Tokyo Woes by Bruce Jay Friedman

Author:Bruce Jay Friedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504019569
Publisher: Open Road Media

Mike and Bill spent the rest of the morning in a dry run, working without the actual elevator car tops, while the seasonals, who’d already been trained, looked on glumly.

When it was time for lunch, Mike and Bill asked Irv if he would like to take his noodles with them at a nearby park. Irv thanked them, but said he had already planned to have some eel soup at his bench and study the new manuals. The seasonals took their noontime break at a nearby Temple for the Unmounted Dead.

“Won’t that be a little depressing for them?” asked Mike, as he and Bill wolfed down their noodles.

“Not really,” said Bill. “It’s the only place they can relax. They have a rough life, Mike. They were really happy back on the farm. Now they sleep in a cold dormitory and go to bed with blow-up dolls. If you stand nearby, you can hear them crying themselves to sleep. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if one of them was responsible for some of that inflammatory graffiti I showed you.”

Mike felt that he had made his feelings clear as to the mildness of the latrine scribblings and decided to let the remark go by.

“No wonder production is so low in this unit,” he said.

“It sure doesn’t help,” said Bill.

“What’s the story on Irv?”

“He’ll never show it, but the failure of this unit is really killing him. He came over from a crack semiconductor chip team and he’d always been a winner until he got into elevator cars. Now he’s so upset that he doesn’t even stay out all night and drink. He goes right home to his wife and family, quietly accepting the abuse it brings him in the neighborhood.”

“I’d sure like to help the guy,” said Mike.

“He knows that, Mike. He knows it, I know it and the seasonals know it. The problem is, they don’t care.”

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