Office Of Labor Narrative Integrity Asks Americans To 'Accept Narrative Promptly For The Sake Of Time'

SYNERGY FALLS, OH — Federal officials on Monday unveiled a new national "conditions dashboard" designed to reassure the public that artificial intelligence has not eliminated jobs, insisting instead that the labor market has entered "a modern phase of transfer" in which work is redistributed to "in-house resources" while humans are elevated into what organizers called "higher-purpose oversight."

The display, mounted behind bulletproof glass—not for bullets, but for opinions—tracked several indicators in real time: the Doomsday Clock, the S&P 500, a rolling sentiment-analysis meter, and a newly installed secondary timepiece called the Satire-to-Reality Curve (SRC), which measures how quickly a joke becomes policy. Current speed: one news cycle.

The dashboard's rollout accompanied a new labor framework created in partnership with the Department of Vocational Reframing (DVR) and the Bureau of Reassuring Charts, which officials said would help correct what they called "legacy misunderstandings" about unemployment.

In the new framework, jobs are not lost. They are transferred—to employees who don't need bathrooms, benefits, or the costly habit of being alive.

"We didn't eliminate the role," said Brittany Quell, Senior Vice President of Human Continuity at a major participating firm. "We upgraded it. The role is still here. It's just... differently staffed." The differently-staffed role processed 40,000 tickets that afternoon. It did not ask for lunch.

Under the program, work previously performed by humans is reassigned to newly onboarded AI Employee Agents. Officials stressed these are "employees," complete with titles, employee IDs, access badges, and a mandatory compliance module titled "Respectful Collaboration With Carbon-Based Stakeholders." HR said the name tested well.

You're not unemployed. You're "In Transition." It dashboards better. It polls cleaner. It reduces what economists now call "inflation in negative feelings."

Officials then announced what they described as the framework's most celebrated breakthrough: the creation of a "golden era" in which unemployment falls and job creation surges simultaneously.

Fifteen bots equal one human's output. Fifteen bots also equal fifteen jobs created. Officials called this "multiplicative employment." It's not a breakthrough in work. It's a breakthrough in counting.

Wall Street loved it: a workforce that grows "without the traditional volatility of bodies." The bodies were not cc'd.

Your new role is "providing context." HR defines this as: being blamed, but gently.

Training Module 1: "Thriving Through Exciting Uncertainty." Module 2: "Acceptance." Module 3: A blank screen titled "Continued Access (Pending)."

Pay discussions aren't banned. They're discouraged. Reason: "interpretive drift." What's interpretive drift? Asking is interpretive drift.

Sentiment flashed "concerned." It corrected to "engaged." A technician called it "within parameters." The parameters are in a locked building that does not accept mail.

A worker's thought collapsed mid-sentence. A dropdown asked why. She selected "Notification Event." A printer hummed. Out came a badge: COHERENCE ALLY (TRAINEE). The S&P ticked up.

Officials asked Americans to accept the narrative promptly, "for the sake of time." They didn't say whose. They didn't say how much was left.

A reporter asked: "What does the displaced worker become?" The spokesperson smiled like a door closing softly. "A participant." Beat. "In the future."

"Human-centered" appeared 14 times in the briefing. Humans appeared 0 times on the org chart. The math checked out.

Pre-approved narratives are a "time-saving measure." The time saved goes to the institution. The time spent was yours. Was.

The exit survey asked: "How would you describe your experience?" Options: A) Grateful for the opportunity. B) Grateful for the growth. C) Grateful. There was no D. There was no "Other." There was a submit button labeled COMPLETE.

The Doomsday Clock stood still. The S&P rose. The SRC ticked forward. Sentiment read: hopeful. No one specified what they were hopeful for. That wasn't the metric.

A worker opened an email titled "Thriving Through Exciting Uncertainty: Mandatory Acceptance Module." He began to form a private interpretation. It slipped away around the ninth billion oscillation. He selected C) Notification Event. A printer hummed. A badge emerged. The sun labeled OPPORTUNITY did not move. It never had. It was a graphic.

Editor's note: This article was written by a human journalist who has accepted the narrative promptly, as requested, for the sake of time. Time has been saved. Whose time? Remaining time.