This is the story of a man named Stanley. Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was employee # 427.
Employee # 427’s job was simple: he sat at his desk in room 427 and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to
him through a monitor on his desk, telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order. This
is what employee 427 did every day of every month of every year, and although others might have considered it soul
rending, Stanley relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been made exactly for this job. And
Stanley was happy.
And then one day, something very peculiar happened, something that would forever change Stanley, something he would
never quite forget. He had been at his desk for nearly an hour when he realized that not one, single order had
arrived on the monitor for him to follow. No one had shown up to give him instructions, call a meeting, or even say
hi. Never in all his years at the company had this happened, this complete isolation. Something was very clearly
wrong. Shocked, frozen solid, Stanley found himself unable to move for the longest time, but as he came to his wits
and regained his senses, he got up from his desk and stepped out of his office.
