There is no career in Volume. There is no ladder to climb, no pension waiting at the end, no company that knows your name. Every job is a gig — from the janitor to the CEO. Each position is a limited contract, and when it ends you apply again. Somewhere else, something else, always provisional, always temporary.
There was no childhood either. The workers were released as adults, fully formed and ready to bill. No scraped knees, no summer breaks, no growing up. Just the moment the factory doors opened and the debt clock started ticking. Work-life balance isn’t a perk they forgot to include — it’s a concept that was never considered.
To fill the skill gaps, every worker is paired with an AI that overlays a HUD on their vision — telling them where to go, who to talk to, what to say. Every action is monitored, rated, and flagged for optimization. It’s not unlike how content creators today are told which words trigger demonetization and how many posts they need to publish to stay visible. The algorithm doesn’t care how you feel. It just wants the numbers up.
💡 Idea by me, prose by Claude (Anthropic)
#WorldBuilding #GigEconomy #Surveillance #Cyberpunk #Volume