This is crazy! I don’t know what to do with something so sad! It’s too hard! It’s too painful!
The despair I felt when I learnt that there was no overtime pay in the discretionary labour system or the emptiness when I missed the last train of the day and had to pay my own taxi fare where incomparable to this absurdity.
“Google Spreadsheets is powered by the souls of dead Excel workers.”
The facts that the middle-aged man told me were just too sad.
Certainly, I may have died. But after dying, I was reincarnated only to still work with spreadsheets?
It’s the same for the middle-aged man. He was filled with vitality now, but in his previous job, no, previous life, he must have endured an unreasonable job with significant overtime before dying in despair. But now, the two of us were wearing strange Excel coloured clothes inside an Excel styled tiled room. This was sad! Too sad!
What about the “Don’t be Evil” motto? Running services using the souls of the dead? That’s not just evil, that’s very evil! They’ve gone against all the laws and ethics of the world.
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The middle-aged man led my dazed self to a room where people were working. There were about 50 people in the place. The youngest was around the same age as me, in their late twenties. There were almost no old people, aside from a person in their fifties here and there. The male to female ratio was mostly male. It looked just like a company office, except everyone was wearing the same green and white Excel tights. It was a strange scene, but everyone was just drinking coffee and smoking with calm expressions.
“It’s looks sad, doesn’t it? But look around.”
You mean I’m not the only one who’s sad? I know that. I’m just sad about this world.
The middle-aged man smiled and said something unexpected.
“Everyone is having fun, don’t you think?
“Eh?”
“Excel experts are lonely everywhere, but not here. They have friends. Look at those three over there.”
Three men about the same age as me were making a lot of noise around a laptop. Were they watching Youtube?
“I don’t know much about cryptocurrency, but it seems they’re playing around with spreadsheets to forecast the market price. When they were alive, they couldn’t talk with anyone and had to face Excel alone, but now, they have friends to play with. Isn’t that good?”
Is that okay? It looks fun though.
“Then, over there, they’re arguing. Well, it’s a debate over whether VLOOKUP or INDEX and MATCH is better. It’s an ideological debate.”
I realised that I wanted join in a little because I thought VLOOKUP was the better choice. I had never had colleagues who I could have such discussions with before.
“They never get tired of it. I can’t tell you which one is better for our work.”
What did he mean? Would I find out soon? I was curious.
“You were writing functions alone at work since you weren’t married, right?”
“W-What’s wrong with being single!!”
“It was just a joke, so don’t be so angry. Let’s get along with each other.”
Apparently this isn’t heaven, but it isn’t hell either. I don’t know what it means for Google Spreadsheets to run on the souls of Excel workers, but anyhow, it seems I have to work after reincarnating. It can’t be helped if it’s work. I gave up and started my second life as an office worker.
“Well, I’ll do my best as a new worker. My name is-”
When I tried to say my name, the middle-aged man stopped me with his hand.
“Oh, stop, no names. Keeps us from getting too familiar.”
It looked like this middle-aged man really liked his hobby.
“That’s from Zombieland, isn’t it?”
The middle-aged man grinned.
“I’m just joking. Just call me Saito. I’ll be taking charge of you as your mentor for the time being.”
“I’m Takahashi. Thank you very much.”
“Well, that’s my first job. It’s hard to explain, but if you try it, you’ll understand. Follow me, Takahashi. Let’s go on a quest.”
In the end, I was reincarnated into another world. Thinking about that, I left the place with Saito.