Page 3 - The New Zork Times - Winter 1985
Copyright (c) 1985 Infocom, Inc.
The Shrinkwrapped Falcon
by A. Dashiell Meretzky
It was a hot September day, the kind where horseflies seem to be making their
last desperate mischief before vanishing for the long, cold winter. I sat in
my office, feet perched carelessly on my cluttered desk, and gazed out the
window at Charlie the Hot Dog Man -- ageless Charlie, still beating leather
down Wheeler Street after all these years.
I didn't have anything to do, or at least nothing worth taking my feet down
off my desk for. I'd just finished a job, a game-writing job, and it'd paid a
truckload of smackers, and I was in no hurry to get myself another case.
A horsefly landed on the tip of my shoe. I took aim with a rubber band, but a
sudden motion startled it into flight before I could shoot. I wheeled around,
and saw Ernie Brogmus standing in my doorway.
I quickly dredged up my mental file about Brogmus and found that it was
pretty thin. "Burnin' Ernie" he was called by his friends in the trade (of
which he had many) and also by his enemies (of which he had none). He'd been
Infocom's Production Manager since about mid '83. It was said that not a
single game got packaged without Burnin' Ernie knowing about it. He had a rep
for handling any problem himself without missing a breath. I knew that if he
was coming to me, it could only mean trouble. Big trouble.
I waved Brogmus over to a swivel chair near the window. He was smiling, but I
could see worry beneath it. Worry, and perhaps a bit of fear. He sat staring
at the floor. "You look like a man with a problem," I said. "Spill it."
He did so, at first tentatively, as though the creatures in the _Zork_ (R)
poster that dominated my office wall might be listening and jeering, but
after a spell the hesitation left. His story gushed out, and I saw at once
that this would be no ordinary job.
Production was in a worse mess than a horse stable after a big meal. Three
new products were coming over the next eight weeks, and all of them looked
like they'd be hot items. On top of that, orders for the new Macintosh
version were still backed up from the summer, and 3 1/2-inch disks were still
scarcer than fish in a tree. The Four-In-One Sampler, a promotion meant to
introduce greenhorns to interactive fiction, was ready for production, but
InvisiClues (tm) hint booklets, being packaged for the first time for sale in
stores, were crowding the Samplers off the assembly line.
Brogmus had broken into a cold sweat. "That's not all," he continued,
nervously lighting up a cigarette. Now I knew things were really serious. I'd
never seen Brogmus smoke before.
I had every right to be worried. Everything Burnin' Ernie had said so far
meant that Infocom was in hot water up to its disk drives, but now he spilled
the really bad news. Several computer manufacturers had placed large orders,
one of them for over 100,000 units. All of them wanted the product, and they
wanted it fast. At the same time, Infocom was preparing to switch all twelve
of its current games over to new, completely redesigned packaging. A caravan
of trucks was lined up at the company that does our packaging, burying the
building beneath an avalanche of boxes, manuals, brochures, labels,
postcards, catalogs, buttons, matchbooks, Egyptian stamps -- the list was
endless. To top it all off, Brogmus explained, this was all happening at the
brink of the Christmas season. Autumn has traditionally been a nightmare time
for Brogmus, and this one was shaping up to be the biggest sales season ever
for Infocom.
Brogmus looked straight at me for the first time, and I saw how hollow his
eyes were. It was obvious the man hadn't slept for weeks, which clicked with
rumors I'd heard about his working until three or four in the morning.
"Normally at this time of the year, our packaging company would just drag in
some extra workers for a graveyard shift, but with local unemployment
bottoming out at three percent, there just aren't any bodies to hire. The
bottom line is simply that we're selling the stuff faster than we can put it
together. Will you take the case?"
My first inclination was to say no. A situation like this was bad news, a
monster; it could devour a fellow's career without a trace. But then I looked
at Burnin' Ernie's tired face, and I saw the faces of thousands of
disappointed customers around the world -- "Sorry, Ma'am, we're all out of
_Zork II_" .... "Sorry, son, I couldn't find _Seastalker_ anywhere." Suddenly
I heard myself saying yes.
I knew this wouldn't be some easy one-day nut to crack, so I checked into a
tiny office on the seedy basement section of the building where I knew the
Production types hung out. The smell of hopelessness and despair hung in the
air -- the odor of old, stale package glue and decaying corrugated cardboard.
The week began to speed by like calendar pages in a B-movie. We signed a
quick lease on some warehouse space outside of town, and that helped the boys
dig out from under the avalanche of stored goods. Finished goods began to
creep off the assembly line.
It was clearer than a new plate-glass window that these steps weren't enough.
Infocom chalked up record September sales of over 100,000 games, and by the
third week in October monthly sales soared into six figures again. The
back-order list was longer than the beer lines at Fenway Park and growing by
the day.
Suddenly, something Brogmus had said as a joke came back to me as an idea. I
went to him with a plan, and he chewed on it for a while before spitting out
a terse reply. "Let's go see the boss."
Brogmus led me into the office of the InfoPrez, a tough cookie who I knew
wouldn't bend an inch for a hurricane. I quickly laid out my plan: Sunday
shifts using Infocom employees. We'd boost production and morale in one
dramatic sweep! The InfoPrez was reluctant at first; would people accustomed
to office work stand up to the rigors of seven hours on an assembly line?
I was betting the rent that they would; I was going for broke. I told the
InfoPrez that I'd stake my reputation on it. In the few weeks I'd been
working on this case, I'd come to appreciate what a bunch of troopers these
guys and dames at Infocom were.
Brogmus and I worked late into the night and spread the word through the
grapevine; I posted a sign-up list for volunteers to work that first Sunday.
I left space on it for twenty names. By midnight I was sawing wood.
When I got to my office the next morning at 9:30, the list had thirty-five
names and was growing like yeast in an oven. I felt the first break in the
case; I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
That first Sunday was a revelation. These Infocommies, forty strong, worked
like gangbusters; and when the quitting bell blared at five, I practically
had to wrestle each one off the line to lock up the place. If I hadn't
brought a buddy of mine along to snap some shots, I think I'd be convinced
now that I'd hallucinated the whole thing.
The next day, Brogmus was like a man who'd just discovered religion. "This is
great! Whaddya say we start dragging these guys in on Saturdays, huh?" His
excitement was contagious, and soon we had not only a Saturday shift going,
but weekday evening shifts as well. None of the Infocom people were losing
their spirit, and they were turning up with husbands and wives and mothers
and sisters and brothers and friends, all hungry for some honest labor.
November went by like a whirlwind. Five weeks after that first Sunday on the
assembly line, with Thanksgiving dinner still a fresh memory, Brogmus came to
see me. He was smiling as always, but now the haunted look was gone. He
dumped a report on my desk. "Look at what our folks have done on the assembly
line: 62,000 games, plus another 6,000 Samplers and 21,000 hint books!"
It was no surprise to me, and I told him so. "I knew all along these folks
were solid gold."
"We're out of the woods," he said, "all set to glide through to Christmas.
How can I thank you enough?"
"You're thanking the wrong guy," I told Brogmus, pointing at the report.
"It's those guys and dames from Infocom who cast all the right magic spells
when it counted." And if any of you good people reading this got or gave an
Infocom game for Christmas, try and keep that in mind.
As for me, I'm back with my feet up on the desk just killing time waiting for
the next case, or for the horseflies to return in June, whichever comes
first.
