"People smarter than me, honestly. But anyway, thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to talk about this."

"You're welcome, hon."

Next on the agenda: o great all-seeing Citrus, what trove of knowledge might be found by one searching for "top ten obscure grey jobs you never heard of", "red deputy programs", and any non-pseudonymous public internet presence of anyone the Danshoe Police Department website mentions as working for them.

Top Ten Obscure Grey Jobs You Never Heard Of: sports injury physical therapist! Fire inspector! Gambling surveillance officer! Ski patrol! Fishing warden! Insurance claim investigator! Park ranger! Sports talent scout! Kayfabe author! Bomb disposal technician!

Red deputy programs: yeah it was popular about twenty years back, but most provinces eventually cut it during the recession as an unnecessary expense and since then people have cited instances of the red deputies not tipping their bosses off about impending riots as a reason not to resume.

A beat cop has a personal blog, mostly shitposts. An office yellow has a side gig doing party planning. A records office grey has a parenting vlog. A detective has a dormant springtime-only hooking profile. A traffic cop has a work blog, but hasn't updated it since last winter. A lockup supervisor has a Picci profile with a lot of selfies.

Some of those jobs sound remarkably interesting.

He reads the blogs and watches the vlog and checks who hires fire inspectors and bomb disposal technicians and whether they have policies about ex-reds yet.

"I am citizen, I pay your salary, my tax dollars bought you everything I have" ma'am this would be more convincing if you were not under arrest for embezzling offshore

No, you shouldn't drive drunk. No, even if it's a liquor truck. No, even if you are driving the empty liquor truck back to the shipping depot having previously driven it to the bar. No, even if the bartender is a certifiable moron who in most countries wouldn't be allowed to breed and he tips you in absinthe. No, even if you know the route like the back of your hand.

Felt cute, might delete later.

Today little Kimmu and his friend didn't agree on how to play! Usually this would be a time for conflict resolution skills, but Kimmu wanted to play house and his friend wanted to play Imperial Warriors. Why is that show even aired in Voa? Sign the Programming Protection Petition today, or you, like Kimmu's friend's dad, might have to explain some atrocities to your little one.

Well, hey, at least that makes the military a little more attractive.

Gotta wonder how many more "felt cute, might delete later" selfies there once were.

The photo log does not specify!

It's not too many days before the community organizer swings by to speak to Valsin.

That's not really a surprise. He'll stop trying to mimic this orange vlogger's body language and invite them in.

"Hey. I've been asked for a raft of thirty to put through decontam from here. No dependents, healthy adult, able to work, all that. Do you want to be in the batch?"

"...Yyyes but you should know I'm waffling between grey and orange and obviously grey's pretty high-risk but also all the orange jobs I'm seriously considering have a really long lead time before I can actually... do them."

"I'll put you as a maybe and include you if I don't have enough people who want to go be truck drivers and paralegals."

"If it seems like a really good idea I could try being a paralegal but mostly because it's probably doable to swap to Miolee as a yellow when I inevitably can't stand it anymore, and I'm not sure it does seem like a really good idea."

"If you're planning on Miolee you shouldn't be in the first batch, yeah."

"Only if I have to be yellow, otherwise I like Voa."

"So don't be yellow. We'll get to you when we get to you. I'll come back if we're short on ideal candidates."

He nods and half-smiles wistfully. "Just let me know."

The organizer's back later that afternoon. "We've got twenty-eight who are shoo-ins, but they want thirty. Gotten anywhere on deciding how to declare?"

"I have an ordered list of my top twenty choices of job or educational program to apply to once I have a firm date to tell them I can be out of here by but the list is - arguably technically three castes. To a first approximation it's 'if I can't be a cop or a fire inspector I'll go orange', but firefighting's on there and options nineteen and twenty are purple."

"...okay. How desperately will you hate porn if you go grey and that's all that's left?"

"Depends on how narrowly you mean it, but I don't think I'd like anything in that vein."

"Do you think you will get closer to resolving this in the next couple of months?"

"Can I tell places I apply to that if they want me and say so in that time then I’ll be out with the first batch? I’ve already gotten as far as confirming they all in theory accept ex-reds and aren’t too obnoxious to bother with."

"You can tell them that but hedge it, I have a few other people in similar situations to talk to."

"Okay. I’ll see how that goes."