Up in
Spacecity
Keith had worked more hours a week than he had ever done on earth. Yet it never felt like he was working. Each working day felt like he was just 'being'. Doing something he would normally do had he had the day off.
This was probably why he was so well liked by his coworkers. Whenever somebody needed a shft picked up, Keith was the guy to ask.
Didn't make sense to him. Why not pick up a shift? More money and what else were they going to do. Back on earth it made sense not to overwork. There were things to do. Places to be. Weekends were sacred.
But inside of a tin can in orbit? What would you miss out on.
They had a system that allowed you to swap shifts. There was a bidding system to allow desperate employees to sell their shift at a marked up price. The highest Keith ever got paid was 2.2 times the normal rate. The girl really wanted to take the day off for her birthday.
The system had been developed by some small software consultancy in the Midwest. They had built an
SPA
(single page application) and had cut corners. so a lot of data that you weren't supposed to see was accessible on the frontend if you opened up the console.
Keith learned this from one of his braniac coworkers had shown him. It was no big deal though, because the bidding system was pretty transparent and so there was nothing you could really game by looking at this data.
It wasn't like having insider information on
wall street
. Traders spent enormous sums for
Bloomberg terminals
so that they could have the fastest connection to the most vetted information. Some trading houses refused to use wifi because it wasn't as fast as a direct cable to the exchange. Crazy things people were willing to do for money.
Keith considered himself pretty sane in comparison to people on wall street. Picking up shifts from coworkers. Win win.
He thought of this as soon as the lights were turned off again. That's what he did in that dark room when 'they' hit the switch. Nothing else to do really. Walking around in the dark he might trip and knock himself out.
Although, he though. If he did do that, maybe they'd open the door and send someone in to check on him.
But it was too risky. He might actually injure or kill himself.