Service Sector - 22/Jul/2012
Late February 2011, Kandor City.
Slow start. Steady business. Happy investors. Jan wasn't sure. Was she suited for retail? But, she was doing it.
Having six remotes helped. Rarely were more than two required in the front office, the 'shop'. That let the other four of her do other things, like research, poke around Kandor, read a book, or even day-dream. Less stress than any of her memories of being Janet recalled.
Each of the other five remotes was a bit customised, from her base 'Jan', that looked just like Janet. She guessed she'd have to come-up with names for all of them, but so far she'd just used "Jayon", "Jayto", "Jaytre", "Jayfor" and "Jayfi" - 'Jay?', 'Jen?', something different like 'Alex?'; it was hard to decide. After all, they were all her, it was other people who might, would, get confused.
Seeing as she'd been wearing 'the product', 24/7, a few things had arisen. It was truly a "Hollywood Spacesuit" - when the life support was active it somehow suppressed hunger, thirst and... toilet requirements. This was OK for the couple of hours that the suit was rated for, but people'd better have multiple occupancy toilet facilities real near their airlocks.
Accessories had been an interesting area. Redundant ear bud communicators were going nicely, as well as a medical monitor in the form of a throat band, echoed on a PDA wrist display, which doubled as a communicator. She was offering extended life support, six hours, on top of the two hours the tool belts gave, with a PDA wrist communicator that warned of medical stress (including too long without food, water or a toilet break).
A 'Buy One Get One Free' offer had worked well on the tool belts, so people would have a spare, as well as one recharging. Stuff always got broken or lost, and it would be bad if this happening to important parts of a space suit. Cleaning kits for both inside and outside of the suits went well, though there were clear 'dos and don'ts' in both the vacuum-proof paper and the electronic versions of the manual.
Further down the line, she guessed they'd offer active medical aids, though, acting as a franchise for a specialist might be better. She wondered if anyone had come up with that science fiction drug which dropped you into a safe suspended animation state when its injector detected pretty certain death? Hope you had friends who read your dog tags or medical bracelet, so they didn't just hold a funeral service.
There were, of course, 'requests'. One lady couldn't see why she shouldn't have a matching suit for her handbag dog. Jan did her best to hide her boggle, and suggested the lady custom-order a handbag that acted as a doggy spacesuit. She left without buying anything, but seemed reasonably pleased. A cat walked in and asked for a suit, and didn't seem surprised to hear their range didn't go that far. Fortunately, that'd been about as weird as it got.
But, she'd heard there were Muppets, running a shop, somewhere near-by...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Late February 2011, Kandor City.
Slow start. Steady business. Happy investors. Jan wasn't sure. Was she suited for retail? But, she was doing it.
Having six remotes helped. Rarely were more than two required in the front office, the 'shop'. That let the other four of her do other things, like research, poke around Kandor, read a book, or even day-dream. Less stress than any of her memories of being Janet recalled.
Each of the other five remotes was a bit customised, from her base 'Jan', that looked just like Janet. She guessed she'd have to come-up with names for all of them, but so far she'd just used "Jayon", "Jayto", "Jaytre", "Jayfor" and "Jayfi" - 'Jay?', 'Jen?', something different like 'Alex?'; it was hard to decide. After all, they were all her, it was other people who might, would, get confused.
Seeing as she'd been wearing 'the product', 24/7, a few things had arisen. It was truly a "Hollywood Spacesuit" - when the life support was active it somehow suppressed hunger, thirst and... toilet requirements. This was OK for the couple of hours that the suit was rated for, but people'd better have multiple occupancy toilet facilities real near their airlocks.
Accessories had been an interesting area. Redundant ear bud communicators were going nicely, as well as a medical monitor in the form of a throat band, echoed on a PDA wrist display, which doubled as a communicator. She was offering extended life support, six hours, on top of the two hours the tool belts gave, with a PDA wrist communicator that warned of medical stress (including too long without food, water or a toilet break).
A 'Buy One Get One Free' offer had worked well on the tool belts, so people would have a spare, as well as one recharging. Stuff always got broken or lost, and it would be bad if this happening to important parts of a space suit. Cleaning kits for both inside and outside of the suits went well, though there were clear 'dos and don'ts' in both the vacuum-proof paper and the electronic versions of the manual.
Further down the line, she guessed they'd offer active medical aids, though, acting as a franchise for a specialist might be better. She wondered if anyone had come up with that science fiction drug which dropped you into a safe suspended animation state when its injector detected pretty certain death? Hope you had friends who read your dog tags or medical bracelet, so they didn't just hold a funeral service.
There were, of course, 'requests'. One lady couldn't see why she shouldn't have a matching suit for her handbag dog. Jan did her best to hide her boggle, and suggested the lady custom-order a handbag that acted as a doggy spacesuit. She left without buying anything, but seemed reasonably pleased. A cat walked in and asked for a suit, and didn't seem surprised to hear their range didn't go that far. Fortunately, that'd been about as weird as it got.
But, she'd heard there were Muppets, running a shop, somewhere near-by...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind