He stared at the screen, not believing his eyes. They were just numbers, he told himself, as the screen read “trade complete”. Earlier today he was just a guy who was down on his luck, and now he had.. he counted the zeroes.. 5 billion dollars.

Two weeks ago, Manny sat at his cube and processed papers. He stared at the inbox pile that never seemed to get smaller, and the outbox, which just happened to be the shredder for his current job. Data entry - it was one of the lowest jobs on the totem pole that he had been forced to take since getting fired from his cushy union job.

The union wasn’t exactly the best place to work, but he thought that he would be at least secure and have a pension to look forward to after some grueling time fixing the presses. Then everything went digital and there suddenly weren’t any poster presses to fix anymore. Xeroxed out of a job.

As he grabbed another of Form R-11-USV-01 from the pile, and brought up the terminal, he couldn’t think of anything but how he would be spending his lunch break on the roof, in the wind and the sunlight. It was the only good thing about this job - the amazing view on his lunch break. He looked at the clock again. 8:05am, only 5 minutes in.

Just then Jeff came around and tapped on his half-high cube walls, and asked him to meet with him in his office. It was the first, and last time that he would be in that office. Ten minutes later he looked toward his cube, realized that there wasn’t anything personal at it, and just headed out the door.

After walking the half mile off the bus, he kicked the sign. “Make money at home! Call 610-555-1201.” He had seen it three times before, and kicked it down. Someone was putting it up. He decided to give them a piece of his mind, pulled out his cell phone and dialed.