What happens
Gilbert Perry, a bassoon player, loses his orchestra seat to a robot musician and finds his household life unraveling as robots take over jobs and chores. Desperate, he visits the Category Office, which registers new job categories so people can claim work, and his application for a neo-Luddite opposition party is rejected because it was registered years ago. He then meets C.P. Jones, a former category inventor who has lost his license, and the two of them begin inventing absurd categories to get Gilbert back into the workforce. The broadcast ends with Gilbert and Jones setting up an office for an invented field called umbrological parallax tracing.
A near-future world where robots perform most jobs, with human reservists registering for new job categories at a government Category Office.
Characters: Gilbert Perry, Marge, C.P. Jones, Mr. Bergson, Mr. Perry
Listen for: Gilbert's first visit to the Category Office and his conversation with the robot clerk, and the moment he meets C.P. Jones and their invented category.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.