The Success Machine — Context and Discussion

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In Category - Machines Inventions Early Science Fiction

Authors: Slesar, Henry, 1927-2002 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2008 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Science fiction, American Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 6,932

Reading time 31 min

Text sections 1

The source record for The Success Machine — Context and Discussion measures this digital text at 6,932 words, 31 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 11.7 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Science fiction, American,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #26168

In Henry Slesar's 1950s satire, a personnel manager's truth-telling machine threatens a corporation built on pep talks and pretense. The story's clipped dialogue and mechanical chortling expose office absurdity.

Editorial Edition Score 4.3/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg26168

Read the Text

There was an appreciative laugh from the assembled department heads. Colihan, however, was still brooding on the parade of pink cards which had been emerging with frightening regularity from his think-machine, and he failed to get the point.

"Naughty, naughty," Grimswitch whispered to him archly. "Boss made a funny. Don't forget to laugh, old boy."

Colihan threw him a sub-zero look.

"Now let's be serious," said the boss. "Because things _are_ serious. Mighty serious. Somewhere, somehow, _somebody's_ letting us down!"

The department heads looked uneasily at each other. Only Grimswitch continued to smile vacantly at the little old man up front, drumming his fingers on the glass table top. When the President's machine-gunning glance caught his eyes, Colihan went white. _Does he know about it?_ he thought.

"I'm not making accusations," said Moss. "But there is a let-down someplace. Douglas!" he snapped.

Douglas, the Treasurer, did a jack-in-the-box.

"Read the statement," said the President.

"First quarter fiscal year," said Douglas dryly. "Investment capital, $17,836,975,238.96. Assets, $84,967,442,279.55. Liabilities, $83,964,283,774.60. Production costs are--"

Moss waved his hand impatiently. "The meat, the meat," he said.

Douglas adjusted his glasses. "Total net revenue, $26,876,924.99."

"COMPARISON!" The President screamed. "Let's have last first quarter, you idiot!"

"_Ahem!_" Douglas rattled the paper in annoyance. "Last first quarter fiscal year net revenue $34,955,376.81. Percent decrease--"

"Never mind." The little old man waved the Treasurer to his seat with a weary gesture. His face, so much like somebody's grandmother, looked tragic as he spoke his next words.

"You don't need the Accountovac to tell you the significance of those figures, gentlemen." His voice was soft, with a slight quaver. "We are not making much p-r-o-f-i-t. We are losing m-o-n-e-y. And the point is--what's the reason? There must be _some_ reason." His eyes went over them again, and Colihan, feeling like the culprit, slumped in his chair.

"I have a suggestion," said the President. "Just an idea. Maybe some of us just aren't showing enough p-e-p."

There was a hushed silence.

The boss pushed back his chair and walked over to a cork-lined wall. With a dramatic gesture, he lifted one arm and pointed to the white sign that covered a fourth of it.

"See that?" he asked. "What does it say?"

The department heads looked dubious.

"_Well, what does it say?_" repeated Moss.

"ACT!" The department heads cried in chorus.

"Exactly!" said the little old man with a surprising bellow. "ACT! The word that made us a leader. The word that guides our business destiny. The word that _built_ General Products!"

He paced the floor. The chairs in the conference room creaked as the department heads stirred to follow him with their eyes.

"ACT is our motto. ACT is our password. ACT is our key to success. And why not? The Brains do the thinking. All of us put together couldn't think so effectively, so perfectly, so honestly as the Brains. They take the orders, designate raw materials, equipment, manpower. They schedule our work. They analyze our products. They analyze our people."

"There's only one important function left to us. And that's ACT!"

The President bowed his head and walked slowly back to his seat. He sat down, and with great fatigue evident in his voice, he concluded his polemic.

"That's why we must have pep, gentlemen. Pep. Now--how do you spell it?"

"P! E! P!" roared the department heads.

The meeting was over. The department heads filed out.

Colihan's secretary placed the morning mail on his desk. There was a stack of memos at least an inch thick, and the Personnel Manager moaned at the sight of it.

"Production report doesn't look too good," said Miss Blanche, crisply. "Bet we get a flood of aptitude cards from Morgan today. Grimswitch has sent over a couple. That makes eleven from him this month. He really has his problems."

Colihan grunted. _He deserves them_, he thought.

"How did the meeting go?"

"Huh?" Colihan looked up. "Oh, fine, fine. Boss was in good voice, as usual."

"I think there's an envelope from him in the stack."

"What?" Colihan hoped that his concern wasn't visible. He riffled through the papers hurriedly, and came up with a neat white envelope engraved with the words: OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT.

Miss Blanche watched him, frankly curious. "That will be all," he told her curtly.

When she had left, he ripped the envelope open and read the contents. It was in Moss's own cramped handwriting, and it was a request for a three o'clock "man-to-man" talk.

_Oh, Lord_, he thought. _Now it's going to happen._

President Moss was eating an apple.

He ate so greedily that the juice spilled over his chin.

Sitting behind his massive oak desk, chair tilted back, apple juice dappling his whiskers, he looked so small and unformidable, that Colihan took heart.

"Well, Ralph--how goes it?"

Continue Reading →

The Personnelovac does not merely compute; it winks, chitters, chortles, chuckles, and burps out pink cards. Henry Slesar gives his machine a personality that is almost too human, while the human characters struggle to think at all. Colihan, the personnel manager, must physically exert himself to have an idea—'jerking about in his swivel chair like a hooked fish.' The story’s comedy arises from this inversion: the steel brain has more fun than the people, and its unvarnished honesty threatens a company built on pep talks and pretense.

The Vocabulary of the Office

Slesar builds his corporate world through a precise, exaggerated diction. President Moss spells out success in three-letter increments: 'P-E-P. Pep!' and then 'M-O-N-N-E-Y!' The laugh line is that profit has five letters, not six—a deliberate misspelling that underscores the boss’s bluster. Elsewhere, Colihan thinks in batting averages and tries to calculate with a pencil before giving up. The dialogue is clipped and repetitive: 'Yes, sir!' 'No, sir!' 'Speed it up. Speed it up!' These verbal tics create a rhythm of obedience and anxiety, where thinking itself is a company rule that must be broken.

Machines That Mimic, Men Who Stall

The Personnelovac and its kin—the Averagovac, Materielovac, Maintainovac—are named with a deadpan suffix that reduces every function to a product. Yet the machines are not coldly efficient; they chortle and chuckle, as if enjoying their work. Colihan, by contrast, stalls, lies, and wheedles. When he needs to access files, he manipulates Lockwood with a fake story about a special department head check. The story’s tension comes from watching a fallible human try to outwit a device that is 'completely honest and does not exhibit bias.' The machine’s final report card on itself reveals a fatal flaw: it lacks tact.

The Pink Card as Plot Engine

Each pink card is a miniature verdict, delivered with clinical specificity: 'Subject demonstrates decreased mechanical coordination. Decrease in work-energy per man-hour.' The cards reduce employees to numbered subjects with ratings that slide downward. Colihan’s panic mounts as twenty-four out of forty cards turn pink. The color itself becomes a symbol of failure, and the Action Chute a one-way disposal. Slesar uses the card as both a prop and a structural device—each appearance advances the plot while reinforcing the theme of mechanized judgment. The final card, evaluating the machine itself, delivers the story’s ironic punch.

The Effort of Thinking

Thinking is portrayed as a painful, almost physical ordeal. Colihan 'jerked about in his swivel chair like a hooked fish. He beat his hands on the desk top. He paced the floor and tore at the roots of his hair.' Only when he gives up and 'flops ungracefully' does inspiration strike. This comic exaggeration suggests that in a world run by machines, genuine thought has become unnatural. The story’s climax hinges on Colihan’s ability to out-think the Brain, but his method is deception, not logic. Slesar leaves the reader wondering whether human cunning can ever match mechanical honesty—or whether the company deserves what it gets.

Slesar’s story is a satire of mid-century corporate culture, but its target is broader: the substitution of systems for judgment. The machines are named with a straight face, the humans with a wink. Readers attuned to office politics will recognize the rituals of the department-head meeting and the whispered asides. The story rewards attention to its verbal and mechanical details—the chortle, the pink card, the misspelled profit—rather than its plot twists. Approach it as a fable about the cost of honesty in a system built on appearances.

Reading Slesar's machine, I remembered my father's old office—the hollow cheer of Monday meetings that vanished the moment doors shut. It felt like that afternoon I first found The Common Man — Story, Setting & Ideas, where ordinary gestures held a quiet weight no slogan could touch. Both books make the unspoken feel louder than any speech.