The threat of a bad review dangles over every creature that works at the Aquarium
All services at the Aquarium can be rated by its inmates. This is done by the idiot-friendly method of awarding “stars”. Every creature that works in the Aquarium dangles the threat of a bad review over every creature that works at the Aquarium–a spectacle of schadenfreude on full display. The ones who revel the most are not the sharks, but the guppies who suddenly discover, to their delight, that they possess the intoxicating power to mete out judgment on plankton and seaweed. The General Population at the Aquarium became the worst versions of themselves. It is unsettling to observe a minnow metamorphose into a petty, petulant barracuda.
“Someone dropped coffee on the floor, and it hasn’t been mopped. Pathetic. Will shift to [■■■] next week.” One star.
No you won’t you pimply git. If you could afford [■■■] , you wouldn’t be slumming it in the Aquarium’s General Population.
“The set menu is very carb-heavy. Not a good choice for productivity peeps like me! Two stars. "
You’re sleepy because you were drinking all night. Good for you, but it’s not the fault of the poor git who cooked the pasta carbonara (which isn’t half bad, by the way).
I feel sorry for the service staff at the Aquarium. If a lavatory isn’t clean, I tell the janitor and give him a chance to clean up, which he does quite purposefully with the nervous gratitude of a rabbit waiting tables at a dog pound. If the trays in the cafeteria are wet, I just tell Mr. Stevens at catering; c.f., Geoff the Rat who went on a psychotic one-star rampage last week because the penne arrabbiata–his usual order on Fridays–was sold out when he walked in for lunch at 4:30PM.
“I kept a serving for you till 4PM, Geoff, generalissimo. I thought you had stepped out for lunch, sire,” stammered M the server.
“Thought? When did you minimum-wage morons start thinking? I’m on Pacific time today. What’s your name? Your name tag is reflecting the lights. Do you want to blind me? Where that oaf Stevens?”
“I… I didn’t know, mein Führer señor El Presidente. Please have anything you want on the house. Anything.”
“Where’s my fricking phone. You’re getting one star from me and from every fricking rat on every fricking team that works here. I want blood on the fricking floor,” screamed Geoff.
“Absolutely. I’m O negative. Shall I slash my wrists? Would you prefer a straw to the jugular? Please don’t review bomb me Geoff o magnificent Il Duce. Please, I beg you. My annual eval is next week.”
Geoff stormed off to fetch his phone. M watched him leave with tears in her eyes. The janitor (on a postprandial coffee break) ran downstairs to lick the lavatories clean just in case Geoff decided to take an angry piss.
I can empathise with Geoff’s rage. He has some flavour of OCD that requires him to eat penne every Friday. I also understand M’s situation. The penne had probably dried up under the heat lamp. Since Geoff didn’t show up till way past lunch-time, she scraped it up and sold it at one-quarter price–they do it at 4PM every day, when most of the housekeeping staff eats lunch, and Pool Pot eats breakfast.
Eval Day arrived a week later. I was discussing the incident with Javabot over coffee when Pool Pot staggered up to us. He was, as usual, surrounded by a personal atmosphere of weed smoke, deodorant, and mint. The janitor, who had spent the entire day furiously mopping up near the coffee machine and the lavatories, sneaked up behind Pool Pot and emptied an entire can of Glade around him. Then he rushed away to hose down the lift.
“Eval day already?” said Pool Pot, while sniffing the air and blinking in the general direction of the janitor.
“Geoff the Rat went mental on the catering staff last week,” said Javabot. “He got all his tele-caller rats to review bomb the entire catering staff.”
“Hmmm,” said Pool Pot.
I told Pool Pot what had happened.
“Hmmm.”
“The Pigs will use any excuse to fire the serfs and bring in fresh, cheap labour,” I said.
“I don’t care about the oinks in admin. I give them one star reviews all the time and it doesn’t affect them. But these are honest workers,” added Javabot.
“Hmmm.”
It’s very difficult to tell whether Pool Pot is listening to the people in front of him or has tuned into the hourly broadcast from the alien mother-ship that orbits Jupiter. (It’s definitely there; NASA has contacted them, and it’s a touchy subject with Pool Pot.) I suspected that he had fallen asleep, standing, with his eyes wide open–a janitor had once found him asleep, standing, at a urinal. In this instance, however, Pool Pot had been listening.
“I quite like their penne arrabbiata with lashings of Tabasco sauce and M&M’s. Had some last week,” he said slowly. “Very nice.”
“Can you do something about the reviews?” asked Javabot again. (Pool Pot has the attention span of a drunk fruit fly.) “Maybe just fix M’s review,” he added in his best matter-of-fact voice.
I mentally filed away the discovery of a romance between a computer geek and a trainee cook: very few urban anthropologists get to observe the awkward mating rituals of Binarius algorithmus nerdus (commonly known as the Lesser Software Developer). Also filed away the working title “The Cook and the Geek”. It has a peculiar ring to it when one says it out loud. Like The Beauty and the Beast… I digress.
“Hmmm,” said Pool Pot.
I try not to get involved in the plotting of plots and the scheming of schemes, but this felt different. “Aren’t you friends with the back-end devs?” I asked. “Can’t we just have them delete last week’s reviews?”
“Deleting last week’s reviews won’t help. The General Population, as a general rule, only ever leaves bad reviews. The review system is a kangaroo court in a Banana Republic,” said Javabot.
“Hmmm. Did you know that the Aquarium maintains secret records on each inmate? They track everything. WiFi history, what you eat, even what you think! I stay a step ahead of them…” said Pool Pot. His eyes glazed over.
Suddenly, Javabot grabbed Pool Pot by the shoulders and shook him vigorously.
“Pool… Stay with me. Who sends out the marketing spam?”
“Hmmm?”
“What does the Aquarium use to send its personalised marketing spam? The one that has crap like 12% off on all access membership just for you or new set menu personalised for you?”
“Hmmm? They have a gorilla! Maybe a chimpanzee?”
Incredibly, Javabot seemed to understand what that meant.
“The front office laptops have the access creds saved in the browser. One came in for repair yesterday,” said Pool Pot. His shut his eyes.
“You heard him: The Aquarium secretly reviews the actions of its inmates,” said Javabot as he filled a Big Gulp with coffee.
“No it doesn’t,” I said.
“We can’t be sure, can we?” replied Javabot. “And personalised mail builders can be so glitchy, especially those idiotic GUI ones. All it takes is one tiny error…” said Javabot, cryptically. He shook Pool Pot again. “Do you have a service key?”
Pool Pot opened one eye. “Bottom drawer. Dust-jacket of the thesaurus. Looks like a Walmart Gift card,” he said. Then he walked away, eyes closed, with his arms stretched out in front of him. Pool Pot wouldn’t return to Planet Earth for a few days.
I headed back to Cubicle 3. Through the glass, I saw Javabot tapping away at his laptop all day only leaving twice to refill his Big Gulp. When I left that evening, Javabot was still at his desk. Whatever he had planned with the service access keycard would probably happen late at night…
The next day the following mail arrived in the inbox of Geoff the Rat. Everyone at the Aquarium received a personalized version:
/// TODO: Remove debug before pushing live
Dear var_dump {customer_first_name: Geoff},
We’re thrilled to share some exciting updates designed to make your time at the Aquarium even more enjoyable and tailored to your needs. As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, we’ve made adjustments to our flexible rent optimization system!
We’re constantly innovating to deliver personalized excellence. While we’re eager to share these improvements with you, please excuse any minor technical hiccups as we refine our systems for your benefit.
/// TODO: Remove debug before pushing live
var_dump { review: enabled, current_score: 3/10, rating: poor, rent_multiplier: 1.2, wifi_tracking: enabled, { video_download_size: 420GB, DNS_req_to_porn_sites: 1205, p2p_sites_visited: 3, torrent_traffic: 402GB, {Other:[…]} }, Facility_tracking: enabled, toilet_roll_usage: 30, coffee_machine_visits: 0, cafeteria_disruptions:1, coffee_machine_disruptions:0, lavatory_cleanliness_rating: 1, {Other:[…]} } }.
We’re pleased to offer you an upgrade to our exciting Premium Access Double Plus plan at var_dump {$rate * $rent_multiplier}!
If you have any feedback, feel free to share it via the review portal. Remember, your input helps make the Aquarium an even better home for us all!
Warm regards,
The Aquarium Management
This is an automated message from the Aquarium Customer Experience Team. Please do not reply.
The cafeteria was unusually silent that day. Javabot queued patiently. The usual chorus of complaints and petty grievances was conspicuously absent. It seemed the mass mail had done more than spark paranoia; it had held up an unsettling mirror to the General Population. Many of them deleted their reviews.
Even Geoff the Rat had nothing to say. He clutched his tray tightly, his whiskers twitching as he stared at his feet, avoiding eye contact with the cafeteria staff. Javabot watched him pass by M, who managed a shaky but relieved smile. Her station, usually under siege, was now peaceful. The frantic pacing of janitors and kitchen workers had slowed. The oppressive air of the review-bomb-induced anxiety seemed, for the first time, to lift. Javabot had saved more than a dozen jobs that day, and no one would know. The mail would keep the Aquarium’s IT department up all night in an attempt to trace the “fault”. Nothing would be found, of course.
When Javabot reached the counter I could hear his heart thump, but he said nothing. M blushed when she saw him and wordlessly set up a tray with an extra serving of penne arrabbiata. One of these days I hope he musters up the courage to ask her out–he never will. I could help, but I don’t think I should–it would break the Prime Directive of Urban Anthropology.
For the first time in weeks, the Aquarium felt… still.
Editor’s Notes:
- The principal characters in the Aquarium series were introduced in The Cracked Bell Jar.
- All despatches from the series are listed here.