The Employees - Olga Ravn's masterfully constructed science fiction tale of a crew of humans and humanoids aboard a spaceship, returning with what they term 'objects' from a distant planet.
Since there are a good number of excellent reviews already posted providing incisive analysis of the novella as a whole, I'll take a different approach and zero in on the first three statements in a novella composed entirely of employee statements.
STATEMENT 004
One would think highly specialized scientists would be chosen to interact with extraterrestrial life but no, the organization sends in what appears to be a maid. A maid! Why would the people at the top send in a mere low-level employee? As noted in the opening statement, the reason is clear: for the expressed purpose of determining employee performance and the possibility for enhanced production.
This is madness! How many philosophers and highly creative thinkers in the arts and sciences have imagined first contact with intelligent life in outer space? Here's what the employee reports along with my comments:
“It's not hard to clean them. The big one, I think, sends out a kind of hum, or is it just something I imagine? Maybe that's not what you mean? I'm not sure, but isn't it female? The cords are long, spun from blue and silver fibers. They keep her up with a strap made out of calf-colored leather with prominent white stitching.”
I'll assume the employee is female and call her Ann. Anyway, Ann's primary responsibility seems to be keeping the objects and the room clean. And Ann reports the big object is humming. Might this be a first attempt to communicate species to species?
“One day she'd laid an egg. If I'm allowed to say something here, I don't think you should have her hung up all the time. The egg had cracked when it dropped. The egg mass was on the floor underneath her and the thready end of the shoot was stuck in the egg mass.”
I'm sure many, many biologists would have given anything to examine an egg from an extraterrestrial. And to take the needed care to make sure the lifeform was given every opportunity to hatch. Not the case here – a supreme example of unspeakable stupidity and insensitivity. Carl Sagan would have cried. Ann simply removes the cracked egg and doesn't even bother to inform anyone on the ship of the remarkable phenomenon. Why should she? She knows her role as an employee working for an organization focused exclusively on performance and productivity.
“The next day there was a hum. Louder than that, like an electric rumble. And the day after that she was quiet. She hasn't made a sound since then.”
Perhaps this was a final attempt of the extraterrestrial to communicate but then realizing any attempt was futile.
STATEMENT 012
“I don't like to go in there. The three on the floor seem especially hostile, or maybe it's indifference. As if by being so deeply indifferent they want to hurt me. I can't understand why I feel I've got to touch them. Two of them are always cold, one is warm. You never know which is going to be the warm one.”
This employee strikes me as a complete dullard. He or she doesn't consider what could be a desperate desire to communicate.
“Three individual units attuned to each other. I've seen intimacy between them. It frightens me. I hate it. I've known many more like them. It's as if at any time, one of them can always be the others. As if they don't actually exist on their own, but only in the idea of each other.”
Actually, such attunement can be observed in a flock of birds or a school of fish. Why is such behavior frightening and worthy of hate? Who knows, maybe if the employee sat in silent meditation in the room, they could be included in a larger group attunement.
“They've got a language that breaks me down when I go in. The language is that's there's many, that they're not one, that one of them is the reiteration of all of them.”
Fascinating! What would an accomplished linguist make of their language? We'll never know, after all, such knowledge has little to do with employee performance and productivity.
STATEMENT 006
“When did the dream begin? It must have been after the first couple of weeks. In the dream, all the pores of my skin are wide open, and I see that in each one of them there's a tiny stone. I feel I can't recognize myself. I scratch and scratch at my skin until it bleeds.”
Food for a wealth of reflection. Conceivably this is a last ditch attempt of the extraterrestrials to get through to these thick-witted humans. At least in dreams our rational, conscious mind is less active and we can, if we're open and receptive at all, be made aware of aspects of life that are usually closed off from us.
I'll stop here. I've only hit on a few of the many facets of Olga Ravn's unique novella, a book I found progressively both more provocative and disturbing with every turn of the page. What is it about organizations reducing humans to mere employees to be examined for productivity? Is this the ultimate assault on humanity?
5/18/22 UPDATE: ONE MORE STATEMENT
STATEMENT OIO
The statement in full:
"Don't go into the second room. It's not nice in there. You've got the choice. You can make us go in your place. We've already been in there. You can still save yourselves. I don't know if I'm human anymore. Am I human? Does it say in your files what I am?"
Olga Ravn has gobs of black humor seeping between the lines here. The employee, Ann perhaps, is doing her lackey best to warn the boss about what might happen if she/he enters the infamous second room, a room that exudes a toxic presence, so much so that it can strip a person of their humanity, even erase all memories of ever having been human. Ann is completely powerless - she's a flunky, a drone, an underling reduced to asking her boss to check the files to see if there's documentation noting who and what she is. Am I human? Am I a cyborg? Please tell me.
The one possible positive note: Ann appears to be willing to sacrifice herself to save her boss. Is this the ultimate in employee subordination? In stronger language: the ultimate in organizational brainwashing: Ann and all the other lackeys thinking: it's fine if the organization dehumanizes me but as a loyal employee I can still do what's best for the boss and the organization as a whole.
Pathetic.
Danish poet and novelist Olga Ravn
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