Episode 3

Geek Sneakers

List of Characters:

Brother 1 — experienced peddler

Brother 2 — TOP-manager in game development company

— Bro, hey, bro, you gotta help me! (First line of the play)

— Huh?!

— I mean, you’re in the GameDev Industry. You make games for tablets and smartphones…

— Yeah, so what?!

— Well, they put us in charge of releasing Ubuntu Mobile on the Russian market. So tell me, what’s WITH this Ubuntu? Is it cool or lame?

— Gimme a sec… (Brother leaves the stage, a quiet conversation is heard behind the curtains of a loft, where there are 50 programmers, sitting. 10 minutes go by, and he returns. The expression on his face has changed from one of indifference to that of light perplexity and carefully concealed curiosity.)

— I found out.

— Well, quit stalling! Am I going to be happy or not?

— From the 20 people I surveyed on the team, 14 of them have Ubuntu on their PCs. The opinions of the desktop version are highly positive.

— So what about Ubuntu as a phone?

— EVERYBODY was interested. Everybody wants to do some probing.

But that’s NOT the funniest part…

— Quit messing around, this is no joke. What’s funny?

— I have this coder from the lower class. It’s his third month out on probation. He gets paid less than minimum wage. He’s been wearing the same sneakers for 8 years, cause he’s got no money change ‘em. And he even thinks that way. It doesn’t even enter his head.

— Very interesting (answered Brother 1 with sarcasm). I know how you love to exploit people. But you’re the only one who’s having fun here.

— I didn’t finish! When I asked the guys about Ubuntu, he took off his headphones and for the first time in three months he started TALKING to us. By himself, of his own initiative. He’s got a speech impediment — I guess it’s once in a blue moon that he uses his voice at all — but something that was definitely clear is that he “s-s-s-sends” 50 dollars to Ubuntu every two months. 50 dollars every two months, think about it! He’s got no money to switch out his sneakers, but for that…

Curtain…

A voice from backstage:

Brother 1. So what’ve we got? Our demographic for the Ubuntu smartphone is made up of insignificant, crazy coders from the lower class? How many of those can there be Russia? 457 total? Do they even have money?

What a disaster…