We’re a Family Company
by Laramie Wyatt Sanchez Graber
The employee must be synonymous with the company.
The company must be synonymous with the employee.
This is the path to enlightenment.
— Internal Slogan, Fresh Foods, Inc.
It is dark outside, but inside the grocery store it is perpetual day. Workers labor in their artificial sunlight, sweeping floors, stocking shelves, so everything will be ready for the customer. Security cameras watch them closely. This one time, Sam isn’t working with his corporate family. And he’s off the clock, of course.
He stands with his fellow initiates. They wear the tucked-in blue or yellow Fresh Foods polos with belted navy-, black- or khaki-colored pants. They wear their nametags — freshly polished for the ceremony — bearing the Fresh Foods’ cornucopia trademark. They do their best not to move, but there are tapping feet and shaking legs and rapidly blinking eyes. It is a big day.
Sam should feel despair. He knows on a deep level that this is the end of his dreams. He is not going to become a social worker. He is not going to help people turn their lives around. Instead, he finds a nothingness in his chest where emotions should be. He simply mirrors the movement around him as if the mimicry can make him excited, too.
“So, this is it?” he mutters.
Susan hears him because she’s good at that. It’s a trait that has her marked for management. “Wasn’t it always going to be?”
“What?”
“Social work and other stuff like that is temporary. People aren’t always going to care about it. They only sorta care about it now. The need for food? The desire for profit? That’s eternal.”
* * *
Sam stared at the Fresh Foods Stocking Associate application on his computer. He’d worked jobs like this on and off since college, living at his parents’ house. This time was different. He was turning 26 soon and would be kicked off his parents’ health insurance. He had to turn a part-time position into a full-time one to get his own coverage. If he succeeded, the job wouldn’t merely be temporary.
A dread settled in his stomach that went beyond this simple reality. In college, a guy he’d known had been all about politics. Elijah had interned for a local campaign his sophomore summer and wanted to run for office one day. Then, a parent lost a job and, needing to make ends meet, Elijah got a job at Fresh Foods. The next thing Sam knew, Elijah had traded his political aspirations to become manager at his Fresh Foods store. Which was fine, people changed their minds all the time, especially in college, but it seemed more than that.
There was a fervent absurdity to the way he talked about Fresh Foods, like how he genuinely seemed to believe that the company invented nutritional labeling. And, one night when Elijah had crashed in his room, he’d thrashed about in his sleep, screaming about an omnipotent force weighing down on him. The few people Sam mentioned it to said it had nothing to do with Fresh Foods. They were right, surely. Still, he had told himself that he would never work there.
Sam heaved a large sigh. He needed insurance, what choice did he have?
He pressed “send.”
* * *
“And now, please welcome our head of grocery!” The orientation leader enthused. Sam clapped along with the others because it seemed like what was expected. He tried not to grimace.
“Call me Jim!” The head of grocery ran to the front of the room like he was celebrating a championship victory. “You liking your first day? Yeah? Yeah!” Jim waved his arms wildly.
“I always make a promise to associates on day one. You know what it is?”
“No?” One person ventured.
“Come on now! You know what it is?”
“No!” Others joined the call and response. Sam muttered along with them.
“That this is going to be your best job ever! That’s what I say. You all are special, you know that? Over 5,000 people have applied to work here since we opened last month. You are the chosen ones. Yes, there’s nothing like working for Fresh Foods!”
Jim reeled off everything that made Fresh Foods a great workplace: great benefits, great customer service that you could take pride in and, most importantly, great, family-like camaraderie.
Some nodded along. A young woman with dark, brown eyes caught Sam’s gaze with an eye-roll. At least not everyone was so easily impressed, Sam thought.
Jim’s face suddenly became grave. “But this can all be taken away. Let me tell you a story. Where I used to work, they had a union. Everybody had to pay into it, no exceptions. 25 percent of our paychecks went to dues each week. Can you believe that? The union was supposed to protect our jobs, supposed to give us money to retire with. It did none of that! Absolutely nothing!” Jim spit the last words.
“In a union, advancement is all about seniority. It’s not about skill. Hard work isn’t rewarded! Ridiculous! And my union, it was corrupt. They were keeping the money for themselves. The feds discovered this. All my dues? They took them! They took all my money! Unions destroy everything!
“You can’t be idle. Unions are always trying to work their way into Fresh Foods. In the parking lot, online through social media... Everywhere! You must be ever vigilant to protect the sanctity of Fresh Foods.” Jim whispered something and cast his eyes towards heaven.
The last part of Sam’s orientation was a union education video. In it, union recruiters lurked around every corner, offering the false promises of better health insurance and higher wages, determined to destroy the Fresh Foods Family.
Sam wasn’t religious. Still, he couldn’t help but feel the union recruiters represented demons trying to lure believers away from the path of God.
* * *
Jim walks along the line of initiates, inspecting their uniforms. He stops in front of Sam, eyes combing over every part of his uniform. Not once, but twice. He knows Sam isn’t a true believer. He must believe some outside force will intervene to make him fail inspection.
Then again, Sam suspects Jim’s single-minded faith, while useful, isn’t enough to rise within the company. After all, if it were, Jim would already be store manager. With this knowledge, Sam manages a blank expression. Jim frowns but can’t find anything wrong.
“You are all worthy,” Jim says.
The ground opens into a tunnel. The initiates begin to descend into the light. Sam takes a deep breath. Layla, the woman with dark brown eyes, took the initiation a few days ago. She says it was mostly just lame ice-breakers. Sam follows.
* * *
While Sam stocked yogurt, his mind felt familiarly fragmented. The job was mindless, and so his thoughts wandered. They leapt from possible replies to a text from an old college friend, if going full-time would let him schedule a vet appointment for his parents’ dog, to analyzing the anti-capitalist message from the movie Sorry to Bother You. He could almost imagine he wasn’t really working at all. And yet, again and again, he had to check sell-by-dates on the yogurts to arrange them accordingly. His free thoughts had to spill in and around the necessary boredom.
“Do you ever think,” Layla said from behind him, “that this work is rewiring our brains?” She spoke in a staccato to emphasize her point, each word in rhythm with her stocking.
“Not nearly as much as staring at our phone screens.”
“You know, your cynicism is not very exciting.”
“So, it would be better if I thought we were becoming stocking zombies?”
“It might not be more accurate, but it would be more exciting, which, yes, would make it better.”
Sam smiled. “I think being a stocking zombie would be incredibly dull.”
Layla swatted at him playfully. “You fool, I mean it’s an exciting idea. It’s an exciting thing to contemplate.”
Sam went to respond and realized he had forgotten to check the last couple of sell-by-dates. He looked at the containers instead of speaking.
“See?” Layla said.
“No.” But Sam did, even if Layla was being far too literal. His fanciful thoughts had to move around the act of stocking for a reason. While his thoughts lacked substance, the work was permanent; it took precedence. And, despite himself, Sam found this reality comforting. He didn’t do anything meaningful outside of work. He didn’t do anything. Seeing the shelves fill up, seeing the customers appreciate his hard work? That was something. Being complimented by management? His work meant something to Fresh Foods, too.
* * *
The light in the room is blinding. The robed figures in it are nothing more than blurred shadows. Sam stumbles against the wall, trying to steady himself. He feels lightheaded.
“Welcome.” The voice, a smooth whisper reverberating across the room, seems to come from all the figures. “Welcome, to the Fresh Foods Family.”
It is a caress. Somehow the next words are, too.
“If you feel comfortable, take off your clothes so we can be as one.”
Unease trickles down Sam’s back. He knows he should be having a much stronger reaction. He should be panicking. For the first time, he notices the air is strangely sweet. Is it drugged somehow?
He looks at the other initiates, aware that they are doing the same thing. Surely, they must all be thinking what he’s thinking. Surely, drugs or no drugs, they aren’t going to do this. Surely, none of them needs a job this badly or believes this much. Somebody is going to say no. Surely, Layla didn’t lie to him.
Sam hears the click of a belt buckle being undone. He sees betrayal in everyone’s eyes, each somehow surprised that they’re being abandoned by the others.
* * *
“I finally figured it out,” Layla said in the breakroom as she sat down next to Sam.
“You were figuring something out?”
“If you were paying proper attention, you’d know.” Layla stopped for a dramatic pause. “We’re Morlocks.”
“What?”
“From The Time Machine, by H.G Wells. You should read it. But the basics are what’s important now. In all the Hollywood adaptations, the story is made racist, but the actual story, in the book, is anti-capitalist. Society has evolved into two races. The upper class, those that don’t work, have essentially become stupid, naïve, soft, children. They’re the Eloi. The Morlock, the workers, the lower-class, live underground in the darkness as violent, albino creatures with red eyes. They eat the Eloi even while they continue to make things for them.”
“And that’s us? The Morlocks?”
“Yes. We get up, we labor in the dark so other people’s lives are easier. All that’s missing is the eating of the rich. And a few other things, but that’s the general idea.”
Sam thought of getting up when it was still dark, of feeling separate from the rest of the world. But he labored under bright lights. “I don’t know. Maybe it could become like that eventually. Things right now though, I don’t think they’re so fixed.”
Layla lowered her voice and gestured around the room. “Do you think most of the people in this room are going to become managers? It’s not even possible, because there are always fewer managers. Do you think we are?” She chuckled. “No, I know you don’t think that.”
“I misspoke. Or no, I didn’t say enough. There’s a slight possibility that someone in here could be a manager and so there’s hope that things could be different. We can all strive. That’s what keeps it all together. We can cling to the idea of unity, of hard work if we want to. It’s...”
“Hey, don’t stop now. You’re on a roll.”
“It’s not that the system has already erased our individual selves. It’s like we’re being pushed to forget that we were ever anything different.”
Layla grimaced. “Damn, now I kinda wish I’d stopped you.” She tried for a smile. “Still, maybe we can be different.”
* * *
Hands do not touch Sam’s naked body. Eyes simply rove across every part of him as the hooded figures circle. Anything else would be inappropriate, wouldn’t it? Sam wants to scream, but he can’t. The words would only be directed at himself.
And it’s true. Fresh Foods is doing nothing wrong. They said to remove his clothes only if he felt comfortable. And the eyes are not sexual, not violating, not lingering on any part of his body. It is a thorough assessment of a transaction as if he were a cut of steak behind display glass. They need to know where he will best fit in the Fresh Foods’ Family. And he chose this, Sam can hear them saying now. He chose to give everything for Fresh Foods. He tries put the blame on Layla’s betrayal, but it doesn’t work. He has no one to blame but himself.
“We are all one in the Fresh Foods Family. Everything that we possess, we share.”
Maybe it is whatever is in the air, but Sam’s body just wants to relax into the comfort of the words. He can no longer see a good reason to resist.
* * *
Sam was walking through the parking lot for his 3:00 a.m. shift. The parking-lot lights made everything visible. Still, Sam had missed the man leaning against the cart corral.
“Hello,” the man said. “Would you mind if I took just a small moment of your time?”
Sam startled. “I’m sorry... I have to get in... And I’m tired... Sorry.”
“What if you didn’t have to be tired?”
“I’m... How?”
“You could unionize.”
Sam shook his head. He went to move past the man. With only a slight weight shift, the man blocked his path.
“I know. You’ve heard the Fresh Foods spiel about how evil unions are. The devil incarnate, right? But maybe that’s just because they don’t want to have to give you certain things.” The man sighed. “Okay, I’m being an ass. Just take my card? No harm done. It’s got a website to tell you more and contact information if you’re interested.” The man held out the card.
Sam went to take it; it would make the man go away ,and he liked unions and pretending at rebellion could be fun. And then he felt the presence. It brought with it a power that was a physical weight; the knowledge that it was always here. Sam knew it could crush him without a second thought. He looked around wildly and saw nothing. Still, he felt it everywhere.
“No,” he said and walked so quickly the man had no chance to block him again.
The weight receded, but it wasn’t gone. Sam felt the presence turn its attention to the union representative.
Later, he wasn’t sure if the presence had been real or imagined. It had felt so visceral and yet a supernatural force somehow aligned with a grocery store chain seemed too ridiculous even to contemplate. But he couldn’t think about the alternative, that he had become so committed to the job, to Fresh Foods’ propaganda, that his fear manifested as a physical force.
* * *
“Anything you’d like to add?” The manager said at the end of Sam’s performance review.
Sam took a deep breath. “As I’ve said, I’d really like to become full-time. The health insurance, it’s important. I just wanted to know how I was doing for that.”
“You’re doing well. As discussed, you’re a responsible, proactive worker. But sometimes, according to your managers, they say it looks like it’s just a job to you. And I understand that, I do. This probably isn’t what you intended to do with your life.”
“I... yes.”
“But it’s good place to work, isn’t it? We have flexible scheduling. Your managers care about you. You can see how your hard work helps the customer. You have friends like Layla. You have a community if you’d just embrace it, be committed body and soul.”
“Of course.” Too late Sam realized that the frown on his face undercut the enthusiasm of his words.
“Just smile.”
* * *
After the inspection, the robed figures tell the initiates to kneel. They don’t hesitate.
“Will your fulfillment be Fresh Foods’ fulfillment?”
Sam goes to say yes to get the job. Then he feels the presence from the parking lot. His body begins to ache beneath its weight. He knows it doesn’t matter now if it’s real or not. It’s in his mind and it will know if he lies. It will destroy him. “I...” Sam’s body begins to buckle beneath the weight. He can see his bones shattering. He needs to voice the truth.
“Will your fulfillment be Fresh Foods’ fulfillment?”
Everything dissolves into the light and pain. “Yes,” Sam gives in. Because it’s the truth, he realizes. He had been resisting, futilely, that this was always going to be his answer. He couldn’t blame Layla, because he would have done the same. He feels he should hang his head in shame, but the weight is gone, and he can only gasp in relief.
“Then be reborn.”
A bowl is placed into Sam’s hands. He drinks from it without thinking. It’s only when the metallic taste hits his tongue that he registers what it is: blood. A brief image of the union representative flashes into his mind, but the horror barely registers. Sam only wants to know if everything he has done is worth it.
“You are now full-time.”
Sam smiles. He is not sure if he is smiling because he is happy or because it is expected. He is not sure there is a difference any longer.
Copyright © 2022 by Laramie Wyatt Sanchez Graber
