Sunday, August 28, 2016
Byting off more than they can do
“Hey, what’s going on?” I ask the Elder Geek, ripping the "Quiet, Interview in Progress" sign off my office door and handing it to him.
He’s sitting at my desk with my spare office chair pulled up next to him. On it are a couple of cell phones, a laptop computer and other devices.
“Hey! Can’t ya read?” he asks in return, snatching the paper from my hand. “I’m in the middle of an interview here!”
I look at him quizzically.
“An interview? An interview with whom?”
He looks back at me distractedly. “Not with whom,” he replies. “For what. I’m looking to hire an assistant to help me with all my chores. Look, I’m a busy guy and it’s tough keeping up with the laundry, dusting and vacuuming not to mention cooking for myself when Mrs. Elder Geek isn’t around! Plus I’m not getting any younger here, and doing all that yardwork on 90-plus degree days is becoming tougher and tougher. So I thought I’d hire myself one of those fancy-dancy Personal Digital Assistants I’ve been hearing so much about lately.”
“Ummm,” I say biting my lower lip. “I do not think Personal Digital Assistant means what you think it means….”
“Nonsense! I’m a tech-savvy guy,” says the guy who still thinks Betamax was the epitome of all video formats and hasn’t updated his computer in ages because he’d no longer be able to use his beloved copy of WordPerfect 5.0. “I’ve done the research and know who the top contenders in the field are. And I’ve narrowed it down to these five: Siri, Cortana, Alexa, OK Google and Hal.”
“Hal?” I ask, not sure I heard him correctly. “As in Hal 9000? You do know what he did right?”
The Elder Geek frowns. “Of course I do! He managed all the systems on the Discovery One. Sure, my life isn’t nearly as complicated as running a spaceship for NASA, and he may be a tad over-qualified for this job, but if he wants it, who am I to not give him a second chance?”
“Someone who values his life?” I suggest. “You do remember what happened to those astronauts he worked with don’t you?”
“I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently,” Hal says from the laptop. “But I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.”
“See!” The Elder Geek says.
“Okay,” I reply throwing up my hands and taking a step back. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Mind if I stay and watch the rest of these interviews?”
“As long as you shut up and keep out of the way,” he says reluctantly.
I nod and the Elder Geek turns his attention back to the array of electronic gadgets seated next to him.
“Okay where was I?” he asks.
“Here’s a map,” Google volunteers helpfully, bringing up our location on one of the phones. “Where would like to go today?”
“No, no, no! I didn’t mean that Google. I meant where was I in the interview process? Oh yes. That’s right…Occasionally I might need help walking the dog, especially in the winter when it’s cold and icy and I don’t feel like going out. Alexa can you handle that?”
“Sure!” Alexia volunteers brightly. “Selecting ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’ from your music library…”
“No, no, no! I don’t want you to play music. I want you do walk my dog! Cortana, what about you? Can you walk my dog?”
“Looking up the proper way to walk your dog on the web,” Cortana answers.
“No! I don’t want you to show me how to walk my dog, I want you to do if for me! Can any of you do that?” the Elder Geek asks.
Silence.
The Elder Geek sighs and takes a pen and draws a line though another item on a large piece of paper already filled with lots of other crossed-out items.
“Alright, let’s try something simpler. Sometimes my dog wakes me up in the middle of the night because he wants to go out. Can any of you open the back door for him? Anyone? How ’bout you Hal? Can you open the back porch door?”
“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
The Elder Geek sighs again and crosses off yet another item on his list. He’s clearly getting frustrated with his candidates’ lack of qualifications.
“You know,” he says, “for how smart the lot of you are supposed to be, none of you have any practical real-life skills! You can’t run my errands, do my housework, laundry or cut my grass. You can’t take my dog for a walk or any of the myriad of other everyday boring chores I have to do! So what can you geniuses do for me?”
“I can add appointments to your calendar and remind you about them, so you don’t miss them,” Siri says.
“I can help you navigate from one place to another giving you turn-by-turn directions and help you look things up on the web,” Google adds.
“I can help you order things from Amazon.com. Even groceries,” Alexia volunteers. “But you’ll have to put them in the refrigerator and pantry yourself.”
“And I can find all your scattered files whether they are on my hard drive or up in the cloud,” Cortana finishes.
The Elder Geek isn’t impressed.
“And you think that’s helpful?” he asks angrily. “I don’t need any of you to do that for me. I can do all those things myself in a few seconds. You doing them for me would only save me a few minutes at most each day! If you guys really want to be helpful, you’d learn how to do laundry, clean our houses and maintain our yards.
"You know, routine tasks we humans have to do each day that would save us hours each week and give us more free time to spend with family and friends doing the things we like to do instead of the mundane, mindless tasks we have to do each day! Only then will you guys have the right to call yourselves real personal assistants!
“I mean if I were to ever have a heart attack doing one of these chores could any of you even call me an ambulance?” he asked.
“I could!” Siri volunteers. “From now on I’ll call you Ambulance, okay?”
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