Baumeister is a typesetter who was retired along with his Linotype machine and now lives in early retirement and widowed on a much too large property in the Hessian Odenwald. After the death of his wife, the departure of his daughter, and the technological revolution in typesetting, not much remains for him from a world that seemed to persist unchanged for half a lifetime. He will likely have to explain to his grandchildren what a punch clock was, what a cafeteria is, and what a referendum means. Paula, Baumeister's daughter, is studying in Kiel, where she is developing her thesis "Future of Work": when she comes to visit, Baumeister comes alive. One day, Baumeister meets the "walking scientist" Richard Skala on a forest path. Skala works beyond the categories of utility and profitability, and Baumeister will soon become his archivist.