The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Success Machine, by Henry Slesar

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Title: The Success Machine

Author: Henry Slesar

Release Date: August 1, 2008 [EBook #26168]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE
SUCCESS
MACHINE

By HENRY SLESAR

_Mechanical brains are all the
rage these days, so General
Products just had to have one.
But the blamed thing almost
put them out of business. Why?
It had no tact. It insisted
upon telling the truth!_

The Personnelovac winked, chittered, chortled, chuckled, and burped a
card into the slot. Colihan picked it up and closed his eyes in prayer.

"Oh, Lord. Let this one be all right!"

He read the card. It was pink.

"_Subject #34580. Apt. Rat. 34577. Psych. Clas. 45. Last Per. Vac._

"_An. 3/5/98. Rat. 19. Cur. Rat. 14._

"_Analysis: Subject demonstrates decreased mechanical coordination.
Decrease in work-energy per man-hour. Marked increase in waste-motion
due to subject's interest in non-essential activities such as
horseracing. Indication of hostility towards superiors._

"_Recommendation: Fire him._"

Colihan's legs went weak. He sat down and placed the card in front of
him. Then, making sure he was unobserved, he broke a company rule and
began to Think.

_Something's wrong_, he thought. _Something is terribly wrong.
Twenty-four pink cards in the last month. Twenty-four out of forty.
That's a batting average of_--He tried to figure it out with a pencil,
but gave it up as a bad job. _Maybe I'll run it through the Averagovac_,
he thought. _But why bother? It's obvious that it's high. There's
obviously SOMETHING WRONG._

The inter-com beeped.

"Ten o'clock department head meeting, Mr. Colihan."

[Illustration: The steel brain was having more fun than people.]

"All right, Miss Blanche."

He rose from his chair and took the pink card with him. He stood before
the Action Chute for a moment, tapping the card against his teeth. Then,
his back stiffened with a sense of duty, and he sl