Document Shredding

SalaTech was well-known for its cutting edge technology, as such their security was off the charts out of necessity. Over the past five years, they foiled nearly a hundred corporate espionage attempts trying to get access to their secrets. Due to a technology snag, a major branch of their Research and Development department was shutting down. Despite their best efforts, much of the team was getting laid off.

It was well-known that many rival companies closely eyed anyone that left SalaTech and extended offers immediately, trying to get access to any secrets they carried with them. Of course SalaTech had extensive non-compete agreements, they knew that didn’t stop under-the-table deals.

This particular shutdown created even more concerns for SalaTech leadership. The projects being shut down weren’t trademarked or otherwise legally protected, so even if they could prosecute anyone who gave away their secrets, they could do nothing to stop the rival company from using whatever stolen technology they got their hands on.

Their employees signed quite a few agreements when coming to work for them, giving SalaTech quite a bit of control over their employees. In that light, leadership decided to do something rather drastic. Every employee that was due to be laid off were discreetly called into meetings with their leadership team.

Using the SalaTech Mind-Reading and Transformation technology, or MR-T in short, each of the employees was physically transformed into a set of collated and stapled paper documents. The technology read their minds and detailed everything each of them knew about current SalaTech projects. It even included a Risk Report which outlined the likelihood that the transformed employee would sell secrets, taking into account their personality and any potentially exploitable secrets. The technology even created a series of personal information forms. Everything from favorite movie to sexual fetishes was on display for anyone to read all about.

Overall, there were a total of three hundred and forty seven sets of documents, each of them fully aware, with all of their senses intact. They weren’t told what was happening or why they had been transformed, so all they could do was watch helplessly as they were collected and examined.

The idea was that the security and intellectual property team would carefully examine each document and determine what to do with each employee. Those with little knowledge or low risk would be restored to human form and laid off. However, those with detailed knowledge and/or too high of a risk would be sent to the shredder, ensuring that they would never pose a threat to SalaTech.

The employees never knew what was happening, they were forced to sit still as their secrets were poured over and discussed. While they weren’t supposed to read the personal information sections, many of the reviewers would. Worse yet, they would laugh and joke about embarrassing secrets they learned in this process. Tammy from accounting’s foot fetish, Jackson from marketing’s Only Fans subscription list, and much much more was discussed and laughed at.

The employees were sorted into piles, some of them restored and given the bad news, while others ended up somewhere darker. They would occasionally get hints that they were doomed, but would only find out for sure when the blades were eating at their new forms.

Of the three hundred and forty seven, only one hundred and four of them walked out of the building, their experience weighing heavily on them. The helpless feeling terrified them into capitulating with their non-compete agreements, figuring that no one would believe what happened to them even if they did try to blow the whistle…