This site is used for the viewing of the job processing of the central Computer in your particular city, from a viewing terminal attached to your city's Computer.
As an employee of the company, you have no direct control over job order or precedence: that's a function only controlled by Central Billing.
Read the backstory, or find the link to return to the homepage at the very bottom of this page
At 9:07 prompt, Ted Boyd got in his van and turned left out of the compound drive, heading towards his first pickup of the day. He enjoyed the morning start of his shift, an empty bay behind him and the whole city laid out before him, driving alone over the hill as he started down. He’d been following the same route for near on 30 years now; in fact, he was one of the first deliverymen they’d hired when they’d put in the city’s Computer all that time ago. Ted still remembered that day: a parade, a grand opening of the grounds, even the city mayor up on the stand giving a speech on how many jobs the Computer could create in the city, what a benefit the Computer could be to the local businesses.
Ted’s thoughts pulled back to the present as he saw his first stop coming up on the right. A monolith of a manufacturing plant, but they paid good money to get their computations done quick and right, and Ted had never been one to complain about those that furnished the funds going into his paycheck. Workers jumped out of the loading dock as he approached. Ted parked at the dock to let the workers start their bustling task, and sneezed sharply as a bright whiff of chemicals jumped at him through his van’s window. When he looked up, the dock supervisor was walking towards him, a wide smile on his face.
“And how’s the Computer running today? Humming along as always?”
“Sure is, near enough,” replied Ted. “Some maintenance in the Western wing, but nothing you all would need to be worried about, not with the fancy rates you’re paying. We’ll get you taken care of before tax day, don’t you worry.”
The supervisor chuckled. “Not just tax sheets in this load, we’ve got some engineers all over us to get their computations out and back to them as soon as possible. Quintupling of computation volume possible in just the last year, I hear, but there’s still no satisfying them. A major product’s gearing up for shipping and everyone’s wanting their last-minute changes.”
“That’s the way it is, I suppose.” Ted nodded, then reached back in the cab and produced a clipboard. “Sign for the boxes, then I’ll get your return sheets back to you this afternoon, same as always?”
“That works with us. Just make sure your folks get the sheets fed in the right way up, eh?” The supervisor winked, then handed the clipboard back and walked away from the van.
Ted rolled his eyes as he stowed the clipboard and backed the van out of the space back onto the road. He had nothing to do with the actual operation of the Computer, and the supervisor knew that, but everyone felt like they had their own little piece of ownership in the big clanking thing. Some, like the supervisor, gathered food for its maw to consume. The workers back on its campus watched over its care and grooming, and the local business leaders looked over its growth like proud owners of a gangly puppy. It was already the largest building in town, surpassing the local library just last year, and new work was starting all the time as demand proved completely insatiable. Everyone needed the Computer for something: finances, inventory, research, orders, forecasts, all of the above. The pace of work in the town had sped up threefold, and businesses just couldn’t function without it. Upcoming tax day itself was an example. Local attorneys wouldn’t even touch your forms unless they each had the special stamp in the corner denoting that they’d been produced by the Computer, and even past them, you ran the risk of falling behind. Expectation had changed with the times.
With the extra boxes from his first stop, Ted only wanted to make one more stop before heading back. There’d been more than he expected, so he decided to change up his route and go to the smallest business on his list, a bookstore down on 3rd street.
As he pulled up, Ted noticed that instead of the four or five boxes he’d been expecting, only a single small bin sat packed on the stoop. Stung by curiosity, he went up to the door and knocked, peering through the window to see what shadows he could make out inside.
The door slid open, and Raul, the proprietor, glanced out at Ted. “Yes, hello? Are you here to deliver?”
“No, just to pick up. I’m with the Computer. You’re one of the stops on my route today, and I noticed that your computations seemed awfully small. Bookstores usually have outsized computation needs for their business size, and what with records being due in soon and all-”
Raul shook his head, interrupting Ted. “No, these aren’t computations today. These are just severance sheets to remove me from the system. I can’t afford the fees any more, so I’m dropping as of today.”
Ted stared. “But… how will you get your forms in? Your inventory? Your, your… “
“One thing the Computer managed to show me quite clearly last week was the undeniable fact that I just can’t afford the services of the Computer. “ Raul shrugged. “I’ve been doing some reading on Computer maintenance and such myself, and I believe I have enough saved to get certified. Career changes happen. Anyway, you had your bin to pick up? I’d still like the return on that later to make sure everything went through right.”
Ted nodded distractedly, retrieved the clipboard, and arrived back at the van. The one bin looked rather small next to the industrial boxes of the plant, but then, that’s the way it always was, hadn’t it been? The Computer had certainly helped every business in the town, available to anyone who could pay the money. The deli up on 8th had been able to start deliveries of its own now that it could ask the Computer handle the billing process that entailed. The library on 6th had been able to completely refine its archives, and scholars had begun visiting from the nearby university. He’d even heard that the city planning office had worked out a method with the Computer technicians to easily map out whole sections of planned development, clearing the way for a dramatically improved public works proposal.
Lost in his thoughts, Ted navigated back towards the Computer complex. It had been built atop the largest hill in the region, once to the side of the city, but now, the city surrounded it. Businesses wanted to position themselves as close as possible to get that few hours advantage a faster delivery might bring, and now the Computer stood at the center of the city as a chapel might stood in a much smaller village, much longer ago. Looking in the rearview mirror, Ted could see the houses and storefronts spread out behind him, multicolored and varied, scattered and dotted. And when he looked ahead, he saw simply the gleaming, cubic mass that was the Computer, filling his vision, a unified whole towards which other vans identical to his were streaming.
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