Table Stakes Pt. IV: Undead in the water

Part IV of a serialized telling of a disillusioned disgruntled designer who rises to the occasion as a vampire hunter, saving lives—including his own

Carter sat down at his desk near the window, the third row in a sea of rows of long wooden tables, 24” monitors, Aeron chairs, and roll-y white IKEA MICKE drawers. He squinted out at the bright, beautiful day, with the sun reflecting off the windows of the massive glass TFC rental tower next door directly into his retinas. Not many were in the office today, it being Thursday, Friday’s Eve, and since there was no free lunch to motivate his co-workers to at least badge in and promptly leave with full Tupperwares.

Carter spent the day before getting onboarded into Ferrum’s internal systems, watching lengthy security videos starring optimally professional yet attractive, airbrushed AI actors warn against phishing, smishing, vishing, spear phishing, whaling, angler phishing, phish pharming, watering hole phishing and beyond. Carter had never felt so simultaneously vulnerable to cyber attack, yet intrigued by how many ways there must be to catch a fish. “These scammers like to cast a wide net,” Horatio the AI man concluded with a wink. Carter felt vaguely unsafe, and made a mental note to update his passwords, and continued to 3x speed his way through the videos, relying solely on his intuition to score a 98% on his assessment. He was chomping at the bit to just get going already, knowing that a mountain of work awaited him. As a way to get a solid fresh start, and resurrect his best, most productive self who sometimes wore pants that zippered and buttoned, he pledged that he would go into the office as much as he could for this project and be a proper member of working society.

—

After his sacred multi-step pre-work pour-over ritual, with the violent roar of the coffee grinder piercing the relative silence of the office, and his ceremonial water pour, pondering life as he stared at the grounds blooming, Carter finally settled into his chair, Gryffindor mug warming his hands. Now, he could work. Julian had sent over the previous design contractor’s work on the desktop application, which Julian shared he’d worked extensively on, with undeniable hints of pride. Uh oh, Carter thought. Maybe they’ll be alright, he hoped, but his previous experiences of clients “taking a stab at the design” haunted him with a mental grimace emoji.

Carter exhaled. He clicked the Figma link from Julian’s email, and with the first screens that loaded, he had a design heart attack. What. the. eff. is. this. His right eye twitched while his left eye opened wide, like Mr. DeMartino from Daria. He felt the combination of extreme agita and deep despair that would often wash over him when experiencing poor design, and his stomach dropped instantly as his mental calculus coughed out a gut reaction: this is going to be near-impossible to fix. Carter did a mini upper body downward dog, gripping the desk with his palms, closing his eyes, and took a deep breath to reset.

Maybe there’s some method to this madness. He went into logic mode, and began to scan the screens. Home screen, which navigated to screens for Labs, Sleep, Vitals, Activity; Profile. Aesthetically it was giving… Workday widgets, with Windows 95 styling and typography, and definitely not in the cool, ironic Gen Z branded way. His mind raced, taking in the true scope of not just translating this into a mobile application, but genuinely starting from ground zero with the information architecture, and most likely every single user flow. No, have to backtrack even more. From what Carter was seeing, and the closer he looked, this actually seemed to be some kind of Frankenstein of the Oura ring and Apple Health applications, and there was no coherent experience, at all. While all he had in front of him were a few screens, they told a story of a thousand words. There is no core value proposition here, is there? He didn’t see how having blood labs could integrate with the overall picture in any meaningful way. It was the kind of moment that really made his job challenging. It was never long hours or working hard, it was working on something that just didn’t make sense.

—

He needed a break. There was so much to negotiate mentally; his brain was calculating like the confused math lady meme. Sometimes it was best to just take a little stroll from one end of the office to the other, and have a delicious complimentary snack from the cafeteria to give himself space to process. Hopefully there weren’t only blueberry RxBars remaining; his jaw was already clenched enough.

Carter settled back in his chair, and cracked open a pamplemousse LaCroix. He then remembered that Julian had also sent over a sample Ferrum ring, which was sitting unboxed on his desk. It would be the perfect, still productive, mini-diversion from the labyrinthine cognitive challenge of a design task that awaited him; anyway he needed to better understand the product, physically. Using the edge of his mailbox key, he sliced open the packing tape to first reveal a handwritten note from Julian.

“Carter —
Please accept this Ferrum ring, offered to assist you in your work. I advise that you wear it for the duration of the project, so that you may come to understand it… properly.

You must not speak of its origin, nor of any connection to Ferrum or to the technologies that sustain it. For now, it is better that such knowledge remains secret and contained.

Keep it with you. Keep it safe.

— J.”

He removed the matte oxblood box, not dissimilar to what an engagement ring might come in. The magnetic lid resisted slightly, as if reluctant to open, before giving way. Within the brushed matte black molded insert sat a dense gold band, etched with a pattern that he couldn’t quit put his finger on — deeply carved ancient geometry, still restrained and minimal, that might have been decorative — or instructional.

Carter felt the ring before his fingers and thumb closed around it, and was struck by its heavy, deliberate weight — like the first time he held a metal Sapphire Reserve card. It carried a certain gravity to it and seemed impervious to damage. This one ring, the object of Carter’s focus for the next four weeks. He hesitated for a moment, but to abide by Julian’s request, he slid it onto his finger. What Carter had assumed was a small gemstone illuminated.