Morale, Metrics, and Humiliation

Hoblitzel had referred to the idea of mailgirl culture as "inane," something that could have easily been applied to very concept of mailgirls itself. Thirteen, when she'd first heard of the idea, had thought it was a joke. Companies tapped young, female employees, often in management track positions, to take on delivery duties for the duration of a two-year contract. These were girls with MBAs and JDs and other Masters degrees, girls who otherwise would have been groomed for department heads and strategy leaders. And yet they were approached to apply for positions ostensibly in the mail room. Even excluding Thirteen - who was still a year shy of completing her doctorate - USF's roster included a full PhD; Mailgirl Number Five was technically "Doctor" Five, and had been plucked from Quantitative Investments.

And, of course, all of the girls were expected to deliver the mail naked.

It made no sense. Even leaving pornographic and misogynistic fantasies aside, it made no sense. All of the girls at USF had been making good money even prior to becoming a mailgirl, and most of them had actually received a bump up in annual rate to take on mailgirl duties – albeit in the form of a few big lump sums that could be affected by how many demerits a girl racked up. USF, like other companies, even sweetened the pot for some of girls they selected – paying off student loans, buying out a girl's credit card debt, and so on. They guaranteed career advancement, in some cases, upon completion of the contract; Number Seven, for example, had been promised a fast track to Associate General Counsel. All to run memos from one corner of the USF Plaza to another, to deliver interoffice envelopes, to do something as mind-numbing and thankless as delivering the mail.

But the mailgirls were not mailgirls simply because the company needed someone to deliver the mail. The original program, initiated in Tokyo within only the last ten years, had been a morale-boosting stunt. But it was a morale-boosting stunt that had gained surprising traction – first in Asia. Then in Europe. Then among gaming companies and dot.coms on the West Coast. And now, inconceivably just a few years prior, here in New York, among more conservative financial service firms like US Financial.

As much of a stunt as the early mailgirl programs had been, it was the impact upon the bottom-line that titillated senior management even more. What companies found, time and again, was that mailgirls justified their lavish salaries and sign-ons dozens of times over. Sure, attrition overall spiked when a program was announced, especially among women; USF had been no different. But then, once things had normalized, attrition plummeted to levels unseen of before the mailgirl programs were rolled out. Among women, the decline was even more defined – it was one of those weird, unexpected, and paradoxical results that Thirteen was digging into from a research perspective.

Similar impacts could be seen in a company's actual business. When a program was announced, there were clients who no longer wished to work with a company who'd treat any of their employees as the mailgirls were treated. Some of this came from a place of upright moral rectitude, but more often than not it was little more than PR. But as mailgirl programs became more and more common, they were less and less of a PR risk for a client. And, even in those cases where a client was truly and permanently lost, companies like USF more than made up for the lost revenue with new clients; client meetings had tripled at the Plaza over the last five months, as eager, prospective customers made excuses to see a mailgirl in action with their own eyes.

Productivity gains, when quantified, were remarkable. Usage of vacation time and sick days was reduced. Leaves-of-absence were down, as was Short Term Disability, Long Term Disability, and FMLA. And all of that was ancillary, less important than the true driver: confidence and superiority.

It was a working theory that Thirteen still needed to better define and elaborate upon. But it held that the rank-and-file inside a company with mailgirls performed better, simply because they felt superior. By just about any quantifiable measure, the data proved her right – even USF had seen noticeable gains since just April, when the mailgirls program came online. Men performed better across the spectrum. Women, too, performed significantly better, with younger women – perhaps fearful of potentially being drafted into the mailgirl program itself – seeing exponential gains in quantitative performance. The qualitative data, though, suggested that young, attractive women were performing worse – but Thirteen discounted that finding as misleading, as it was often management's way to coerce a girl into taking a mailgirl position.

And so, the fact that Thirteen was stark naked here in a place of business – save for a lycra armband and a dog collar – was secondary. It wasn't her nudity that helped make the program successful, but the humiliation she felt from that nudity. It was in her debasement and her suffering that she brought value. As she worked her way down the hall with her naked breasts ever-so-slightly bouncing through Asset Management, her very presence brought about a feeling of superiority in all she passed.

Mark Stansbury's door was closed when Thirteen arrived. And, after risking a glance down at her armband to confirm she still had a few seconds to spare, Thirteen knocked gently.

She was beckoned in, and any pretense of respect that Stansbury had for her as another human being was completely absent. He grunted an acknowledgement of her presence, and then raked her up and down with his eyes, taking in the full picture of the naked girl in front of him. Decent-sized C-cup breasts, nipples hard and at attention. Shaved pubic area, with her slit fully exposed. Long blonde hair, done up in childish pigtails. Slave collar. Armband. A touch of make-up and lipstick, but nothing more. And a number "13," prominently displayed on her hip in black marker.

Thirteen had taken a step into Stansbury's office, but no further. Instead, she stood in "Feet" position – feet flat on the ground, legs parted, arms behind her back, chest pressed forward, and a vacant, submissive gaze directed at the floor.

She waited for Stansbury's order to come closer, so that he could retrieve Hoblitzel's memo from her smartphone, and endured his examination patiently. She was little more than a piece of tits and ass to him; but then, it was her job to be little more than a piece of tits and ass to him.

Thirteen was nowhere near as attracted to Stansbury as she was to Hoblitzel, but she suspected that was partly due to the power that Hoblitzel wielded. Stansbury was not unattractive; he was in his early forties, maybe even late thirties, well-dressed and well-groomed, just another one of a dime-a-dozen Wall Street types that worked here at USF. But, unlike Hoblitzel holding her for the better part of a half hour, this interaction with Stansbury was more routine.

He called her closer. He tapped his smartphone against hers, waited for the memo to transfer, and then sent her on her way. No pat-on-the-ass, no derogatory comment, no hoops to jump through. Thirteen could only hope that all of her deliveries that day went so smoothly.