You may recall that Thomas Tabby was elected as Liaison to the Humans in 2024 as the Tabocracy candidate. He has been working on a major project with the humans. His spokescat, Sgt Stripes, is ready to make the big announcement. 

Sgt Stripes: Greetings everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We have very exciting news. We are going to roll out the CatForce. It is a joint venture with the humans to help cats find the right job for their skill and personality. There are a lot of mouser and customer service jobs in the human sector that are going unfilled. And we have a lot of cats who are looking for the right position.

Ginger: You’re not talking about those “working cat” positions are you? That system is really degrading. The humans just grab cats off the street and put them in a barn or something. They say that they are helping the “feral cat” population. A lot of those cats end up separated from their families.

Sgt Stripes: Actually, that is an excellent point. Thomas was getting complaints about humans not really taking the cats’ rights into account when they put them to work. Our human contact, JD Katz (gotta love his name), was actually willing to work with us to find a solution that works for everyone.

Suzette: Humans understand that we don’t all want to work, right? Some of us are used to a life of leisure and don’t want to be forced to work in a grain silo.

Stripes: I don’t think there’s any danger of family cats being forced to work.

Brutus: What exactly is CatForce?

Sgt Stripes: It’s a new system where cats can look for jobs that the humans want filled.

Brutus: What kind of jobs? Would we have to live in a human neighborhood?

Sgt Stripes: We don’t have many humans here in Cheeseland. I would think that most of these type of jobs would require relocation.

Sydney: It sounds like most of these jobs would be entry-level, stereotypical cat jobs. Things like rodent control, greeting customers, and inventory control.

Sgt Stripes: There will also be a section for humans who would like a feline companion.

Ginger: Oh. Like a housecat. My grandmother was one of those. She said it was actually a pretty good life. They had a few disagreements about who was in charge, but it was a nice, secure way to live.

Pickles: Who is running this system?

Sgt Stripes: The humans are putting it together. They will be putting the job descriptions in there. Then we cats can decide what jobs we want to apply for.

Frankie: Will there be any jobs there that don’t involve humans?

Sgt Stripes: No. The focus will be entirely on the cat-human sector of the job market.

Frankie: Who’s going to make sure the jobs are legitimate? I don’t want to take a job that ends up with me becoming some small human’s toy.

Sgt Stripes: I don’t think that’s really a danger. But I’ll find out exactly how much control the cats have in this agreement.

Wilfred: Do you know how many jobs will be posted?

Sgt Stripes: Thomas is pretty excited about this. He and JD want to start small to get all the problems ironed out. But they are hoping that every cat in Cheeseland who has an interest in this type of job will be able to find a match.

Wilfred: Does it cost anything?

Sgt Stripes: It is entirely free for the job-seeker.

Brutus: I want to try it out. Where do I sign up>?

Next week: Early impressions of CatForce.

Pictures courtesy of Google Images