It was a Monday morning in 2035, John got up very early because it was the first day of his new job, the first job of his formal professional career in his life. At his age, almost everyone had some kind of work experience, at least some experience as a volunteer in a library or some other places, and John was no exception. But that day would be the first day of what he considered as a true serious job, the start of his career, the beginning of his new life as a professional after four years study in the Faculty of International Study of the world-famous H University.
One month ago, as a Dean’s honored graduate, with a major in International Relationship and a minor in Philosophy, in his graduation cap and gown, John received his certificate of Bachelor’s degree from the Dean of the faculty. At that time he already accepted the offer from K Corp, the dream consulting firm of John all those years. He would work in one skyscraper owned by K Corp in S city, the same city of H University, where John had spent last four years. Thus, even before the graduation, John and a few friends had already signed a lease for an apartment to share. After graduation, he went back to his hometown and spent his last summer vacation as a dependent kid at his parents’ house.
The previous afternoon, the whole family drove to S city to move his luggage into his apartment. After they left, John took a quick shower and then went to bed very early, but he was so excited for the perspective of the new life that was awaiting him that he was tossing and turning in the bed for many hours.
John had been very lucky so far all his life. The global economy had been poor for a decade. Many of his classmates, either from college or from high school, had not got a job, but he did. Most importantly, his first job did not only pay well, better than most other graduates of that year, but also was his dream job. He did not really have anything to complain about in life. He should just feel happy and sleep tight. But still, there was so much to think about what he needed to do and could do after tomorrow, or what he might expect when he entered K Corp next morning.
He finally fell asleep when the street noise outside his window started to pick up.
John was waked up by the alarm. After a quick wash, he left his apartment building and walked to the subway station. Not many people on the street --- it was still very early in the morning. It took about 10 minutes of walk from his apartment building to the subway station. At the station, he did not wait long before getting aboard a train. Only a few early birds in the carriage, and John found a comfortable seat for himself.
The ride took about 30 minutes, and he got off at W station. It would be about another 15 to 20 minutes of walk from there to the office building of K Corp, a landmark building in S City, where John was supposed to report to the HR that morning. John had never entered any building of K Corp yet. His interview with them was on the university campus. But this area was not a strange place for him since it was one of the most famous spots of the city where he had spent last four years in college. He knew a few different paths from that W subway station to the building, and he decided to pick one with more stores because he needed to have his breakfast first.
John entered a fast food restaurant on his way, and bought himself a cup of coffee and two muffins. It was still early, and he did not want to show himself too much ahead of the scheduled time in the K Corp building. So, he decided to spend time enjoying his breakfast in the restaurant. He took a seat at an empty table which was facing to a TV on the wall. A famous female anchor of his favorite news channel was broadcasting the morning headline news.
The name of K Corp in the news caught John’s attention:
One of the leading consulting firms in the world, K Corp, has signed a deal for a strategic partnership with the software giant F Corp and becomes the second in the country that has such a relationship with F Corp. According to the deal, F Corp would be responsible for providing K Corp with the IB software for interacting with the company’s computer system directly by the employees’ human mind;
The Congress passed a legislation to formally legalize the collection of any digital data, including personal data, created on the premise of a company using its facilities, although this has been a popular practice in real life for decades;
Due to the arrival of industry 4.0, the nationwide rate of automation for manufacturing and processing industries has reached 85%. Consequently, many blue collar jobs and some white collar jobs......
He paid no more attention to the rest of the TV news because his mind was occupied by what he just heard about K Corp.
John learned of the idea of direct interacting with computers by the human mind before. He also heard of the name of F Corp in connection with that technology, and he still could recall a commercial ad with an exaggerated image on the cover of a magazine with a title, “IB system will let your mind directly boss your system.” He did not expect that he would catch this new wave of civilization at its earliest stage for his first professional job.
John was thrilled by the news and finished his breakfast quickly. Then he stepped out of the restaurant and headed to the K Corp building.
~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John arrived at the K Corp building 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled time. In the entrance hall of the building, he introduced himself to one of the ladies sitting behind the security desk. John told her that he came for the new job at K Corp, and then handed over his driver’s license to the lady at her request. She checked a list on her table and confirmed that the name on John’s license was in the list.
She printed a sticker tag and handed it to John, “This is your temporary ID for today. The HR would come to pick up you guys shortly.” Then she pointed to the other side of the hall where some sofas were placed for hospitality to visitors, and said to him “You might take a seat now.”
John looked towards where the security lady pointed and saw a few people already waiting in that area. He walked to that area and found a spot beside the window. He did not sit down, but just stood watching employees of K Corp flooding into the building and entering the security gate by swiping their badge cards. Occasionally he saw some men or women came out of the security gates approaching the waiting area, and each time he wondered if the person would come to him. But then he disappointedly watched some other visitor going with that person into one of the security gates.
About half an hour later, a casually dressed lady walked to them with a piece of paper in her hand. She stopped in front of a sofa, and then called the names written on the paper. John’s name was one of them.
“Welcome aboard.” When all those on the name list answered and gathered around her, the lady began to speak to the group, “My name is Jane, and I am one of the HR managers of K Corp. I come to take you guys to the HR department to complete some paperwork first, and then I will take you to the building where you would participate in the orientation for new employees.”
She spoke slowly but clearly. Her voice was melodious.
After the brief self-introduction, Jane added, “Since today is the first day for all of you, you would meet your department managers during the lunchtime. Actually, they would come to meet you at the orientation place. Some of you might be brought to visit your departments or might even go to your own seats. But as I know, not everyone’s seat is ready. Anyway, you will be in the orientation session for the first few weeks and thus no rush to get a seat yet.”
Jane paused a second and looked around those who were standing in a large arc in front of her, and then asked, “Does anyone have any question?”
No one answered. But from their eyes, Jane could sense the familiar satisfaction and expectation that she had been used to from her audience after she talked to them.
“Okay, now let’s go.”
~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The elevator stopped at 17th floor, and they came to the HR department. Jane led the group into a conference room. In the middle of the room was a large dark hardwood conference table surrounded by some office chairs.
Jane said to group, “I am going to get the documents for you. You guys might get acquainted with each other, and I will come back soon.”
“Can we fill out the documents online?” Someone asked.
“No. We don’t put all our HR stuff online. Later on, each of you could access your HR account from online. But now, you need to sign the contract on paper to get your online account set up.” Jane winked her eye and added, “We need to keep our HR jobs, right?”
Those in the room all laughed knowingly.
After Jane left, the new employees started to chat with each other. There John got acquainted with Alice, Fred, and a few others. He especially felt lucky to have Alice, an attractive girl, in the same orientation class for the coming days. Like John, Alice was also a new graduate of that year. She was graduated from Y University and majored in English literature.
Jane came back with a pile of paper forms. She put it on the table and asked everyone to pick one stapled form from the pile. Half an hour later, all the newbies in the room completed their HR forms. Then Jane led them to the orientation site on the 3rd floor.
It was a temporarily decorated informal classroom. There were about 10 rows of tables. Each row contained four white rectangular tables, and was divided into two parts with a walkway in the middle. There was a lectern in front of the table rows.
When Jane and her group arrived at that room, there were already about twenty other new employees sitting in the room, and two other HR managers were standing outside the room. Jane let her group enter the room, and she joined the other HR managers outside the room. A few minutes later, a tall man walked into the room with one hand holding a bottle of water and the other hand carrying a box, followed by those HR managers.
The man first walked to the back of the lectern and put the box on it. Then he walked to the front of the lectern, facing to the class, and started to talk.
“Let me first introduce myself. My name is Steve, and I am the director of the HR department of K Corp. Welcome all of you to join this great company, and our HR department will be the partner of everyone here to serve your needs.”
After this brief salutation, Steve said something that would affect the future of John in K Corp, or more precisely, it would affect his life very profoundly in the future decades.
“If you watched TV this morning, you might’ve already learned that K Corp has signed a strategic deal with F Corp. According to that deal, we are going to introduce a system from F Corp, the IB system, which would allow an organic synthesis between our mind and the computer system of our company. Put it in plain English, it means that we can use our mind to directly interact with our system. Isn’t that exciting?”
“That sounds cool,” Fred responded, who sat at the back of the class.
Steve cast a look at Fred with a smile, and then continued with his talk.
“This is a new thing to the whole civilization and of course a new thing to K Corp. I think everyone could agree on that,” he grinned, quite pleased with his own remark.
“We all know that whenever there is something new in the world, people normally would be not only curious, but often suspicious; and sometimes curiosity and suspicion about new things could cause some disturbance to the existing work. Not only that, it also requires some period of time for people to get trained to master the new technology … We understand that.”
He took a sip of water from the bottle. “Therefore, we decide to give our new employees the opportunity to be the first users of the new system. Since most of you have not been involved in any real project of our business yet and those who have been assigned to some projects are not deeply involved yet, you guys are like blank paper in terms of the business of K Corp, and thus it would be better for you to start using this new technology before you even get much involved in the business of our company. Do you agree?”
Many of them nodded their heads.
“But good things would often require some sacrifice.” Steve paused, and looked around.
“Some of you or maybe all of you might be saying in your mind: here comes the catch,” he said in a teasing tone, and then chuckled while looking at the suspicious faces of some newbies. He added, “that is one advantage of being an HR professional: we can read people’s mind.”
After making that remark, Steve chuckled again, seemingly quite enjoying that he could see into the mind of those poor newbies. Then he walked to the back of the lectern, and opened the box that he brought with him, from which he took out a hat. It was a scarlet color flat top hat with a stiff peak projecting in front. There was a golden “K” on its right side, and a golden “F” on its left side.
Steve lifted the hat to show it to the class. “Don’t worry. There is no any catch. The only sacrifice for using that new technology is to keep this hat on your head all the time as long as you are in the premise of K Corp.”
He put the hat on his own head and asked, “Have anyone ever heard the term of BCI, brain computer interaction?”
Most newbies raised their hands.
“Good.” Steve beckoned them to put down their hands. “The IB system is created with a very advanced BCI technology. It’s not just something that was used for simple lab tests. It actually could completely replace the mouse and keyboard for the function of human computer interaction.”
“Cool” … “Sick”, quite a few newbies exclaimed.
“Does anyone have any question about this?”
John saw Alice raised her hand. Steve said to her, “Please.”
“Does it emit some wireless signal?”
“Yes.”
“Then it comes with a battery?”
“Good question,” Steve replied. “F Corp has a very interesting invention of a special type of battery, which is basically some small thin pieces of special material attached together. It will generate some electricity under the influence of surrounding electromagnetic waves. Since nowadays we are almost always living in the environment of various electromagnetic waves, that battery will always be functioning. But the electricity it generates would be so weak that you could not even test it with an ordinary electrical detection screwdriver.”
“How could that be?” one young man sitting in the front row asked.
“That’s how much the electricity the hat needs,” Steve answered.
“How could the hat work with that little electricity?” Alice asked.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“That’s the technology,” Steve answered delightedly. “As a matter of fact, that is good news because it implies that the wireless signal it sends out would be very weak.”
Steve was obviously aware that he was touching a major concern for anyone who might wear such a hat. He looked at the class and raised his voice. “That means we don’t need to worry about the radiation when we wear this hat.”
He took out a piece of folded paper. “When you receive the hat, you will also receive such a certificate which tells you that it has passed clinical tests for harmless use by humans. F Corp spent years conducting various tests before it could be approved by our government to put into the market.”
Then, from the box, he took out a mobile phone and another gadget of only about quarter of the face size and half of the thickness of the phone. He lifted that small gadget to show it to the class. “You might wonder how that weak signal would be of any use. This little device plays the trick. It receives the weak signal from your hat and amplifies it, and then transmits it out. But still, the intensity of the radiation from this device is only a fraction of the radiation from your mobile phone in its waiting state.”
John raised his hand.
“You have some question?”
“Do I need to carry this device all the time?” John asked.
“If you are going to wear the red hat, then this little device would actually be your badge and you need to have it to enter any building of K Corp around the world. But outside the premise of K Corp you make your own decision on how to keep it, as long as you don’t lose it.”
Steve then clutched his own badge that was hanging on his neck. “Those who are not going to wear the red hat would get this ordinary badge like mine.”
Fred raised his hand. Steve waved his left hand to let him wait. “Let me ask a question: how many people here would like to go to gym?”
More than half of the people raised their hands.
“Very good,” Steve waved his hands to let them put down their hands. “We have a very nice gym on the second floor of this building. You will love it. The only exception for those who would take the red hat option to take off their hats inside this building is in the gym. Most importantly, you should not wear the hat when you are taking the shower after your workout.”
A few newbies started to laugh.
“You still need to wear the hat when you enter the gym, but you might leave the hat in the locker, especially before you go to take a shower,” Steve added.
“But how do you know whether I am in the gym or other part of the building?” Someone asked.
“You need to use your badge to enter and exit the gym so that we would know when you are there,” Steve replied and then turned to Fred. “You had some question a moment ago?”
“I am good now. You just answered my question,” Fred replied.
“Excellent.” Steve looked around the class and asked, “Does anyone else have any question about what I have said so far?”
No one asked any question and the room became quiet, but Steve could clearly sense the suspicions from their faces. He had another sip of water and continued, “K Corp is a very democratic working place. We always respect the will of our employees. We will follow our culture for this new strategic project with F Corp as well. Now I let you determine at your own will, on this first day of your new job orientation, whether you would like to be among the first users of the IB system or not.”
He stepped out from the back of the lectern and went before the first row of the tables.
“Now you will be divided into two groups on a voluntary basis. The group A would be the one that would wear this hat, and group B would be the ordinary one.”
Then he stretched out his left hand towards the tables on his left. “Let’s make it simple, those who would like to wear this hat please take all your stuff and move to the seats on my left side.” Then his right hand towards his right. “And those who would like to stay ordinary please take all your stuff and move to the seats on my right side.”
The class was stirred up and those who would change their seats were about to stand up and move.
But then they were all stopped by Steve. “Hold on a minute. I almost forgot one important thing that might affect your decision on which side you would move to.”
Most of the newbies sat down again while a few of them still stood. Steve waved to those who still stood to let them sit down.
“Considering the inconvenience of wearing the hat all the time when you are on the premise of K Corp, we have decided to encourage those who are interested in taking the trouble doing so with some incentives.”
He paused, and then continued after he was sure that he had all the attention in the room. “We would give them a monthly bonus of 50% of their salary. This bonus would be solely for using this technology, which means it would be different from any other bonus or award you might receive based on your performance and other reasons. ”
That announcement created a shock wave to sweep through the room. Everyone except Steve and those HR managers was so surprised and almost could not believe what they just heard. Several persons double-checked with Steve to confirm that they did not get it wrong.
“Is this bonus only for this orientation period?” A middle-aged lady asked.
“As long as you work for K Corp and wear that red hat, you will get 50% extra based on your regular salary no matter how much other bonus you might receive. As a matter of fact, in a couple of days, HR would sign a new employment contract with those who decide to wear the red hats, and put the conditional 50% extra into the contract.”
Well, the offer just sounded more attractive.
“How much stronger would be the radiation from that red hat than what we are exposed to when wearing a headphone?” Fred asked.
“A very good question!” Steve answered. “F Corp actually did make comparisons between them in laboratory tests, and found that the radiation from the red hat is even weaker than some headphone. Any more questions?”
No one asked any more questions, at least for that moment.
“Very good. Now you can move to your desired seats.”
Many of the newbies had crossed out the option of wearing the hat after they heard that it might generate radiation, even though its intensity might be ignorable as Steve promised; but now most of them started to reevaluate the situation from very different angles. The incentive of 50% extra was too good to reject for most of the newbies.
After the move, only a very few still sat on the right side of Steve. One HR manager walked to the seats on the left side of Steve to collect the names of those who selected that side, and then walked out of the room.
“Congratulations to all of you for your decisions, no matter which side of the seats you have chosen.”
Steve smiled contentedly when he looked at the tables on his left side. “Now those who chose to be the first group of users of the new system would be led by Jane, one of our HR managers, to a special training room where F Corp has installed the system for us.”
One newbie asked Steve, “what about the mobile phone you took out of the box?”
“Thank you so much for reminding me of that.” Steve went to the lectern and picked up the mobile phone. “For those in the red hat group, you will also get this mobile phone together with the hat.”
“Would the hat be connected to the phone?”
“No. This is just an ordinary mobile phone. It has nothing to do with the IB system. You might get a mobile phone once you go back to your department anyway. The reason to give you this now is that the company wants to be sure that we can reach you all the time during this training period.”
“Do we need to return it after the training?”
“You can have it as long as you are an employee of K Corp. Both the phone and the red hat are all the properties of K Corp.”
Then people in group A, about 30 of them, stood up and followed Jane to leave the room.
~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They came to a big room on the same floor. In the center of the room, there were about five rows of small cubes; on each row, there were 10 cubes; within each cube, there was a desk and an office chair, and on each desk there was one monitor, one keyboard, one mouse, and one set of headphone with mic. No CPU box found in the small cubes, which meant that those monitors were terminals of some centralized server. Facing to those small cubes was a big cube on an area of raised floor. That would be the place for the trainer. Between that area and the small cubes was a high stand glass lectern.
There were two tables near the entrance. On the tables were several trays of delicate refreshments, several kinds of juice, and coffee. After everyone found a seat to put personal stuff, Jane asked them to treat themselves with refreshments and drinks, and then she left.
About 30 minutes later, two men came in. One of them held a big paper box and another carried a pile of paper in his hands. When they came to the front of the room, they laid the box on the floor and the pile of paper on the glass lectern. Then one of them made self-introduction for both of them.
“My name is Jeff, and I am an HR manager of K Corp. That gentleman is Don, and he is from F Corp. We will be your trainers for the rest of your orientation month.”
Jeff then opened the paper box and took out a small box that Steve had shown to the class a moment ago. “I believe that you already know from Steve what is in this box. Now we will let each one of you to get one of these boxes.”
Then he asked Don, “Shall we start?”
“Sure.”
Don went to take out a small box as well and said, “We will read the names printed on the boxes, and when you hear your name is called, please come here to get your box. Once you get the box, you will find your name in three places, one is on the top of this box, one is inside the hat, and another is on your badge plate. If you find any mistake with your name, please let us know right away.”
“Am I supposed to only use the hat that is assigned to me?” Fred asked.
“Yes,” Jeff answered.
“What if I forgot to bring it from home?” someone else asked.
“In that case, you have to ask for a temporary lease from the security desk, and they will take a common sample and configure it for your use for the day,” Jeff responded. “However, if you have more than three times of that kind of incidence for any month, you will lose your 50% extra bonus that I believe Steve already told you for that month, and you might get some further disciplinary penalty up to dismissal from your job depending on how many times you forget to bring your hat or badge.”
“That sounds scary, but makes sense,” Fred blurted.
“If you lost your hat or badge, you must report to the HR right away and each replacement of the hat would cost you $30 and each replacement of the badge would cost you $20 because they are all specially manufactured. If your loss of your hat or badge caused you to lease a temporary one, then it will count as one incidence of not bringing your hat or badge to work.” Jeff added.
“How do you know if I am not wearing the hat?” Someone asked.
“When you swipe your badge at the security gate, you need to have your hat on your head. Otherwise, the gate will not open for you. Then, once you come into any building of K Corp, if you don’t wear the hat, we will receive an alarm, and we will try to contact you by the mobile phone that you will get together with the hat.”
Jeff then picked up a sheet of paper from the pile on the lectern. “Here is the agreement for voluntarily using the IB technology provided by F Corp to K Corp. The relevant rules and disciplines including everything that I just mentioned are all written on this paper. Each of you will get one sheet of this form when you come to get your hat box. Please read through it and sign it. I need to collect every signed form before we can start our training.”
“Steve was mentioning a new contract for us, is it this one?” Alice asked.
“Not this one,” Jeff replied. “You need first to sign this agreement, and then we can sign the new contract with you later. And you will not see the 50% extra income in this agreement. But don’t worry. It will be in the new contract that you will sign with K Corp. You need to trust your employer, right?”
No one raised any more question.
“Now Don will call the names printed on the boxes, please come only when your name is called. Meanwhile, others please stay in your seats.”
Then Don started to call the names on the boxes and the trainees went up to get the boxes as well as the agreement forms.
John sat in the last row of the cubes. He did not want to get a front seat even though he had the chance to do so. Coincidentally, his seat was just behind the seat of Alice Kim.
It seemed that Don was calling the names based on the alphabetical order of last names. So Alice was called before John. When she stood up and turned back, she found John right behind her, so she said “hi” to him. John returned “hi” with a smile.
Soon after Alice, John was called by Don. He went up to receive his device set and the agreement form. After he got back to his seat, he quickly went through the agreement. Basically, it was written that the undersigned employee would voluntarily wear the red hat whenever he/she would be on the premise of K Corp and comply with relevant rules of K Corp concerning the use of IB technology, and any act of noncompliance would lead to certain disciplinary penalties, the highest level of which would be the termination of employment with K Corp.
As Jeff said, the 50% extra was not mentioned in the agreement. But John did not worry a bit about that. If he could not trust his employer, he would not have even taken this job. He signed the agreement without any hesitation. As a fresh graduate who was eager to embrace the new world, John might have most probably chosen to use the IB technology even without that 50% extra income.
~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After Jeff collected the agreement forms from the class, Don kicked off the training by switching on the connection to the central server that F Corp had installed somewhere else in that building. Then he asked the trainees to switch on their terminal monitors, so everyone could then see the login screen on the monitor. Don helped them work out the authentication and then all the trainees entered the centralized training system.
“This training program is basically the same as the orientation program for others, and you will study basically the same HR orientation materials, and take some tests with the same set of questions. The only main difference is that you will be trained to interact with the system by your mind using the IB technology.” Don started the training by introducing the broad background of the program.
“Since everyone could pretty much read the HR documents, the main challenge to you would be how to use the IB technology. So I will drive the main training, and when you have any HR related question, you might get help from Jeff. Both of us would be here throughout the whole training program.”
Jeff then chipped in, “as for the new contract with 50% extra income, you will get tomorrow or the latest the day after tomorrow.”
“Now let’s all put on the red hats,” Don said while putting a red hat on his own head. “After everyone puts on the red hat, all of you have already connected to the IB system, or more precisely, your mind has been connected to the IB system. However, the system still cannot take any command from anyone of you because the system still does not understand you. You need to train the system to understand you. So we’ll start our program by training the system to know each one of you.
By the way, you might still use the keyboard and mouse to interact with the system. As a matter of fact, at the beginning, the only way for you to interact with the system would be using the keyboard and the mouse. Later on, when the system could understand your mind, you might start to interact with the system without the keyboard and the mouse. Is there any question about this?”
Alice raised her hand, and Don said to her, “Please.”
“Would you know whether we are using our mind or the keyboards to answer questions?” Alice asked.
“Sure. The IB is smart enough to recognize if the input is from human mind or other means. The exercises or tests that you might take during the training have all been reprogrammed using IB technology, even though their contents might be the same as those for others. If you are required to use your mind for the exercise or test, but you use the keyboard or mouse, then the system would not let you pass. Is this clear?”
“Very clear, thanks,” Alice was satisfied with the answer from Don.
“Excuse me,” Fred raised his hand.
“Please,” Don let him to speak.
“What is this headphone for?” Fred raised the headphone in his hand.
“I am just about to come to this issue,” Don replied. “When you start to train the IB system to understand you, at the beginning, you will be asked to read some sentences loudly. It is not because the system would attempt to recognize your voice. The system does not listen to your sound. It only listens to your mind. But when you read it loudly, it would be easier for the system to understand you. Once the system gets familiar with your mind, you will be required to read only in your heart without making any sound. But you all see that your little cube is obviously not insulated. So nobody can focus doing anything when everyone else was shouting like crazy.”
The class burst into laughter.
Don continued, “That is why we need the headphones for you guys at the beginning, which would block noise for you, allow you to speak to the microphone, and let you hear when others speak.”
Then he picked up a headphone set and waved the headphone in his hand. “Besides, this is a specially designed headset. There is a small switch on its left side. You need to switch it on before you can use the mic, and don’t forget to switch it off after you use the mic because we don’t want to hear you screaming to the machine when you train the IB system.”
The class all laughed.
“But you don’t need to worry that your ear might be blown up if someone forgot to switch off his mic and shout to it. This headset is specially designed for this training, which can only pass a certain level of sound,” Don explained.
Then he instructed the trainees to open a software application on their screens. That was the software they would use for this first phase of training. It would display a sentence selected from the HR documents, and let the user repeatedly read it out until the system can understand his/her meaning conveyed by his/her mind. At the beginning the sentence would be very short, and it would get longer when the system could understand the user better.
Don said to the class, “It takes different lengths of time for different persons to progress when you train the machine. So we will not do it together. Everyone would work on his or her own, by following the instruction of the system, to complete this phase. Those who complete it earlier could make some flexible arrangement of their time when it is approved by Jeff or me. But you still need to come every day. We might also let you do something for fun in the class.”
John and Alice progressed very fast with the training in the first class. Both were new college graduates with some language-related educational background. But the age was not actually the main factor since F Corp had already found that sometimes older people could interact with the IB system better. The main factors that made both John and Alice to progress fast in communicating with IB system by their mind, as John found later on, might be related to their language related educational background, as well as the fact that both of them were smart top students in college.
~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was close to 10 pm when John arrived home. He left the training classroom around 5:30pm with Alice and a few others. There was a happy hour for the newbies in the cafeteria hosted by the HR. They went there to social with others and celebrate their new jobs. After the happy hour, John, Alice, and Fred went to a Chinese hot pot restaurant nearby for their dinner. Then he came back home.
It was a long, busy and exciting day for John. What he experienced and achieved on his first day of working for his career was far beyond his expectation. Not only was the 50% extra a big surprise, but also the whole perspective of becoming one of the front runners of a new time in human history. In addition to that, he felt happy that he made some new friends, especially with that Alice, a pretty and smart girl who was also a new graduate of the year.
John sent a few short texts to brief what happened for the first day to his family and a couple of close friends. Then he did not waste much time before he went to bed. He was too tired and the next day would be another busy day for training.
But no sooner had he shut off the light than his mobile phone rang. He picked up the phone. A familiar voice came from the phone.