I

All year they were telling us that the company was sailing with the wind. All the graphs showed rising trends: more clients, more turnover. And also more work: that is why they were always hiring more sales staff. Every ten or twelve days we saw new faces, although it seemed to me that they were the same mugs with different ties. That suit, that laptop, that aggressive smile, the hurry, the repetition of the same platitudes on the phone, that insufferable tone of “this is of vital importance” in every email. The one who always wore a pink tie had written to us a few days ago to tell us that we had to change the font used for the name of our company in the email program. Einstein’s letter to President Roosevelt warning that Hitler was on the point of developing the atomic bomb was written in a less angry tone.

What we engineers could not understand was why, in spite of the magnificent financial results of the year, they had drastically reduced the December bonus. We were all expecting to get an explanation at the meeting. It was yet another of those never-ending meetings during which they told us how great we are and what great dicks we had. Pink Tie hadn’t been talking for ten minutes and I was already completely fed up. I started day dreaming, my mind wandered and I remembered the story of the iron pyrite.

In the first two or three years of school, no child did anything. We were nothing, just like blank canvas to be scribbled on. Generally, we just kept quiet and watched each other. Over time, each of our personalities began to take form: many kids began to act, to express themselves, to differentiate themselves from others. One made us laugh, another sang, another ran faster than anyone, another jumped higher, another made sharp observations about things, another always gave the right answer to the teacher’s questions. There was one kid who could lick his own nose, another who could spit out of the window and hit the building over the way, even one who had read a whole book, without pictures, and appeared to enjoy it. Our identities were being formed.

Other kids kept on not saying anything and looking at the others. No one talked about them: we talked about those who stood out in some way. To stand out was good: many people knew your name, smiled at you, said hello to you. Now you were no longer a blank canvas; you were something. Something beautiful, or perhaps something original, or maybe simply something; but you were something. And you were recognised for it. Sometimes you were awarded a pat or a furtive kiss, and then you felt something big that you didn’t begin to understand, but every single one of your cells seemed to be crying out, “We are getting on OK, here, mate.” The survival of the species was at stake.

One day I was approached by one of those kids who was always looking and never said anything. I didn’t know his name. “Look,” he said mysteriously. He took out a piece of golden metal from his pocket and held it out to me. I stayed looking at the tiny golden ball for a few seconds. It was grubby. The kid’s fingers were grubby too. I raised my eyes: his face was also grubby. He looked at me very seriously and spoke to me in a low voice, as if he were revealing a hugely important secret.

“This is not gold,” he paused, “It’s iron pyrite.”

He was motionless for a few seconds and then he returned the grubby little ball to his pocket. He looked at me, arched his eyebrows and went off with a smile. I remained thoughtful, suspecting something. I didn’t know what iron pyrite was: I supposed that no one at seven years of age knew either. But this kid knew. He had a piece of it. He had to be a silly prat.

I didn’t ask his name; I wasn’t interested. For me, that anonymous kid became Iron Pyrite. Sometimes I would see him in the school playground. He was always showing someone his grubby little ball; some kids seemed interested, taking the ball so they could look at it close up, passing it from one to another. Then they returned it to Iron Pyrite who wore a smile of self-satisfaction.

It took me a while, but at the end I came to some conclusions. Iron Pyrite also wanted to stand out, but he neither ran faster nor jumped higher than anyone else. When he showed you that little ball, you automatically thought that it was gold. He told you that you were wrong. Oh, I could have sworn that it was gold, you would say. And if you were wrong and he right, then he had to be cleverer than you. You were a student who, after school, would go home to eat bread with Nutella and watch Sesame Street. Iron Pyrite was picked up by helicopter and he went with his parents, who were scientific adventurers called Thomas and Linda, to explore the Amazon. In one of their many adventures, they had got lost fleeing from the fearsome Potiguara tribe (liver eaters), had swum across the Orinoco and jumping over fresh water crocodiles and sharks, they hid in the volcano of the dark tarantulas, where by chance they found the entrance to the cave of the green scorpion. At the end of that dark cave they spotted a golden glow. They crawled over the ground silently so they would not awaken the mutant bloodthirsty bats and reaching the end of the cave they bumped into the scorpion, who was three metres long. Just then, the volcano started to erupt. Thomas grabbed hold of the enormous green sting and Linda jumped between the claws of the scorpion and ran in the direction of the gleaming golden seam. One of the walls opened up and started to spew incandescent lava. Linda glanced quickly at the wall, but filled with renewed courage, returned to the golden seam. It seemed as if she was about to get there, when suddenly, a voice shouted, “No, mum, no! “Its iron pyrite!”

Linda came out of her trance and the three fled at top speed, pursued by a river of lava and the giant scorpion. They jumped down an unexpected hole and fell down the crystalline waterfall into the deepest part of the lake of the bloodthirsty leeches. Now, on the banks of the lake they pulled off the leeches and smiled peacefully while the evening fell over the jungle. “But how did you know that it was iron pyrite?” Linda asked her son. He looked at her, arched his eyebrows and walked away in silence towards the gathering darkness.

Iron Pyrite seemed to hint at all this, and people seemed to believe him. I thought that he was no more than a silly prat who carried a ball of dirt in his pocket.

II

Pink Tie continued talking about motivation, effort, sales strategies, “It is a difficult market and everyone wants a slice of the cake. It is a race, and we have to come first.” Suddenly he looked at us very seriously and posed a question, “In this race, who do you think will take away the smallest piece of the cake?”

Silence. Suspense, curiosity. “The last,” someone whispered. Pink Tie smiled wryly, waited a few seconds and said in a low voice as if revealing a very hugely important secret, “The second,” he said and paused. “In this race, the second will take away nothing.”

More silence. Expressions of surprise. “But I could have sworn that it was gold,” I seemed to hear.

“We are very good. But we have to be the first.” He concluded.

Then came a similar kind of guy but with a green tie and made us look at a ton of graphs on the screen while he lectured us about the success of our product. Suddenly, he switched off the projector, gave us a smile of complicity and said, “I have to confess something.”

“I am the bastard that reduced your bonus”, I thought he was about to say. People looked at him with puzzled expressions.

The guy sat on the edge of the table and crossed his legs, letting us see one of his socks. He breathed deeply and said, “We are very much hated as a company.”

A pause. My God, who would have thought it? This is the end! We thought we were the cat’s whiskers! But we are finished, we are on our way down from the top to the dole queue!

“Yes. Although you may not believe it, they hate us,” he paused. “Our competitors hate us to death. They hate us because they dream of getting where we are today. And when they arrive, we will no longer be there; because we will already be much higher.”

He smiled at us and arched his eyebrows. People clapped. He walked away slowly away towards the darkness.

I felt that we were still in the school playground. But something had changed: it was we engineers, hired because we ran faster, jumped higher, read entire books, and answered all the questions correctly; now we were silent and looking at each other. Those who stood out now were the silly prats with their little balls of dirt.

They had reached high, very high. They had overcome sharks and tarantulas, had killed the fearful green scorpion and had succeeded in taking away a good piece of the gleaming golden seam. The only problem was that the company had not realised that the golden seam was only iron pyrite. They had bought it thinking it was gold and had paid for it with our Christmas bonus.

While we were leaving the meeting hall, I felt something big, very big. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but every single one of my cells seemed to be crying out to me, “We’re not doing so well here, mate!“

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Mi blog esto, mi blog lo otro. Si tú me votas yo te voto. Pásense por lasLagrimasDelCangrejo en blogpota.com. Compartan un pedacito fugaz del sueño etéreo de una estrella en LaCharcaDeNata.egocities.com. Hola, quería recomendarles desinteresadamente el Blog de Chamorro, es magnífico, lo he descubierto por casualidad, firmado Luis Chamorro. Hola ejejje chavales komo estamos ¡¡venga ke ya vamos terceros en el premio de literatura ajaja!!! posted by chespir.

Pasen y vean, señoras y señores. La segunda convocatoria del siempre controvertido Concurso de Blogs de 20minutos, en su modalidad “premio al blog más votado”, les invita al Gran Circo de la Vergüenza Ajena. Todo vale con tal de conseguir votos: autopromocionarse ad nauseam, hacerse cuatrocientas cuentas falsas (este año no cuela), prometer jamones a los votantes o crear pactos estratégicos (es lo que se lleva esta temporada: el intercambio de votos).

Resulta sorprendente la desfachatez con la que el personal se lanza a la caza del voto. Se supone que para ganar un concurso de blogs uno debe preocuparse simplemente de tener un buen blog, al igual que para ganar unas elecciones uno debe preocuparse de tener un buen programa. Pero no. Se nos llena la boca de integridad, de libertad de expresión, de pureza, de amor al arte; valores éstos que en cuanto hay un euro en juego se esfuman en menos que canta un Varsavsky para dejar paso a la clásica carrera de ratas, donde lo único que importa es ganar a toda costa.

Técnicamente, el intercambio de votos al que se está jugando este año entra dentro de la legalidad. El problema es que hay dos tipos de voto claramente diferenciados: el desinteresado y el interesado. Casi con toda seguridad predomina el tipo B. Unos resultados basados en votos del tipo A nos dejarían unas útiles listas de blogs de calidad. Unos resultados basados en votos B nos van a dejar la misma ensaladilla rusa que ya tenemos en la tele y en la radio: una constelación de basura donde a los cuatro que de verdad tienen algo que decir apenas se les distingue con tanto ruido. Y tan pocas nueces.

Pero bueno, tampoco hay que preocuparse. Esto va a suceder solo en el sector, digamos, de andar por casa: los blogs personales. El sector “serio” de la blogosfera (que es el que de verdad importa pues salvaguarda heróicamente los valores de la sociedad moderna) seguirá siendo lo que siempre ha sido: un colectivo endogámico y retroalimentado donde día sí y día también Fulanito (ministro de blogs de diseño) entrevista en su blog a su cuñado Menganito (concejal de CuencaBlogs.com) para hablar de VaporBloogy 3.0, la nueva revolución empresarial que tiene a medias con Perenganito, autor del archiconocido PerenganitoBlog (máximo referente en micro y macro economía virtuales de la nueva era) e invitado de honor en las IV Jornadas de Cantamañanismo Virtual, blogueadas en directo en Zutanadas 2000, el blog de Zutanito, íntimo amigo de Menganito desde que se conocieron en la presentación del iSupository, el novedoso reproductor de mp3 que se aplica por la vía rectal.

En fin, nada nuevo bajo el sol. Nuestra blogosfera acabará siendo una réplica exacta de nuestra democracia: un grupo de poder cerrado y endogámico que se queda con todo el pastel, una mayoría que se da de hostias por cinco minutos de fama, y una minoría que contempla atónita como toda noble iniciativa se va irremediablemente al traste mientras el personal se dedica a relatarnos cinco lugares en los que me he comido un pepino.

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PROLOGO

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LA ENTREVISTA

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DE MUDANZA

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LA LLEGADA

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TRABAJANDO DURO

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BUSINESS MODEL

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INTERRUPCIÓN

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BUSCANDO INSPIRACIÓN

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ENCONTRONAZO

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DESCUBRIMIENTO

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HUIDA NOCTURNA

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THE SHIT HITS THE FAN

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SE DESCUBREN LOS FANTASMAS

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BUSINESS PLAN DE EMERGENCIA

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LA HORA DE LA VERDAD

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THE END

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