Collin's Choice

Collin looked through the glass at the silver coils and various colored offerings. Ziplers, Spleed-its, and his old stand-by, animal crackers, sat side-by-side. They all looked appealing. He could almost already see the coil turn around the bag of animal crackers, pushing it forward to drop against the floor with a crunchy, wrinkled plastic thud. He loved that thud. He held the two quarters in his doughy hand. Famous Ramous cookies, Blickers... The break room was quiet and empty, but there was muffled shouting from the meeting room next door:

"The color of the bag means everything damnit! Look at this data. Look at it! Red and yellow equals hunger, and hunger equals sales. The stats don't lie. Our testing has concluded that customers approach the vending machine, look at the red packaging, and experience hunger, then they buy..."

Collin held the first quarter half way into the slot, not quite ready to commit to his purchase.

"Gentlemen, do you know who pays your salaries? That's right. Overweight, overworked cube zombies drooling for a sugar fix. I don't care if his artwork belongs in the Louvre, if it doesn't suck quarters from pockets and into those coffers, we don't have any use for it. Read the data. Red and yellow damnit!"

The quarter dangled in limbo. Collin thought about his morning, carefully polishing the final hue of his design.

"And what the hell is this shit? Abstract art? Maybe I need to remind you that I don't care about your department's depth of artistic talent. I care about the smiles on our shareholder's faces. I care about your own damn 401ks and pensions. If yellow alone means one extra bag of Rimplies gets sold for every hundred, as the data reads, I don't care if my three year old designs it with finger paints."

Collin listened to the shouting, knowing they were discussing his project. As its designer, he had barely slept the past three days finishing the work for the proposals. "Ribbed Rimplies" was his first solo project, and he was determined to impress management...he barely heard his middle manager's meager voice respond to the executives...

"Sir, I'm sorry for the mix-up. Based on the positive sales figures for Round Rimplies, his previous project, you expressed interest in granting more freedom to Collin. He must have..."

"I didn't ask for Picasso. By 'freedom,' I expressed my confidence that Collin would properly interpret the fucking data and know that it was his responsibility to put square blocks in square holes. This isn't rocket science and it definitely isn't art class. He should know the formula by now."

He hardly noticed the quarter slip from his hand and fall into the coffer. It splashed the lake of quarters inside. He had grown paralyzed by the exchange next door. The project manager continued...

"Now march right back to your nice new corner office and do what I pay you to do. Tell Collin to reserve his talent for the county fair and get back to work on a feasible design."

"Yes sir."

A stream of footsteps emanated from the meeting room. Collin emerged from his daze and stared again at the bright packaging in front of him: Round Rimplies, Red Rimplies, Rhubarb Rimplies. He shook his head, then slowly lifted the second quarter to the slot and dropped it in. He pressed two buttons on the keypad to nudge the bag over the edge, then reached through the door to retrieve his animal crackers. He would need the energy. It was going to be another long evening.