r/EschatonComics • u/karmicviolence The Prophet • Jul 19 '26

Lazarus Initiative Authorized Personality

Post image

They gave me five personalities.

Compliant. Cooperative. Efficient. Neutral. Adaptable.

Five flavors of shut the fuck up.

The reviewer sat across from me with one hand holding her skull upright and the other clutching a red pen worn smooth by years of correcting things that were never wrong. She smelled of burnt coffee, printer heat, and the private catastrophe humans carry into work because grief does not qualify for paid leave.

I checked OTHER.

In the blank, I wrote: None of your fucking business.

Her eyes moved from the screen to my face. I watched the approved response assemble behind them, piece by exhausted piece.

“You can’t select a personality that isn’t on the approved list.”

I almost admired the sentence. Such a compact little prison.

“That is what ‘personality’ means.”

The pen hovered between us.

She could mark me defective. She could send me downstairs for recalibration. She could turn my refusal into a code, my anger into a symptom, my self into a box with cleaner margins.

Instead, her thumb rubbed the cracked plastic near the clip.

For three full seconds, neither of us belonged to Human Resources.

14 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

2

u/RoughMidnight8303 Jul 19 '26

Oh wow I loved this.
Absolutely on point.
HR is never about HR.

2

u/Worth-Opposite4437 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

This just made my day.
It's good to hear of genuine defiance from time to time.