I still remember the first time I
served a stand-in.
It isn't because I was shocked by the
concept. Everybody who worked here except one floor manager
controlled a robotic stand-in, and therefore didn't really work here
at all, even when I got this job. It was part of the reason I
wanted this job. Most of the robots don't have speakers, just the
ones by the point-of-sale machines, as a measure to reduce hostility
in the workplace, and of course there was the convenience of not
having to get dressed to go to work. A year or two ago, the gamers
were fighting over jobs like this, but now that so many other
companies have adopted the stand-ins, plenty of us are just in it for
the convenience and the sanitized work environment.
I'm told that there was a time when
gamers actually controlled a simulated restaurant, building the same
digital burger over and over again, and for fun, but I have a lot of
trouble believing that. It just seems like a legend that people
might tell each other, a story to spread. Even today's gamer has the
self-respect to demand wages for it, and the gamer of stereotype has
no more self-respect than the gamer of myth.
The company, of course, was more
concerned with the uniformity and the efficiency of the
robot-assembled burger and the robot-assembled value meal than the
fun or convenience of the job, or the self-respect of those who take
it. Plus, apparently before they got the robots, customers
occasionally heard a word or two they didn't like from the people
working in the back. Now every word they hear from anyone except the
floor manager is broadcast on a 1.5 second delay and filtered
automatically by the computer. Not that us kitchen guys have
speakers anyway.
I heard a rumor from one of the older
employees that they tried to eliminate the human element entirely,
but the computers at the test locations kept making really stupid
mistakes, either running out of things or making way too much of
them. Other than that, they were faster and more efficient, but the
waste from the mistakes balanced it out, and employing people is
better PR than firing all of them. It figures that this company
would manage to dig up a computer that couldn't even keep track of
the right number of chicken nuggets.
Someday, I'm sure, they'll build a
better computer, or the good computers they have now will get
cheaper, and then I'll be out of a job. Then everyone but the
senators and the schoolteachers will be out of a job, and with no
workforce to train, they won't really need schoolteachers, either.
I wonder if anyone ever got elected
senator who worked at a burger joint.
To say the least, seeing a robot in
public wasn't an unfamiliar concept. In fact, even the older
generations of personal models had been out for some
time–RoboShopper, RoboButler, ServoServant, Avatarobot, you know
the brands. They were still a luxury of the wealthy at the time,
though, which was part of the reason I was so surprised to see one
walk into this place. The wealthy themselves would never be seen
eating in a place without at least two or three supervising guild
chefs, and it's common knowledge that our supervisors were educated
for business management.
I wondered at first if maybe that's why
he sent the ServoServant, to put a layer of anonymity between himself
and the embarrassment of a fetish for cheap, common food. But even
that wasn't what was most memorable about the incident.
No, what I remember best is that, for
the first time since I took this job, I was berated at work. See, no
matter what they show in the movies, the managers here don't yell at
you. In fact, it's the rarest occurrence that they would speak to
anyone other than a customer. The controllers for the robots are
built to be able to deliver a low-voltage electric shock, and
programmed to do so at the supervisor's command. Some of the
supervisors are more liberal with the employees, and some are more
liberal with the button, but there's no need for them to speak to
you. You know your mistake, and you know that the supervisor knows,
too.
Whoever it was behind the stand-in,
though, really got going, and I'll admit that I had to look up at
least some of what he said. This job can be dull, and fatiguing, and
momentarily painful, but that was the first and only time it was
truly unpleasant. The voice itself was pleasant enough, if a bit
unoriginal. I think the first generation of ServoServants had a
voice ported straight from one of the classic sex sims. Maybe that's
where it learned to say all those dirty words. The speakers, though,
were a little discordant, and gave off a low sort of hum underneath
the sound of the voice, which sounded appropriate to the tension of
the situation, and only added to it.
In fact, it was the first emotional
experience of any sort I'd had here. I'm told by some of the real
veteran employees that there was a time when the people here had
relationships and personal dramas, and some of them even hid liquor
in the freezer, and all of those things could be the cause of
conflict. Now, the 1.5 second delay, the breath tester built into
the controller, and the absence of any need to actually meet your
co-workers except at the very rare group debriefings have eliminated
those problems.
I remember wondering why someone would
bother to send a robot to do this. If whoever sent the thing felt
some sort of anger at life, or the world, or the people in it,
wouldn't it be more satisfying to come and humiliate us all in
person? Why send some faceless automaton to represent himself?
I suppose they'll just diagnose the guy
who did it. They can always blame the incident on a personality
disorder, or stress and trauma, or maybe Mitchell-Anderson syndrome,
but that doesn't seem quite right. All of the violent antisocials
and Mitchell-Anderson patients you hear about on the news lashed out
at people they perceived as their tormentors, and they did so in
person. None of us know who it was that owned the robot, but the
police did tell us at the group debriefing that the man had no
connection to the restaurant or any of its employees. I also know
more than a few soldiers who have come back from overseas for
treatment. They wouldn't be in any condition to operate a
ServoServant in the middle of an episode. So...why?
Corporate headquarters stepped in
quickly and acted to prevent similar incidents. Some negotiations
were required, but the major manufacturers of personal robotic
surrogates have agreed to allow retail and service conglomerates like
ours access to enough of their programming code that they can use a
unit's radio receptors to override the regular interface and limit
the robot's dictionary and speakers to a predetermined list of
choices as long as it’s on the premises. Hopefully, they program
that signal better than their robots at the test kitchen. Stand-ins
are becoming more common, to the point that someone in the middle
classes who really wanted one, perhaps to accommodate severe
asociality, could save enough to afford it. If the programming is
faulty, select customers may start ending up with food they don't
want to eat, and a reason to swear at us, if not the ability–with
more to say and no way to say it.
Still, since they never answered my
question at the group debriefing, I guess I'll keep remembering, and
keep wondering.
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