Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [94]
"Can’t be a fifty-year man no more," said the old man pityingly. "Can’t come to work until you’re eighteen nowadays, and you got to retire when you’re sixty-five." He poked his thumb under his lapel to make a small gold button protrude. On it was the number "50" superimposed on the company trademark. "Something none of you youngsters can look forward to wearing some day, no matter how much you want one."
"Very nice button," said David.
The old man pointed out a door. "Here’s Flammer’s office. Keep your mouth shut till you find out who’s who and what they think. Good luck."
Lou Flammer’s secretary was not at her desk, so David walked to the door of the inner office and knocked.
"Yes?" said a man’s voice sweetly. "Please come in."
David opened the door. "Mr. Flammer?"
Lou Flammer was a short, fat man in his early thirties. He beamed at David. "What can I do to help you?"
"I’m David Potter, Mr. Flammer."
Flammer’s Santa-Claus-like demeanor decayed. He leaned back, propped his feet on his desk top, and stuffed a cigar, which he’d concealed in his cupped hand, into his large mouth. "Hell—thought you were a scoutmaster." He looked at his desk clock, which was mounted in a miniature of the company’s newest automatic dishwasher. "Boy scouts touring the Works. Supposed to stop in here fifteen minutes ago for me to give ’em a talk on scouting and industry. Fifty-six per cent of Federal Apparatus’ executives were eagle scouts."
David started to laugh, but found himself doing it all alone, and he stopped. "Amazing figure," he said.
"It is," said Flammer judiciously. "Says something for scouting and something for industry. Now, before I tell you where your desk is, I’m supposed to explain the rating-sheet system. That’s what the Manual says. Dilling tell you about that?"
"Not that I recall. There was an awful lot of information all at once."
"Well, there’s nothing much to it," said Flammer. "Every six months a rating sheet is made out on you, to let you and to let us know just where you stand, and what sort of progress you’ve been making. Three people who’ve been close to your work make out independent ratings of you, and then all the information is brought together on a master copy—with carbons for you, me, and Personnel, and the original for the head of the Advertising and Sales Promotion Division. It’s very helpful for everybody, you most of all, if you take it the right way." He waved a rating sheet before David. "See? Blanks for appearance, loyalty, promptness, initiative, cooperativeness—things like that. You’ll make out rating sheets on other people, too, and whoever does the rating is anonymous."
"I see." David felt himself reddening with resentment. He fought the emotion, telling himself his reaction was a small-town man’s— and that it would do him good to learn to think as a member of a great, efficient team.
"Now about pay, Potter," said Flammer, "there’ll never be any point in coming in to ask me for a raise. That’s all done on the basis of the rating sheets and the salary curve." He rummaged through his drawers and found a graph, which he spread out on his desk. "Here—now you see this curve? Well, it’s the average salary curve for men with college educations in the company. See—you can follow it on up. At thirty, the average man makes this much; at forty, this much—and so on. Now, this curve above it shows what men with real growth potential can make. See? It’s a little higher and curves upward a little faster. You’re how old?"
"Twenty-nine," said David, trying to see what the salary figures were that ran along one side of the graph. Flammer saw him doing it, and pointedly kept them hidden with his forearm.
"Uh-huh." Flammer wet the tip of a pencil with his tongue, and drew a small "x" on the graph, squarely astride the average man’s curve. "There. you are!"
David looked at the mark, and