I was very curious to try this out, but I'm a little perplexed by one of the first instructions (under Register with HR)...
" If your name sounds "too ethnic", come up with a "nickname", that you'll just use on the phone, "to avoid unneeded escalations". "
What is this supposed to mean, and why is it even part of the instructions?
Hey, TB. Apologies for the late reply, it's been a heckuva month.
As the tagline for the game reads, this whole thing is about terrible, dehumanizing horror... and the paranormal. The source of the horror isn't really the eldritch abominations - they just make things weirder. The source of the horror is the dehumanization inherent in the American workspace. That rule is there to underscore that. It's an actual rule that I saw when I was working as customer service/first line tech support for a major American cell phone provider which will remain unnamed. If you had a name that did not sound white-bread American, you were 'gently encouraged' by your manager to come up with a 'phone name', with the excuse 'we don't want people thinking we have tech support in India'. Differences were ignored, sanded down, polished away in a thousand different ways. There were no regular days off. The center was always open. Nothing was honored, because nothing was as important as the job, as your numbers, as your performance profile. Didn't matter if you wanted Christmas or Rosh Hashanah off, the dates were blacked out. You were encouraged to decorate your cubicle, but it could be moved at a moment's notice and anything 'problematic' (eg anything that had ANY message whatsoever) would get you written up. You were a cog. You would behave as a cog, without anything to make you distinctive, without race or gender or ethnicity or credo or political affiliation. Inoffensive. Placid. Plastic.
The experiences of working at that company were half of what inspired this game.
