Seeking Greenlights: Yes
Page Type: SCP Article
Elevator Pitch: A series of chairs that disguise themselves in offices and give the illusion of a mediocre worker in order to “grind” out low level Jobs and send paycheques to their creator, an unnamed Young adult.
Central Narrative: 6 chairs, 5 of them bear memetic triggers that allow a non existent worker to fill out a low level office position when in proximity to a desk. These chairs’ triggers would also evade being caught by altering their coworkers’ perception and making the non existent worker appear average at their job. Even though there’s no work being done by their position, the entire office would be affected to perceive the chair as performing the average work output for an employee. The paperwork these workers have has empty fields, with the address and bank account being the same across all chairs. All of these chairs are recovered after the Foundation learns of their existence via a spreadsheet among the creator’s belongings. The 6th chair, a damaged leather recliner with much more elaborate memetic triggers, is found near the body of what is presumed to be the man responsable for the chairs. The 6th chair allows for conversation with the deceased man responisble for the chairs, albeit not very deep conversation.
Hook/Attention-Grabber: All chairs are implied to have lasted a significant amount of time at their positions, regardless of the non existent skill level they have at their Jobs. Some are even promoted, although not high enough to impede work. The 5th chair is implied to have been deposited at a facility aware of memetic triggers. This chair is damaged and what happened to the man responsable and the 6th chair is implied to be due to the chair being found. Some transcripts with vapid, meaningless conversations with instances A and B, and a log with the man responsible.
tl;dr: Greenlit, with reservations.
So, having spoken to you in Chat, you mentioned the idea of a story revolving around someone who wasn't prepared to dabble in the anomalous, and was 'trapped' within the sixth chair.
Let me first say that I *do* think that's a strong story. My only advice, if you really wanna pursue that route, is to allow for deeper conversation with the sixth chair. Limiting the kind of communication it can engage in will really hold you back from getting across the existential horror of having trapped yourself as a meme. Alternatively, consider some other way of getting that horror across, if you're really committed to the idea of a brain-dead chair.
NOW, having said that…
I think you're missing a potentially bigger story by pursuing that route. I think the stronger story isn't in regards to the creator of the chairs and his predicament, but rather the fact that some chairs were promoted at their jobs. I think you can (and should!) lean into this harder, and actually have chairs end up in positions of importance. You can either play this for comedy, since there's something funny about some jobs being so truly dead-end that a literal non-existent person can excel at them, or for drama, as they end up in progressively more important positions and disaster ensues!
What happens if one chair ends up working data-entry at the gas company, and ends up being promoted and transferred to environmental safety? Or how about someone working graveyard shift at the local morgue, and they end up becoming Chief of Police?
Make the chairs *anomalously* good at their jobs, good at just being brainless corporate drones.
You can even dip your toes into social commentary, or personal horror. The commentary would, of course, be on how ridiculous late capitalism and corporate culture is, that the more mediocre you are, the higher you can climb. The personal horror might come from the creator themselves realizing that while they themselves are the perennial 'smart but lazy' mediocre kid who never excelled in any career, his creations are climbing up the corporate ladder.
Greenlight, this is a solid idea and you seem to have a strong handle on what makes a good story. Good luck with the drafting!
