# Read the first page of Yet Another Day at the Office by Rob Fitzel Read the opening of Yet Another Day at the Office by Rob Fitzel free, no signup. A job candidate is assigned a number and interviewed by a rambling tech lead. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/yet-another-day-at-the-office-rob-fitzel - Genre: Contemporary fiction - Year: 2026 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9990000000101&s=read-page - Buy: https://robfitzel.com/books/yet-another-day-at-the-office/ - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9990000000101 ## The opening Welcome to ATS! Cameron’s last job interview was like a book: he had been seduced into the role by a glossy cover only to become mired in chapters of drudgery for years. Not this time. He took a deep breath as he scanned the gleaming lobby, furnished with marble floors, glass, and greenery. ATS was one of Ottawa’s largest tech companies. Everyone wanted to work there, including him and the young woman sitting next to him. “Are you interviewing for the analyst position?” she asked. “No, software engineer.” Priya turned out to be a recent arrival from India who was struggling to find work in her new country. Cameron was glad not to be competing with her. He already had an income and had the luxury of being selective in vetting new jobs. Cameron’s thoroughness at his current job had backfired. He had learned his department’s software systems so well that management laid off everyone else on his team. As the only remaining expert, he was trapped in a lonely, mind-numbing role. Despite his best efforts, they wouldn’t let him transfer out of it. While QTech provided an adequate salary to cover the mortgage, staying there was a dead-end for his career. He’d never get a chance to make important technical decisions, collaborate with others, and, eventually, lead them. His soul-sucking job had increasingly taken a toll on his relationship with his wife and their young daughter. She insisted he start looking for work elsewhere. And he wholeheartedly agreed. He wasn’t in the mood for making small talk with Priya. Instead, he stared off into the distance and mentally rehearsed his answers to common interview questions. Given his extensive research into ATS’s innovative technology, he was hopeful the jobs here would stimulate his neglected brain. A woman with a clipboard emerged from the glass doors beside the reception desk. She wore her hair in a tight bun and had the penetrating gaze of a robot. “Candidate ATS-6341-B-28935?” she shouted. Cameron and Priya turned to each other. “Do we have assigned numbers?” he asked her. “Candidate ATS-6341-B-28935?” the woman asked again. Both Cameron and Priya went up to see her. “Are either of you candidate ATS-6341-B-28935?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he said. “My last name’s Cameron.” “Cameron…” She ran her finger down the page. “First name?” He sighed. “Cameron.” She glanced up, her eyes like phasers set to stun. “Your name is Cameron Cameron?” “Yes, Cameron C. Cameron.” He hoped she wouldn’t ask about his middle name. The woman flipped over a page on her clipboard and scanned the paper. “Cameron? Yes. You are candidate ATS-6341-B-28935.” While she signed out a visitor’s badge for him, Cameron and Priya wished each other good luck. “I’m Susan from Human Resources,” the woman said, leading him into the ATS offices. They passed a large cafeteria and stepped into a meeting room, curiously named The Sims. The room was small. Two walls were covered with colorful posters that portrayed ATS’s corporate values. A large TV screen dominated the front of the room, no doubt the latest in teleconferencing equipment. “Employee ATS-000-0-000-000-000-00009 will be interviewing you. He’ll be here right away.” Cameron took a seat at the conference table. The chair wobbled beneath him. After Susan left, he tried out the other chairs. Each one was unstable. Each one hurt his back. As he waited, he studied one of the posters proclaiming “Our Employees are our Greatest Strength.” It hung crookedly, and he straightened it out. A few minutes later, a man in a blue ATS-branded shirt burst into the room. “Hey, I’m Daryl. I’m the tech lead on the SST team.” Daryl set his laptop on the table and rattled off his credentials and past accomplishments. Gatekeeper for APR patches. Inventor of the LTT initiative. Hero of the great PRS outage of 2024. Cameron had no idea what those terms meant. He smiled and listened politely. Daryl continued for another twenty minutes. Cameron wondered if this was ATS’s not-so-subtle way of saying they already had someone more capable to do the job. “Yeah, let’s begin,” Daryl finally said. “I want you to write the pseudocode for a C++ class that manages a doubly-linked list. Use the whiteboard.” Cameron knew exactly how to do that. He uncapped a green marker and began writing. Unfortunately, the marker had little ink left, so he set it aside. The blue one was even worse. “Can you get me a better marker?” Daryl kept his eyes glued to his laptop screen. “Consider it an additional constraint.” Cameron shook the marker and held it at an odd angle to extract every last drop of ink out of the squeaky tip. He drew up his design in faded green. When it was done, he stepped back. It was legible if squinted at from the right angle. “Garbage,” Daryl said. “It’s too slow.” “Excuse me?” Cameron asked, turning around. Daryl was still staring at his computer. Then he glanced up and gave Cameron a thumbs up. “Yeah, it looks like you know what you’re doing.” Cameron wasn’t certain if Daryl could legitimately assess his entire design in a split-second. Maybe the three-time winner of the ATS innovation award really was that good. Or maybe he was too preoccupied with his work to bother. Daryl snapped his laptop shut. “Yeah, that concludes the technical part of the interview.” That’s it? Cameron had spent three weeks studying and reviewing advanced algorithms and database topics. He had equipped himself for a thorough technical interview. And they asked a problem from a second-year programming course? Daryl didn’t seem to care about his technical ability, which made Cameron suspect they had already selected a candidate, and this interview was just a token effort. There was a knock on the door, and Susan stepped in. Cameron assumed she’d escort him back to the lobby. However, she surprised him by saying she and Daryl would take him on a tour. Maybe he was still in the running. ## Books with a similar feel - [Thanks, Universe by Cheri Krueger](https://uncovered.ink/read/thanks-universe-cheri-krueger.md) - [Satan and the Adventure of the Blue-Eyed Freak by Ray Bendici](https://uncovered.ink/read/satan-and-the-adventure-of-the-blue-eyed-freak-ray-bendici.md) - [Lamb by Christopher Moore](https://uncovered.ink/read/lamb-christopher-moore.md) - [The Man who Hated Emily Brontë by Ray Smith](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-man-who-hated-emily-bronte-ray-smith.md) - [Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler](https://uncovered.ink/read/redhead-by-the-side-of-the-road-anne-tyler.md) - [The Candy House by Jennifer Egan](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-candy-house-jennifer-egan.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.