybe he was unconsciously daydreaming; this used to be a major problem for him. No, it was probably the lack of effort he was putting into ignoring the sounds of the office, or maybe just his lack of effort in general. Maybe he cares too much about himself to sacrifice the time needed to meet quota. That must be it; he has become selfishly lazy and is just not giving enough of himself to the Company… The mechanical chugging of the printer snapped him out of his spiralling. This is exactly what they were talking about; he spent too much time thinking, not enough time working.
Many hours went by, it was unclear how many exactly as the cubicle clocks never actually told time, they just ticked, but the Employee had never been so focused on his work. He was completing assignments at an unprecedented speed. Unfortunately, new assignment memos kept coming in and the Employee had no time to send in his completed work to the Supervisor, especially if he wanted to stay on top of the ever-growing workload. He needed to work faster, his fingertips bruising under the pressure of his frantic and aggressive typing. Suddenly, there was an unexpected knock at the door of his cubicle. Startled, the Employee’s hands lifted off of the keyboard. He remained immobile for a moment, his fingertips pulsating as the blood flowed back through them. Without getting out of his seat, he reached over to open the door. A tall, well-dressed, smiling man stood in front of him. A moment of silence occurred caused by the Employee’s sheer confusion. Bewildered, the Employee asked, “Uh…can I help you?”.
In a dry tone the man answered “I am your new assistant. I’ve been assigned to the employee #643.”
The Employee’s heart raced. He gulped loudly,“I-I was not aware that I was getting an assistant,” he said in a shaky voice.
“Well, you must have missed the urgent memo from Management. They explicitly wrote that all senior members were to receive an assistant to provide them the necessary support to meet their quota. Looking at your recent evaluations, we qualified you as a critical case. I was also instructed to inform you that your quota has been raised and that you will have to adapt your productivity.” said the Assistant as he reached over to the Employee’s computer, finding said memo in just two swift clicks.
Pathetically, the Employee answered “Oh… I see.”.
Without the Employee letting him in, the Assistant confidently entered the cubicle and began setting up his own device. Immediately, the Assistant began picking up files from the assignment towers, sending them off to the Supervisor. He knew exactly what the Employee needed help with. How did he know— The Assistant’s typing snapped the Employee back into gear, there was no time to try to understand.
Another unclear number of hours of incessant work went by, the Employee noticed himself feeling increasingly restricted in his cubicle; he wondered why he no longer had the space to lift and flare his elbows. Knowing he should pay it no mind and focus on getting his numbers up, he guiltily looked to his right. Expecting to see yet another tower of documents, he was shocked to have a clear view of the Assistant’s profile; his screen seemed to have expanded into a larger, more intelligent device. His eyes were unblinking and his smile never diminished. Too relieved to remark on the usurpation of his desk, the Employee was elated to see that his work had finally been sent off, hoping that it would be enough to meet his quota. As soon as this thought entered the Employee’s mind, he saw a memo pop up on the Assistant’s screen which automatically followed with the Assistant sternly informing him that his numbers remained concerningly insufficient. Why did they send him the memo?
Without protest, mainly because he did not have the time for it, the Employee immediately went back to work. Going to click open a new assignment, he was shocked to find that they had all been completed. Never in his long career had the Employee seen his ‘to do’ file empty. The Assistant had completed them all in the span of time it took the Employee to finish one. His face grew hot with embarrassment.
For once, the Employee had nothing to work on; he slowly sat back into his chair, his back feeling an uncomfortable stretch and his eyes closing. In this darkness, he tried to think of something, anything to pass this free time that he’d never had before. Incapable to do so, he drew a blank, getting himself stuck in an abyss of thought, panicked by the nothingness before him. His rapid anxious heartbeat matched the chugging of the printer. An aggressive tap on the shoulder yanked him out of the darkness. As the Employee opened his eyes, he expected the Assistant to be notifying him of a new warning memo, however instead he was menacingly standing over the Employee holding a cardboard box. “Management has no choice but to terminate you,” he said dryly, handing the Employee the box, “Here are your belongings. The Company thanks you for your years of loyal dedication. Please leave the premises.”. Slowly getting out of his chair, the Employee took the box. In it, there was a water bottle and a keychain that did not belong to him, as well as a Company branded pen and notepad, two office amenities from years prior. Looking closer, he noticed one of his old doodles on the notepad (he used to draw while working before he realized how wasteful it was). The Employee tried not to show his disappointment, staying silent despite his furious frustration with himself. Taking the box and leaving the cubicle #643, he rode the elevator down to the ground floor. There was another man, a stranger, carrying a cardboard box in the elevator, his badge read ‘Sixth Floor Supervisor’.
Exiting the Company Building, his eyes burned from the sunlight. In an attempt to shield himself he turned around, only to be confronted with the greatness of the building in which he had spent so many years. Looking up as far as his hunched back would allow it, he was incapable of seeing the end of the Building as it seemed to go on forever. The Building looked wrong to him somehow, like it might collapse despite everyone insisting it was the sturdiest in the world.
Turning away from the Building and towards the sunlight, he was unable to move, immobilized by the jarring realization that he no longer remembered how to get home. Come to think of it, he couldn’t even picture what his home looked like. Frantically looking around for help with a look of desperation similar to a child separated from his parents, he asked a passerby “Excuse me ma’am?”. The passerby kept walking as if she had not heard anything. He was at a standstill. Left or Right? He didn’t know. Sudden exhaustion took over his body, so he sat down on the sidewalk. Where else was he meant to go? His body had never felt so heavy; he fell asleep, laying his face on the cold concrete.
He fluttered his eyes open, praying that he would find himself back in cubicle #643 in front of his computer screen. To his disappointment, he was still in front of the Company Building’s entrance, on the sidewalk, completely lost. Suddenly, he spotted the Assistant walking towards the Building about to start a new work day. Grabbing onto the Assistant’s leg, he begged, “Please…please let me go back, I promise I’ll do better. I promise!”
The Assistant quickly kicked his leg free, walked over his body, and disappeared into the entrance.
Directed to the Building, but heard by none, the dismissed Employee shouted, “You’ve taken everything from me, and have left me with the worthless parts! I beg you to take them too, I don’t know what to do with them!” .
Personal Reflection
I chose to engage with the style of Franz Kafka, and to write a short story imitating him, for multiple reasons. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Kafka’s work, it felt approachable, but still engaging. That balance was very appealing to me initially; Kafka writes stories out of which the reader gets what they can, it is an interactive reading experience. Though it can pose a bit of a challenge for me at times, the multiple possible interpretations and lack of right or wrong meanings is intriguing and made me think actively as I was reading, trying to decipher the bigger picture. Additionally, the world of the surreal is completely fascinating, offering a large realm of creative options for me to pick from; coming up with a plot à la Kafka was creatively stimulating, pushing me to challenge the way I see reality. It was a difficult yet eye-opening exercise to flip mundane occurrences completely on their heads, putting them in a realist yet unexpected context. The way Kafka takes subjects such as the legal system, the death penalty, or colonialism and presents them in a way that confronts the reader with their absurdities that we no longer question as members of society, was entirely inspiring. I was also very excited to explore the world of the subconscious, tapping into dreamlike and nightmarish settings that are simultaneously unsettling and familiar. In class, my professor said a sentence that defined my understanding of Kafka’s short stories, and guided me when coming up with the plot of my own story. She said: “The most absurd things you can think of are usually things we’ve already done to ourselves.”. This observation led me to think of absurd things happening today, applying Kafka’s formula to a current subject matter.
When it came to defining Kafka’s short story formula, there was not a straight answer, however I found notable consistent aspects throughout select works. Generally, Kafka plays with a multifaceted narrative. In other words, his stories hold a multitude of stories; there is an initial story told by the words that Kafka writes, through seemingly factual actions, then there are many hidden allegorical stories in between the lines that Kafka challenges the reader to decipher. He writes using an objective tone and the language of realism, describing a sequence of events that is absurd but is explained as mundane. Narration perspective is also an important tool for Kafka, either writing from a first person or third person limited point of view. This allows Kafka to establish a certain distance between the reader and the whole of the information; the reader only gets the necessary pieces to understand the plot, but does not know enough to comprehend the inner workings of this particular reality. Another important aspect of Kafka’s style is his paradoxical expression of precision within an absurd context; he details inexistent objects or settings in a way that makes them seem real. Most notably, his stories are generally concluded with an ambiguous and striking ending that resonates in the reader’s mind, evoking a multitude of questions about the meaning of said ending.
In my short story, I chose to strategically capitalize and name certain characters and institutions; the Company, the Company Building, Management, the Supervisor, the Assistant, and the Employee are all referred to as such in order to remove the individuality out of the character. They are mere parts of the corporate machine. As in “In the Penal Colony” and “The Hunger Artist”, the characters are referred to as their professional titles because that is what they boil down to. Additionally, Kafka is addressing broader systemic and societal issues rather than an inner psychological topic that would require more intimacy. I chose to emulate that sterile lack of intimacy within the context of a corporate environment. In particular, Management and the Supervisors do not have any specificity; it was a deliberate choice to refer to them inconsistently and to use their names interchangeably, blurring the definition of the hierarchical structure of the Company which is ambiguous to all, even the employees. The names and capitalizations accentuate the bureaucratic facelessness that Kafka criticizes repeatedly; in “Before the Law”, there is a doorman keeping the man from accessing the Law, representing the distance separating people from the justice system. As mentioned previously, the third person limited narrative is a strategic choice on Kafka’s part that I thought lent itself well to my story. In stories such as “Before the Law”, “In the Penal Colony”, “The Metamorphosis”, or “The Hunger Artist”, the reader has access to one character’s thoughts and the narrator describes the event from a position of an observer. The way I chose to pace the story was also deliberately imitating Kafka who provides abundant description to describe objects or settings that do not actually exist. The execution apparatus in “In the Penal Colony” is described in such a detailed manner that the reader can visualize it. Then, the death of the Officer is an abrupt and sudden change, because that is how pacing is in reality; sudden changes do not get such detailed descriptions because the characters do not need them to understand what happened, adding to the absurdity that the reader must decipher. The most important element of Kafka’s style that I wanted to make sure I emulated was his ambiguous and unsatisfying endings. The end of “A Report to an Academy” lingers in the reader’s mind by evoking questions about the cost of freedom and “Before the Law” ends with the disappointing knowledge that the man was never going to get past the door. I wanted to end my story with a similar heaviness; the dismissed Employee begs for the oppressive system that drained him and wrung him dry to give what remains, what is left of him, a purpose.
I took thematic inspiration from Kafka’s stories as well. Kafka often touches on bureaucratic themes such as legal inaccessibility in “Before the Law” or the institutionalized evil of the death penalty in “In the Penal Colony”, and I wanted to try my hand at such topics. To push the corporate setting to the extreme, I detailed my description of the cubicle; how it looks, its size, and its sounds. I also wanted the language used in communication between characters to feel overly formal and almost nonsensical (I was heavily inspired by Italo Calvino’s Antilingua). Additionally, it was important for me to emulate the nightmarish quality of Kafka’s stories, creating a setting where logic seems to apply, but does not. The dismissed Employee is at a physical standstill outside of the Company building; he does not just forget where his home is, he is unsure if he ever had one and without his job he is just a burden to the other employees going to work. Similarly, the hunger artist fasts for years, to a point where food will never satisfy him; an artist as hungry as him can only be satiated by the attention of his audience. There was another common thread in some of Kafka’s stories that I chose to imitate; an accepting of oppressive structures. For example, in “A Report to an Academy”, the monkey is profoundly disgusted by what he has become at the hands of human beings, yet he is complicit in continuing the pain inflicted onto animals. This inspired the bureaucratic and technological oppressor in “The Assistant’s First Day” that is created by workers and held up by other complicit workers.
I aimed to write a story that offered a few possible interpretations, a multifaceted narrative. At face value, “The Assistant’s First Day” is about our capitalist society’s destructive obsession with productivity and the clashing and counteractive increasing use of artificial intelligence. Corporate-run societies only value their members insofar as they are useful and productive, yet these same corporations are gradually implementing AI tools that threaten certain professions, and will eventually render certain them obsolete. I was also attempting to write my own somewhat ‘predictive’ story in a similar way that Kafka writes about his observations of current issues that he believes will be taken too far, greatly exaggerating them to warn his readers of their destructive nature. My reader is encouraged to apply a larger scope to my story. I aimed to evoke the Weberian concept of the Iron Cage when writing about the bureaucratic oppression of the Employee, representing an entrapping system that humans have set up for themselves and continue to uphold. This could also offer a psychological question regarding the natural submission and compliance of human beings, or the innate desire to stifle one’s own potential. I also purposefully wrote all the characters to be male, attempting to embed a subtle comment on the role of women in the workplace, and their general erasure in the corporate world.
This exercise has opened my eyes to how impactful editing can be. Kafka’s deliberate keeping of certain information from the reader is a genius way to sustain the reader’s engagement and allows them to come up with their own interpretations. I learned that ambiguity is powerful and not necessarily a flaw if used in the right context. This also showed me to what extent my knowledge of authors I have read in other classes, such as Weber and Calvino, is useful. I see that this knowledge provided me with a clearer concept and deeper understanding of my own story. Most notably, writing “The Assistant’s First Day” made me realize how challenging realism is; it is deceivingly difficult to render a seemingly real story, especially given the absurd subject matter.