This choice: Brooke lucks into something scientific and super-sizing! • Go Back...Chapter #4Beta-Tester Brooke by: Mr.Tones   "Home product testing?"
Brooke eyed her floor manager with mild confusion. Being a code monkey for DynaCorp’s programming and maintenance branch didn’t typically invite too much hands-on time with a majority of their products, so having Fatima telling her that everyone on the floor was going to be invited for beta testing their latest gadget was definitely surprising.
“Yup, exactly what it says on the tin. While the higher ups used a lot of vague language in the emails it pretty much all boils down to that they wanted for this round of testing to be as thorough as possible, so along with the normal beta-testers they’re sending out a bunch with different branch workers to teat them, just incase something only one of them could catch slips by. Apparently this product is super important and they don’t want a single solitary thing to go wrong on release.”
Brooke leaned back in her seat a bit, making it squeak with some distress, as she thought over the strange proposition.
“And yet it’s a voluntary thing? No one HAS to do it?”
“No one has to, no, but…”
Fatima leaned forward over the short cubicle wall, letting her little pouch of a belly smooch against it a bit and her notable rack strain her bra and work blouse some, and held a clipboard up for Brooke to see the form stuck to it.
“Everyone wants to just about. Only 14 people so far in the building have not signed up.”
“Damn, you aren't kidding. People must be really hyped for whatever it is.”
The sign up sheet was filled with the many names of her coworkers, so many in fact that at least two more sheets had to be stapled on to make room.
“Indeed they seem to be, and all before they even know what they’re getting.”
“What?”
The Arabian woman stood back up with a some of flourish while Brooke went a tad wide eyed.
“No one has a clue what it even is yet, but they’re still all clamoring to get one. I asked some of them why they were getting so worked up over something that could just end up being an overpriced back massager for all they knew.”
“And? What’d they say?”
“They say that DynaCorp makes a lot of crazy ass tech but with no employee discounts it’s still too expensive for most of them to buy, so to them at worst they get a free piece of junk they can just toss and at best they get the latest version of the DynaCorp All Comforts Lazy Chair™, or something on that level anyway. Basically, they think it's low risk and very high reward.”
“That does make sense, do we get to keep whatever it is after?”
“So long as you don’t find a major malfunction in it then yes, all yours.”
“Huh.”
Putting a hand to her modestly round belly in thought, Brooke weighed the pros and cons. Cons were that she might end up getting a piece of junk like an over engineered TV remote that she'd have to give a report on it's coding for, while the pros were that it was free, if she liked it she got to keep it, and it could be something like the DynaChair™. It didn’t take long for her to make a decision and was clicking a pen in a moment.
“Sure, let me sign up too.”
******
“So this whatever is supposed to be coming in today right?”
“Yup, and hopefully it’s something we can actually use. I don’t wanna end up having to find excuses to use a… I don’t know, a voice activated light bulb.”
It was about two weeks later, the day that everyone was supposed to be getting the device in question. Brooke had told her sister about it who was mildly interested though not by much. At the moment they were just lazing about in the living room of their home, watching some drama they had randomly flicked to while they talked.
“I still don’t get how you don’t know what it is, you write the code for everything right?”
“Not EVERYTHING, first off we have teams for that, and second we don’t do the coding for every single idea that passes through the R&D guys' skulls. We might not have been the team who worked on it, and we end up doing something around 40% to 90% of the coding for a bunch of these ideas for only about 60% of them to ever actually reach full production, so who knows which of the fails and successes this could have been.”
“Sounds like a lot of wasted time and money to me, just to have y'all work on shit only to drop it last second.”
“It can be, but as far as the coding goes it makes sense. We take a lot of the half-baked ideas and more or less see if it’s worth going forward with by actually trying to program it. Either we do, or we find a reason it can’t. I can’t even begin to tell you how many ideas get shut down before they even leave R&D’s meetings. That’s just how they are though, DynaCorp is very much with the “Whatever sticks” way of doing things, that’s why they’re broadly just a “Tech” company.”
“Yeah yeah, cars, TVs, food mixers, they make just about everything. Simply put, you have zero fucking clue what you signed up for.”
“I signed up to get a free thing and if it doesn’t work or I don’t like it? I just gotta dump it after the testing period is over.”
“Whatever I guess, but if it’s useful I want to use it too, don’t hog it like you are the chips!”
“Well, if you could ask nicely for it and the chips then maybe I will consider it.”
“Alright, will you please stop hogging all the chips?”
After closing and throwing the bag of sour cream fried goodness at Mikayla the two fell into a peaceful silence as they enjoyed the TV in one of their rarer moments of not arguing. They lost track of time for a bit before they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Brooke immediately began to rise, a little excitement starting to run through her.
“That must be the delivery guy, I’ll get it!”
Still absorbed with the show Mikayla just vaguely waved as Brooke went by to the front door. Straightening her clothes a bit she opened it up to see-
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