Thursday, January 14, 2010

"Zombie Attack? I'm On My Break."

It would be totally awesome to work as a janitor for the Umbrella Corporation. Like, in one of their top secret Hive facilities hidden deep below ground outside Raccoon City. That has to be a sweet gig.

Seriously, think about it. They probably pay their janitors something like ten times the normal wages, because why else would a janitor take a job that required him to live in a top-secret facility deep underground for years at a time? The scientists all do it because it gives them a chance to do that crazy mad-science shit that they're not allowed to do at other, saner companies, but it's not like the janitors get to do mad-sanitation. No, the only way you attract someone for a job like that is with big dough.

And once you do get the job, you know you can totally slack off as much as you want. Because it's hard enough to fire someone at a normal big corporation, when all you have to do is go through the process of documenting every single thing they did wrong, getting the bosses to sign off on it, documenting the ways that the person didn't correct their behavior, giving them several chances to prove that you're not biased against them somehow so that they can't sue you after they get fired, and finally making sure they leave the building without stealing stuff. Can you even imagine how much extra paperwork it takes to assign a black-ops surveillance team to them afterwards to make sure they don't spill their guts to the media, and then a black-ops kill team to them if they try? (The black-ops kill team alone is probably something like fifty pages of forms to fill out.) Nobody's going to bother with all that just because you took a week to change a light bulb.

And even if they don't mind doing all the firing paperwork, you know that they're not going to want to jump through all the hoops to hire someone new. It's got to be something like seventeen layers of background checks, twenty-three non-disclosure forms, relocation expenses (to the top-secret facility hidden underground, which is probably a pain in the ass all by itself) and then you wind up with a new guy who'll be just as bad as you are, probably. Nah, they'll just let the little stuff slide, and you can sit around all day surfing the Web and drinking homemade booze. And they'll be all, "Hey, man, there was a T-Virus outbreak on Level Three that resulted in a bloody gunfight with hideous zombies, can you clean that up?" And you'll be like, "Sure, man, when I get to it."

And you know some scientist will clean it up before you get down there, because they won't be able to stand working right next to the rotting corpse. Yeah, that's a sweet job.

Until everyone dies in the zombie apocalypse, of course.

4 comments:

John Seavey said...

It is a sign of how much my girlfriend loves me, by the way, that she listened to this idea last night and did not have me committed. :)

Mory said...

Neah, that's just a sign that it's a really funny idea.

E. Wilson said...

Going even further, someone with enough genre knowledge to recognize this potential would also probably be knowledgeable enough to know when it's time to get the Hell out of dodge. A good rule of thumb is that the happier the scientists look to be with their progress, the more you should ensure that your escape route is planned out.

A more practical benefit would be that your job performance would be almost impossible to evaluate, because evidence, both physical and anecdotal, would be destroyed once a year or so as the fit inevitably hits the shan.

chiasaur11 said...

Yeah, it does sound awesome.

Water cooler chats might get awkward, though, even if you weren't at one of the bases that really messed up.

"Hey, have you seen Frank around loately? He owes me a fiver."

"Got transfered over to Raccoon City. Where they had a minor containment leak. They sent a task force over to deal with it."

"So, he's a bit busy with the paperwork."

"They sent Mr. Death, John."

"Ah. So, I'm not getting my five bucks back?"

"No. Probably not."