[fiction] Inside Job, part 1

(FYI:  this is nothing like how it is in my real job)

Small office on the fourth floor.  Too small for all the computer screens I've got in there.  Its cramped, like somebody moved too much furniture in.  That's not the kind of problem I solve.

I know its a girl before she even knocks on the door, before the curves of her silhouette even fall on the frosted glass.  I can smell a customer service girl a mile away.  She knocks.

"It's open."

A tasteful business suit walked in.  If she had been a programmer it would have been baggy jeans and a sweatshirt, and with my luck a boy's haircut and a lack of interest in men.  But she wasn't a programmer.  My lucky day.  I lean forward and put out my cigarette.  Not supposed to smoke in the office.  I get worried when people see me do it, but not worried enough to clean up the ash tray.

"Hi.  I'm having some trouble with some orders.  Someone said you used to be on the COW team?"

COW.  Customer Order Workflow.  The guys that took care of every single order at Large Online Retailer.  Sleepless nights.  Severity 1 emergencies.  The big red button.  Writing untested ruby code directly to production while you're explaining up from down to your manager's manager's manager on the conference call.  Losing hosts left and right during prime, watching healthy databases tank...the coding marathons...the ticket wars...the multicast storms.  Yeah.  I was on COW.

I nod.  "What do you need?"

She takes a small piece of paper out of her pocket and unfolds with a sort of deliberate grace.  "Its these shipments.  They're getting stuck."

I take the paper from her.  Our fingers touch for an instant and I feel a spark.  Damn carpet.  She has four shipments written down.  I look one up.  "This order is from 2005."

Black stare.  She doesn't understand.  An order from 2005 is six years old.  In internet time that is an epoch.  You might as well dig up a dinosour bone and tell me it had a cold this one time.

"I don't understand how we are even shipping stuff for it."  I look at the order.  It's massive.  I groan.   "Whatever.  I'll just clean the garbage out of the system."

"No, please!"  She touches my hand.  "That's what the On Calls did.  But these keep coming back."

I glance down at the fine curves of her hips.  There is a red I.D. badge hanging there.  You're run of the mill customer service girl does not get a red badge.  This girl is for real.

"Alright," I said to her.

; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Twenty minutes later we're on the freeway in my T-top.  The fulfillment center is an hour away in normal traffic.  I pull into the HOV lane and punch it.  We'll get there in 30.

"My name is Alice, by the way."

"Alice.  Dex."  I swing my right hand over without looking.

She shakes it gingerly.  "Yes I know.  Dex the dragon."

I snort.  "Been a while since I heard that."

"How did you get that name?"

"You know that phrase about burning bridges?  I used to do that a lot.  And people.  They messed with me, they got burned."

"That's horrible."

I just smile and press on the accelerator.

; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Waldo meets us at the shipping dock.  Waldo is an old buddy of mine.  I help the lady step up and we sneak inside. The shipments we're interested in are in the corner.  I flash my switchblade.

"Hey!  Take it easy will ya?  You're not even supposed to be here."

"Relax."  I slice one of the boxes open and pocket the knife.  "You know what happens to these."

We look inside.  Its a videogame.  The box shows an unrealistically-muscled marine wielding an M4.  It was made for the console--fodder for the lowest common denominator.  I check the packing slip.  One video game.  Nothing else.

"That game comes out tomorrow," says Alice.  I glance at her for a second.

"That means its a preorder," I say.

"Why did it get stuck?" asked Waldo.  But we are interrupted.

"Excuse me."  Unfriendly voice.  "Who are you?"

I boost the packing slip as I turn around.  I pretend like I'm tucking my shirt in, but I'm really stuffing the slip into my pants.  Its the shift leader for the fulfillment center.  I don't even need to say anything.  She recognized me.


Her eyes narrow.  "What are you doing here?"


"Fixing problems," I say.

"You're not a problem solver any more.  You are the problem.  Waldo, show him out.  Now."

"Geez, what was up her ass?" Waldo asks us when we are out of ear shot.  "I'm sorry I couldn't help you--I dont know where she came from."

"There was a $25 million outage once.  I'm the one who proved it was her fault."

"Million?" asks Alice.

"Shit, Dex.  Shit," says Waldo.

"Hey Waldo."  We reach my car.  "Do me a favor?"

"I just did you-"

"Send me your version of the shipments."

Waldo frowns.  "I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks a million."  I wink.

"Yeah."  Waldo disappears.

"What did you mean his version?" asks Alice.


"The business and the fulfillment center both have a different version of every order,"  I explain.

"Why is that?"

"Its complicated." We're on our way back to the city when my phone gets an email.  I check it.  It's Waldo.  I hand Alice my phone.  "Read that to me."

"I'm not sure I understand it."

"Read me something."

"Well...one thing it says order condition change from 3 to 9."

"You mean 9 to 3?"

"No...I can read.  It definitely starts at 3 and changes to 9."

"That's impossible."

"Well, that's what it says."

I grab my phone back.  She's right.  "Fuck me," I say, and then I don't say anything for a while.  I get quiet when I'm working things out.

"So what does it mean?"

"It means some shady shit is going down, that's what it means.  An order starts in condition 9.  That's a new order.  When its getting processed it goes through a bunch of other conditions until finally it arrives at condition 3.  Condition 3 is a closed order.  There's nothing left to process.  No wonder all the oncalls didn't look into this.  They thought their system was fine.  But its not.  Somehow, someone is re-opening old orders and adding shit to them."

"How is that possible?" asks Alice.

"I don't know," I say, "but I think it's an inside job."