Comments on: There's absolutely no way to Google this.

Question: There's absolutely no way to Google this.

downing street memo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:12:42 -0800

Looking for a story someone wrote about "falling through the cracks" while working at a large company. I think what happened is he was to be reassigned to a new team, but the assignment never actually happened; he just kept showing up to work, kept getting paid, and got into all sorts of stuff trying to stay under the radar.

It was posted on the SomethingAwful forums a few years ago, but I don't know if it was originally posted there or not. Can you help me find it?

By: fishmasta

fishmasta — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:21:56 -0800

Could it be the Graphing Calculator story about Apple?

By: downing street memo

downing street memo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:29:46 -0800

It's not that, although that's an incredible one too - thanks for reminding me of it!

By: corey flood

corey flood — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:46:24 -0800

Was it "My Fake Job" by Rodney Rothman? I've got it in The Best American Non-Required Reading 2002 anthology, but it says that it first appeared in the New Yorker.

This one involves an internet startup company, if that helps.

By: downing street memo

downing street memo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:50:46 -0800

No, if I recall right, it was written by an SA forums member (i.e. it actually happened to him), and the timeframe was a lot longer than 17 days - more like a year or two. But since there seem to be a number of these things floating around, I love to hear about others...it's a nice little bit of escapism.

By: PontifexPrimus

PontifexPrimus — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:05:34 -0800

That sounds like one of the subplots from Office Space - the character "Milton" was actually made redundant several years before, and the two efficiency consultants hired by the firm find out about it only now. Their advice: not to confront him about that, instead just cancel his payday checks. Throughout the course of the movie he is then transferred to less and less desirable cubicles, ending up in a dark cellar room.

By: homuncula

homuncula — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:17:21 -0800

Probably not it, but similar: Adventures in Temping.

By: Miko

Miko — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:01:04 -0800

I think I read that story in the New Yorker.

Similar ideas have been plotlines on Seinfeld. One was where George was trying to avoid seeing his boss at all, because he couldn't be fired if he could not be caught in the same room with him. Another had something to do with him showing up to work, and working, without being an actual employee.

By: platinum

platinum — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:04:17 -0800

Sounds a bit like the plot Herman Melville's short story Bartleby, the Scrivener. The movie Bartleby was based on the story, starring the perfectly creepy Crispin Glover.

By: hayvac

hayvac — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:50:42 -0800

I'm almost certain I remember the story you're describing and that I saw it on SA, but my archives access isn't working for some reason. What I remember is this (and it's very hazy, so the details are likely wrong):

The guy got hired as a "safety inspector" or "safety officer" or something like that, but he was given a numerical job code that didn't put him in any department or under any direct superior. I think this was because they used a placeholder code like 000 for pending hires but forgot to replace it with a real code after his start date.

He kept going into work because he didn't know what else to do, and even posted some safety signs and installed a non-slip mat or something, which he referred to as his proudest moment at the job. Of course no one really noticed or told him what to do afterward. All this time the company was sending him regular paycheques.

Eventually his conscience got the better of him and he checked the company database for anyone with the same job code as his. He found one person listed at a corporate branch in another city and called him. The punchline is that the guy he called seemed really frightened and paranoid at being questioned about his job and then finally confessed that he'd been doing the same thing as the author for years: coming into work, doing nothing, and cashing a paycheque, not doing anything about it for fear of being asked why he didn't come forward sooner.

Is this the story you mean?

By: rux

rux — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:51:12 -0800

Kramer did the same thing in an episode of Seinfeld

By: downing street memo

downing street memo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:19:06 -0800

Hayvac - that's definitely it. I'll dig through the archives to see if I can find.

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:18:51 -0800

If you find that, downingstreet, please post the link. Sounds like some fun.

By: cmonkey

cmonkey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:30:06 -0800

When the search comes back up, it was apparently called "The American Dream" posted by a user called Moonshine.

By: cmonkey

cmonkey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:36:40 -0800

... and here you are (.rtf copy of the "American Dream" thread posted later in that "SA Lost and Found" thread)

By: downing street memo

downing street memo — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:12:12 -0800

Holy crap, thank you so much. This is an absolute must-read.

By: icheyne

icheyne — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:25:36 -0800

I pasted the American Dream document into into a quick Google Site, so it's easier to link to.