Klaus is a collaborator who is sent by The Agency to different temporary jobs. His first job involves answering phones and transferring calls. Over the three month contract, Klaus speculates about what might be in the file The Agency has on him. After three months, he is given a new job working for a firm helping stressed managers relax by listening to their problems. Again over three months, Klaus reflects on how his lack of empathy might be seen as a strength in this role. As his second contract nears an end, Klaus hopes to borrow a friend's motorcycle but realizes he has no friends. He receives a surprise letter from The Agency telling him to go south and relax.

1. Personas (Introduction to be written on Noel's text)
Invisible Citizens (horrible translation.Gian Paolo will do it)
Even they have a time card, and why shouldn‟t they for that matter? They clock off even
when they go out for a ten minute break, they always clock off, every time they leave the
Zone. Of course, they can‟t leave the product longer than a few minutes, otherwise the
capsules in Zone 1 tend to move and when they bump into each other there is a risk that they
will react with each other, altering the chemical balance. Sometimes colliding causes them to
secrete a liquid which falls slowly down the back so that it almost seems like they are crying.
In total it‟s like a one hour breather, but it‟s actually six 10 minutes breaks. Twelve hours a
week, over three days. Four hours each day, divided into two blocks of two hours. A break
between the two. They meet each other during the break, so in a way, the rest of the week is
more like a break. In ten minutes Sandra promptly asks Arthur about his grandson. She would
also like to have one, or someone who is a similar age but who would be closer than a
grandson, but she can‟t even bring herself to think about that word. And then Giulio will ask
Carla if there has been any progress with her „prototype‟ (that‟s what she calls it, „prototype‟,
and she will continue to call it that until they take her seriously), whether or not the LED
works, or if she has managed to get the wireless remote working. Carla says that it will go to
market one day; she says that they are looking for that kind of stuff in the electronics market.
And Giulio believes it: between us, he thinks, at least between us we have to believe each
other. Outside, there is a dessert. Inside, at least there is a one hour breather. In all, the
discussion is more or less always the same, Sandra lights a cigarette between one piece of
gossip and the other, then another cigarette. She bought centos because ten minutes isn‟t
long enough for two and too long for one. They haven‟t even had the time to get to know
each other, which is why the conversation goes around in circles.
Then they go back down to the production area. The product demands constant care
throughout the process, especially product B which often has a manufacturing fault because it
is assembled in the defective laboratories that the company keeps in various parts of sub-
Saharan Africa.
That‟s why, at every turn of the machine it could get stuck because it has a protruding corner
that makes it turn on the moveable pillar supporting it. They read the instructions, follow the
programme. The product must progress through all of the phases. It must not go off course,
that‟s all. It‟s not really as though it has to grow, let‟s not exaggerate. Let‟s just say that it
must complete the whole process. Basically it takes hours, hours of work. Because outside
there is a dessert whilst inside there is a one hour breather. That is something all four of them
agree on and it is no small thing.
In Zone D whilst the instructions they have are in Italian, the descriptions on the packaging
are in Chinese. This doesn‟t go down well with Giulio at all, he can‟t tolerate it. All these
risks, all these responsibilities for them to benefit. He thinks that they should at least do the
translation before they take them there; he can‟t stop the roller just because they are unable to
follow the instructions on a single package.
At the end of the day, the product is promptly delivered. The courier comes, Sandra says
goodbye with difficulty. The courier immediately puts the product in the car and doesn‟t turn
back. They always look carefully in every direction, although they go there every day they
don‟t quite trust themselves. They fasten their seatbelt and ask: “how was school?” The
product yawns, then mumbling a little, says something like: “fine”.

2. Zombie Generation
Klaus is always sent somewhere, though any time to a different place. There's a file with
some details on him, in fact, at The Agency. He's told where to go with a paper letter, a
circumstance that he finds quite exotic and out of time. All considered there are two main
things he dreams about: having a motorbike and reading that file.
Each time he's sent somewhere it should be different, one could think. Nope, each time is
indeed the same, in a way. He's a collaborator, in fact, hence he's diligently - but also
generically - collaborating. The first job he got consisted just in answering the phone and
saying: “sorry, I'm not in charge of it, hold on”. He imagined from the beginning how that
kind of work could last – say – something like three months, which is just the time he would
have needed for not reaching yet any position that allowed him to be in charge of anything
but at the same time giving him enough time to be quite frustrated by his every day duties.
At the end of a day made by easily interrupted conversations he got back home thinking “that
wasn't easy, come on!”. Also that day he succeeded in leaving people on hold and so, during
an evening hour of chill-out with his house mates, he tried to figure out, in the end, what's on
that file, eventually. He knew, in fact, he was chosen for that job, at some point. The first
month he thought that on the file he could find something like the following notes:
Name: Klaus Conrad
Professional profile: very humble and considerate
During the second month, instead, he tried to convince himself that something more
rewarding must have caused the Agency sent him exactly to do what he was doing:
Name: Klaus Conrad
Professional profile: answers the phone quite fast, thanks to his remarkable elbow's elasticity
In the third month he was already quite tired and stressed because of that routine, which even
then was not changing at all and began to feel boring enough. At that point he started to
reflect with less lucidity on what the Agency might have noticed about him:
Klaus Conrad
Professional profile: some people say he can hear the phone ringing from a huge distance
Klaus, after a while, thought he needed something more stable and more interesting, and
sometimes he wondered about leaving the city. If I only had a motorbike, I could go south.
But after the three months he was contracted for, the Agency helped him to change his
routine before he could even try to do something. On a gloomy Friday, in fact, he received
the second letter. You have a new job opportunity. Please show up at SchönhauserAllee, 142,
Monday, 9 a. m. and ring “CPG”. And, not surprisingly, he did so. This time it was much
tougher than answering the phone, as he now found himself in a firm made by several distinct
offices, which appeared to be something like a paradise for project managers but a hell for
anybody else who happened to be around. If he had not been appointed for constantly being
in the second situation he could even have liked it. This was the plan: each manager got
increasingly stressed while approaching his deadlines, deliveries, and decisions, and the more
he got close to them, the more Klaus was summoned, being him some kind of chill-out
expert, or entertainer or simply the guy next door taking back the others to reality.
And when he reached the sofa, at 7, he thought at the file. What do I have that others don't.

3. The first month he kept a very general, prudent, answer:
Name: Klaus Conrad
Professional profile: calm, comprehensive
During the second month he understood he really didn't mind about the guys' problems, their
wives, children, the plumber who never shows up. Then he began to think his worst defects
were also his strengths.
Name: Klaus Conrad
Professional profile: doesn't understand why the others around feel in a certain way
The third month he began to feel quite well. Klaus was really happy about the fact that his job
consisted in simply having conversations with people he really didn't care about, while
showing a great interest in their nerves and happiness.
Name: Klaus Conrad
Professional profile: unresponsive, uninterested, irresponsible.
Unfortunately, after three months, the contract was going to be over. He realized he didn't
even have the time to look for motorbikes on sale. After the last week he would have
borrowed Friedrich's Honda next week end, 'cause he really wanted to go somewhere else and
have some fun. He kner he was too overworked. And then it came Thursday, so the week end
was approaching and he needed to decide what to do. Klaus was getting nervous. What do I
do with the motorbike? I don't even have friends. I would like to see Mara and I don't even
know where she is. I would like to see my parents but I didn't even call them for months. On
Saturday morning, luckily he received the third and slightly more unexpected letter from the
Agency. It said: Just go south and relax.