Diminishing Returns Outline
shrinking promoted as a solution to world population growth problems. Want an apartment twice as big? Shrink yourself to half the size! This would create an economic connection to size, where the wealthy could remain full sized if they choose. Further, a successful business might offer the allure of a free 'large' home if the employee is willing to be shrunk and the work could be done 'virtually'. For managers to interact with business owners, they would be larger sized... and they might be charged with physical care of their employees.
his first entry into his luxury life is exciting. he's very well cared for. however, soon it turns dark, as he sees that he is trapped in a smaller size. his luxury life is much cheaper, but his salary is also much smaller. it will take him years to earn enough for even a small vacation at full size. eventually he resigns to stay in his better situation.
he 'online dates' a girl for a while before offering to 'provide a luxury lifestyle for her' if she joins him in his 'shrunk employee life'. When she arrives, they give her a job, and soon she knows everyone, is being promoted above him, running the floor, etc. Not long after, her boss is promoted, and she is offered his job, along with the management 'care' of the employee group and the larger size. she hopes to soon afford to have enough space to bring him with her. She maintains her relationship with him, but things become very unequal as she is big. she awkwardly shows favoritism and plucks him out of work for her own desires... making his life with peers awkward in addition to exacerbating the power differential.
he then brings up the fact that he expected to be promoted soon.. she could admit he deserved it, but that she can't very well promote him because with them dating it would look like favoritism -- that she already goes out of her way to make the work easier on him. he explains his discomfort with how others see his special treatment, and she 'understands' his predicament.. yet rather than agreeing to publicly treat him the same, she proposes to support him so he doesn't have to work. he can live with her. he gets excited until he realizes she means to keep him at his small size most of the time. that she only has enough money to 'occasionally' bring him to full size with her, that her apartment is much too small for two full size people to live in. eventually, when she can afford for him to be full time more often, he can get a job and resume his care
to celebrate, she pays for an evening and meal with him at her size. they have a passionate evening, and he wakes up again in his tiny state. -- being with her, he 'rides along' in her pocket and gets to see more of the company process, including the fact that she's managing several 'boxes of employees' simultaneously. she also sees that he's not the only one she was 'friendly' with among the employees.. -- their next 'date', he turns out only to be half her size... and she says she's sorry, she's saving up for a bigger place, and didn't have enough to make him full size. this also shifts the nature of the evening.
the next morning, they have a fight. she reminds him she's supporting him, that perhaps he'd rather go back to work. he would, as at least he would be in control of his own life. she begrudgingly complies, and tosses him back to work in one of the boxes. he's happy for his own place again and his independence, until he receives his paycheck, where there is not one, but two caretaker taxes.. one for the company, and one for her. he leaves her a video message about it, and receives a dry email from her about how the caretaker is revocable only when he can afford to be full size, that she will has to be his caretaker until then.. but that she understands he wants his independence so she will leave him be.
Yet he sees her address his 'group' every morning while ignoring him. Eventually, he notices the subtle signs of her carrying another 'ride along' in her pocket, though others don't know it. It makes him jealous, and he sends her video messages trying to rekindle. She replies, telling him she misses him, but he was very clear about wanting his independence. that she would like to see him, btu things in her life are very different now.