Manaby III
The meeting room offers a magnificent view over the city skyline. Gigantic skyscrapers stand side by side, while the sun begins to set in the distance.
Silently, the applicant takes a seat at the glass conference table, where two board members are already waiting. Both are roughly the same age as the manager—the woman in the office dress slightly younger, the man in shirt and suspenders marginally older. Both are wearing business briefs around their hips as well.
Clearing his throat, the manager sets up the chart and launches into a dull monologue about quarterly figures: workers being outsourced to increase dividends, production being boosted by a staggering 2.5 percent, and the latest gossip from the business world.
“They’re actually leasing their company cars for three years, when any company worth its name keeps its fleet for no more than one!”
With every passing minute, the eyelids of the board member in shirt and suspenders sink lower, until he jolts awake just before falling asleep and presses the intercom on the table.
A Sitter in uniform enters the room and creeps around the table like a cat, trying not to disturb the presentation.
“I’m bored,” the man in suspenders yawns behind his hand.
The Sitter immediately turns on his heel, rummages through one of the wall cabinets made from fine rosewood and eventually returns with a platinum-finished tablet, which he hands to his superior.
The man begins swiping and slicing flying fruit on the screen—as though hypnotized, completely oblivious to the meeting around him.
The applicant looks confused. After all, he is used to entirely different working conditions. Then again, this is THE company. Their house, their rules!
As the manager continues his presentation, the secondary topics are finally brought to the table. The color of the toilet paper has been criticized in the suggestion box when the female board member’s stomach suddenly growls loudly.
Pressing the intercom in front of her, she says impatiently, “Hungry!”
An older female Sitter in uniform enters the room, sits down beside the board member, fiddles with her blouse and pulls the grown woman onto her lap.
Startled and confused, the applicant has no idea what kind of bizarre spectacle he is witnessing. Embarrassed, he lowers his gaze as the board member pushes her head into the open blouse and begins making loud smacking and swallowing sounds.
Meanwhile, the presentation takes an unexpected turn: the manager’s face turns red and he suddenly loses his voice.
Twiddling his thumbs, the applicant watches the scene unfold: hissing and game-show sound effects from the tablet, sucking noises from beneath the blouse and now a gurgling intestine.
The manager’s face relaxes again. He presses the intercom, whispers something into it and says to the bewildered applicant with a wink, “Unlimited productivity!”
Once again, a Sitter enters the room—it is the aging man who has clearly recovered from the exertion of pulling the rickshaw. A travel bag hangs from his shoulder, and within a few steps he is already beside the manager.
By now, the manager has lain flat on his back across the table and thrown both legs into the air, all while continuing his presentation about toilet paper.
Gasping for breath, the Sitter pulls down the manager’s briefs. An unmistakable diaper hangs heavily from his hand, loaded with a foul-smelling brown explosive charge. Written across the fabric in golden letters are the words: “Manaby. For Manager Babies.”
Shaking his head, the applicant finally understands: this place is run like a kindergarten!