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The Two-Thirty Guided Tour

Page 2

reports anymore. Marketing department up and informed me they weren't going to issue any more Production Standard Errata Bulletins or Postage Analysis for Samples. 'Chaos,' I said to them, but they shook their heads at me, and said I didn't understand. I didn't understand. And I said, 'I understand one thing. I understand that no-one else understands the meaning of the word "work" anymore.'

"However, even inspectors' attempts to help were resisted by a minority of individuals, an average of one in 27. Following a statistical survey published in 2015, the phenomenon acquired its name, 'Hewitt's Syndrome', after Vernon Hewitt, a senior accounts clerk at the then Meneuchen/Fabel PLC (now MFDeutchland).

"This display was created to show the difficulties employers and legislators had in dealing with Hewitt's Syndrome cases. Patients proved to be so obsessed with their daily work routines they hardly reacted to changes in their environment. As I'll demonstrate...."

She's knocking on that window now. I hate it when she does that.

"There, you see? That lack of reaction is typical in Hewitt's Syndrome sufferers. In the case of Vernon Hewitt himself, his employers could not even get him to read the letter of dismissal they finally had to submit to him."

Of course I read it! Fools. I ignored it. It was financial year end anyway; who can think of leaving at a time like that? People grew a little more awkward with me, true, but then I'm used to that. Delayed me perhaps six, seven hours more in getting my results, but by hiding under my desk I was able to work overnight, and I still submitted reports by day six of the new year.

"Mr. Hewitt's firm eventually employed security guards to keep him from entering the main doors outside legal working hours. This succeeded for a few days, but the pull of the obsession was so strong that Hewitt actually hired a helicopter to land him on the roof of the building. He got into his office through the ventilation shafts."

You tell them. You can solve any problem if you just apply yourself.

"From that time on, Hewitt lived 24 hours at his desk, sleeping under it, if indeed he did sleep, living on canteen sandwiches and water from the cooler. It was during this time that his marriage ended."

Ended long before that, but she didn't mind my being in the house. Eventually I didn't need that either.

"Meneuchen/Fabel were faced with the unpleasant decision either to arrest and imprison one of their most reliable and hard-working employees, or find a way to treat his illness. Initial sessions with an occupational psychologist were not encouraging."

Not helpful. Wanted to talk all the time, and what did I have to talk about? Just time wasted that I could have spent getting things done. I remember one day she says, 'I think you need some help, Mr. Hewitt.' I say, 'I do. I have a backlog of Retro-Rebate reports and no time to download the data and group it by customer geographic location and annual company turnover.' She says, 'I don't think you understand, Mr. Hewitt.' That again. There is a limit to what anyone can take. So I hit her. I did. I wasn't glad for it but I was under a lot of pressure, you see. And she should have known that; that's what she's paid her salary for.