Bentley Little - The Store

The mayor looked down at one of the papers in front of him. "Do I have a motion on the turn lane?" he asked.

Dick Wise nodded. "I make a motion that we accept the drafted resolution as is and encumber the funds to complete the highway construction contractually required of us, the contractor who will perform the work to be determined by the bid process."

"Seconded," Bill Reid said.

The motion was passed unanimously.

The mayor shuffled through the papers before him. "In a somewhat related matter, I have here a petition signed by downtown businesses and shopkeepers.

All of the merchants on Main and Allen streets." He looked to his left, then right, at the other members of the council flanking him on the dais. "I trust you all have your copies?" Assenting nods. "Very well, then. The petition asks us to either lift our current sign ordinance or allow temporary exemptions to the ordinance. Specifically, we're being asked to allow banners to be placed in front of stores or business, on the building fronts or on light poles."

Bill looked around the council chambers. "How come none of the merchants are here?" he asked Ben. "Where's Street?"

"How come it's not on the agenda?" the editor replied. He shook his head.

"They're trying to pull a fast one here. This'll be my top story. I'm going to nail their asses on this one."

The mayor glanced over at Ben. "Pursuant to Section Four, Paragraph Five of the Juniper Town Charter, I make a motion that the petition and its request for changes, exemptions, and/or variances to the sign ordinance be added to the agenda."

"Seconded."

Passed.

"We will open this matter for public discussion," the mayor said.

A quiet, nondescript man who'd been sitting unobtrusively at the back of the audience stood, walked to the podium.

"Please state your name and address," the mayor said.

"My name's Ralph Keyes. I'm here as a representative of The Store, located at 111 Highway 180." The man's voice was smooth, confident, with no discernible accent. "I would like to state for the record that we feel allowing exemptions to the existing sign ordinance would give preferential treatment to certain businesses and would constitute unfair competition. If such a course of action is taken by the council, we would be compelled to protest this matter and proceed to litigation. In our opinion, it is not the town's responsibility to promote or champion individual businesses." He spread his arms, smiled insincerely. "This is supposed to be a free country with a free market system.

By its very nature, this means that some businesses will succeed and other businesses will fail. It is not government's responsibility to intercede on behalf of individual merchants merely because they are floundering in the marketplace." Keyes nodded respectfully. "Thank you, Mr. Mayor."

He returned to his seat in the back of the council chambers, and the mayor glanced over the sparse audience. "Does anyone else wish to speak on this matter?"

Bill stood, walked to the podium.

He didn't think about it, he just did it, and he was not even sure what he intended to say as he faced the council.

"My name is Bill Davis," he said into the microphone. "I live at 121 Rock Springs Lane. I heard what Mr. Keyes said, and I understand his position and the position of The Store, but I have to tell you that I disagree with him one hundred percent. By your own admission, the council provided incentives to The Store in order to lure it to Juniper. Rules were bent or ignored, exemptions were granted. I think all our local businesses are asking is that they be given the same latitude, that they be allowed to compete on a level playing field. I mean, you're building _roads_ for The Store. The least you can do is let some of our local merchants hang signs in front of their shops so that people will know what they have, what they're offering, what's available. It's not an unreasonable request. And as for this idea of government intervention, you were elected by the people of Juniper to do what's best for the town of Juniper. I think that means you should extend a helping hand to our local businesses the same way you did to this national corporation. _That_ would be in the best interests of your constituents. _That_ was what you were elected to do."

The mayor nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Davis, I, too, wish to state my unequivocal support for our local merchants and businessmen. They are indeed the backbone of our town. Unfortunately, though, our Master Plan specifically prohibits the exhibition of signs and banners of the sort requested in this petition."

"The Store didn't have to follow _any_ of the Master Plan!"

"No, that was a special case. We made an exception to the rule. But we are not going to change that rule simply because we did grant that one exception.

And, I may add, The Store is now the largest employer in Juniper. I don't think I'm overstating the case when I say that our local economy hinges on how well The Store does. We knew that going in, and that was why we offered the incentives. To bolster the economic strength of our town."

"But you just said the town has less money, is going to have to cut programs and lay people off. Our local businesses are dying --"

"Your time is up, Mr. Davis. Thank you for your comments."

"I'm not through."

"Yes, you are."

"I'd like to be granted an extension."

"Denied. Please sit down, Mr. Davis, and allow others a chance to speak."

There were no others, and after a quick discussion among themselves, the members of the council voted to deny the request of the petitioning businesses.

Ben smiled cynically. "Democracy in action."

Bill shook his head. "Assholes."

He sat through the rest of the meeting -- routine business that offended no one and affected no one and sped quickly by. Afterward, he quickly got up out of his chair and started toward the back seats. He wanted to talk to Keyes, the Store representative.

But though he had seen no one leave the chambers, though neither door had opened or closed, Keyes was nowhere to be seen. Bill hurried outside, scanning the small parking lot, but it was empty.

The man was gone.

2

Bill sat in front of his computer, brooding.

He stared at the page of instructions he'd just completed. The program for which he was writing documentation was going to put several people out of work.

Hell, it might even eliminate a whole department. From what he could tell, this accounting system could probably be run by two people -- a supervisor and a data entry operator -- instead of however many individuals made up the current accounting staff at The Store's corporate headquarters.

It was something that had always been in his mind, the knowledge that his work was contributing to the "downsizing," "rightsizing," and "outsourcing" of America, that while he had a good life and a good job, they came at the expense of others. His company's systems were designed to replace people with computer programs, to decrease payroll costs and increase profit margins, to boost returns to stockholders without regard to the individuals who actually worked for a corporation.

But it was not something he had really focused on until now.

It was The Store connection that had really brought it home to him, that had made him realize how basically parasitic Automated Interface was. The ironic thing was that although he was indirectly helping to put people out of work, his job was pretty damn close to superfluous. Theoretically, documentation was necessary. Customers needed to be provided with instructions and descriptions of the software they purchased so that they could install it in their computers and use it. But the programs these days were pretty self-explanatory, the people who bought them were usually computer literate, and if users had problems they usually just called up the toll-free customer service number and asked questions of the support staff.