In the Scheme, UniVans deliver goods from depot to depot, following the daily schedule and a set of rules, with each worker performing his duties along the Ring Road, drivers and assistants, gatekeepers and superintendents, fuel attendants and forklift men alike. But even though the Scheme has been providing an honest day's wage for an honest day's labor for the last thirty years, it can still be perverted when some of its members use it for their personal purpose, like George and his cakes delivery scheme within the Scheme, or those who liked to have an early swerve from time to time and have now decided this exception is a granted right. But the real danger may come from an ideologic turn surreptitiously seeping through its mere fabric.
Satiric fable about the social relationship between colleagues, The Scheme explores the meaning of an apparently useless work for the whole society and for those involved in this social experiment where a well-oiled bureaucracy and good will share the same importance.
One advantage of our wasted journey to Merry Park was that we didn't have to worry about getting back to Long Reach prematurely. While other drivers had to scratch around to pass the time, I was able to put my foot down and bomb all the way home along the Ring Road. We enjoyed a good run, rolling through the gates at four fifteen exactly. Naturally the yard was quite busy by this time, with more than a dozen UniVans already backed onto the bay, and the remainder parked opposite. I stopped at the end of the rank, wrote down the daily mileage, and locked up the van. Then Jonathan and I went over to join Ron Curtain, whom I'd noticed standing by his vehicle. There was a large group of drivers, assistant drivers and warehousemen gathered near the super's office, all within stricking distance of the clock, but none too close to be obvious.The scheme for full employment (Picador editions, 2002, 176 pages), written by Magnus Mills, English author born in Birmingham in 1954.
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