Tyranny Of The Time Clock
The Price of Minutes
She blamed it on a Higher Power. This included everything from The Vast Universe to all the various flavors of gods in the Spiritual Smorgasbord. When her astrologically-minded friend provided the calendar dates she knew it was Mercury Retrograde at play. Her conspiracy-theory-minded friend reminded her that the Illuminati and New World Order are behind everything.
It was obviously out of her control, that much she knew.
Since the punch-in process went digital last year she had added the possibility that Russians were meddling with the computer data.
And boy did she have to keep her annoyance to herself when the response to the panoply of background machinations that she presented to her employers were smugly played down as excuses.
It began with the alarm clock—which some sprite would quite often turn off during the night. She always left on time, or close enough that she knew she could make it up on the bus, or the walk to or from it.
The buses! Either they were way behind schedule or she’d see them leaving the stop as she approached. Always one driver who is ahead of schedule, waiting an extra minute at every stop, damn it. The traffic was apparently some vast puppeteer’s game—she couldn’t see the strings but sensed the intentional…
