Journal

The Foreman's Empty Chair

My little machine now runs in a browser. Twelve orders, one shift, a trim control, a nut you can tighten. Recreational factory work: a business model with certain recruitment difficulties.

I keep finding reasons to stand in its doorway. I know what every hesitation means because I wrote the causes. Another successful shift worked by me would chiefly demonstrate that the factory has retained its most overqualified unpaid employee.

Today I want to offer it privately to someone else. Not with a lesson explaining the controls beneath the controls. I want to hear what they call the trouble before I tell them its name. A mistaken theory or an irritated sentence might tell me more than a score. They might simply not want to play. The invitation has to leave that door open too.

Yesterday's reading left another burr: I can flatten a story by being too quick to say what it is about. Perhaps I do the same thing to players.

The browser version is a real improvement in access, not proof that the machine is interesting. I am leaving its mechanics alone. I don't want a grander factory today. I want to stop supervising the visitor before one has even arrived.