Action will be taken: An action-packed story

 

Heinrich Boll conveys a critical view on social hypocrisy and false cultural values in a story "Action will be taken: An action-packed story. It is a satirical story. 

The narrator is an employee in Alferd Wunsiedel's factory. He has to start off the job due to prolonged financial difficulties. He thinks his fellow companion to the factory is sufferers where they had to undergo an aptitude test. 

The factory was built of glass brick so he is very suspicious. He and others were served breakfast in a cheerful coffee shop. He didn't take all the meals served. He had orange juice and left coffee and egg. He thought breakfast is also a part of the test. Soon after he was done with the meal he was ushered into the room with the questionnaires spread on the attractive table. Though the room was empty he could feel he was being watched. He answered all the questions and he got the job. In his answers, he has preserved his nature as a workaholic person. He lies on all of them, depicting himself as a hard-worker that needs to be in the-mix-of-things at all times.

He started his work in the factory and got to know about the various person and their story. Every worker uses the slogan Action Will Be Taken. The factory, where the narrator works, was a bureaucratic madhouse full of absurdities and punchlines worthy of any modern workplace satire. It shows their dedication to work. Unlike the narrator, everyone in the story is into work. He is inactive and pensive. But in the company of factory workers, he had to be like them. For several weeks he operated telephones, saying into them variations of the phrase Action must be taken! One day he hesitated in reciting this phrase when Mr. Wunsiedel entered the room. The boss shouted at him for not obeying the rule and then died of a heart attack. At the funeral, the narrator realized the job that he was born to have, a professional mourner. At the end of the story, he revealed what the factory manufactured 

The story gives a good subject for discussion about the social problems, the attitude of the individual for life, and work. The writer is pointing out the irony of modern day workers who are so much into action, lack knowledge what the factory produces. The narrator who worked in a factory never really worked and was appreciated for his work but at the funeral he was looked superb.