The year is YYYY and some dork has invented the antimagnetophasing encabulator, causing all those clunky old turboencabulators to become obsolete. At hundreds of companies across America, turboencabulator operators are being layed off, as the new antimagnetophasing ones can already project their protoneutrinos into Yuzna space with a tighter focus than any human operator can ever hope to achieve. And it's all automatic!
I worked at Company A, as turboencabulator operator. Yeah, I lost my job. Fortunately, Bill Gates' lets-tax-robot-workers idea has been enacted, so upon my layoff; no wait, actually, upon Company A's deployment of antimagnetophasing encabulators, they had to pay an extra $n tax every year, for replacing my job with a machine.
The fact that they're having to pay some extra tax is gratifying to me, but it's not putting food on my family. Well, I mean, I'm sure the $n goes into the social safety net somehow, so maybe I'll see a little piece of my $n if I go on foodstamps or something like that. But I don't want that. I want money.
Ya know, thanks to my old job, I happen to know a lot about encabulators. Even the new antimagnetophasing encabulator, which took my job, is no technical mystery to me. I understand them and I understand why they didn't need me anymore. I get why the company did that. I would do the same thing, if I were in their posi-- hey. What if I were in their position? What if I started my own encabulating company?
I'll just fucking copy the company I worked at! We'll have the same number of CEOs, the same number of salespeople, the same number of miscellaneous office workers supporting everything, but no turboencabulator operators, of course, because my company will use antimagnetophasing encabulators from its very genesis.
I form Company B.
Company B is just as productive as Company A in every way. We're vicious competitors, cutting margins down to the line, as low as we can go. Our customers are ecstatic as encabulation service prices plummet. But here at Company B, we have an edge.
We don't pay Bill Gates' tax because we never had turboencabulator operators. But company A is still paying $n every year for laying me off! HA! HA HA!! Thank you, Bill Gates, for throwing an arbitrary, unfair money-wrench into my competitor's business!