Humour

Why Chaibo needs spare time

T A Balasubramanian focusses on the debate over free time for Chaibo

“So we can’t have Chaibo as a help desk because he doesn’t want to stoop to the task,” says Fin Fina. “And it’s doubtful whether Chaibo would be a good blogger because he’s likely to take Mutiny on the Bounty too literally and end up causing temper flare-ups all over Baffle—as if we don’t have enough of that already. Which takes us back to square one: how do we get this expensive piece of chai-serving machinery to become a productive asset, Papyrus? Anyone have any other ideas?”

Baffle Corporation is in operational mode, doing a meeting, and your CFO, Fin Fina is hauling you over the coals, as expected following the events of the recent past, where you, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO of Baffle, and your Systems Officer, Brooke Bond, part of the Chaibo Evolution Committee, have been deeply engaged with the brains at Ironica Robotica. These, of course, are the well-groomed Prof Ironica Asimova, Chief of the robotics laboratory and her Senior Researcher, Nina Nilgiri, who has fashioned Chaibo’s programs. Also present as member in good standing is Gulabi Manpowa, Head of HR at Baffle, known for her strong views on almost any topic related to information sharing, or the lack thereof, in the corporate universe.

“I don’t have any idea, but I do have a question,” says Gulabi, smiling disarmingly, “and that is whether Chaibo can be considered to be a legitimate employee of Baffle or just another physical asset like the computers and air-conditioners here. If we are talking about extracting the most from this entity, should he be considered as an item of inventory or a person on my payroll? We’ve never had a machine as an employee, so we ought to design some new rules that cover the behaviour of… what do you call this class of robots, Ms Asimova?”

“In my assessment, Gulabi, and you, Finny, should consider changing your whole frame of reference about idle time. I would suggest that, instead of pondering where to slot Chaibo, we could all benefit if we regard him as an evolving enterprise agglomeration species.”

“So now we have a new species evolving at Baffle?” says Fina, snorting. “Maybe we need to start a Darwin accounting system next.”

“You have such a wicked sense of humour, Finny,” says Ironica coyly, putting on her best smile at the flustered CFO. “The point is that idle time can be of real value where human beings and intelligent creations like Chaibo are concerned. We have seen how a little chai deployed in the service of knowledge workers in a meeting can be worth whatever it costs, and if the chai-server happens to be doing little other than taking note silently or engaging in banter with those in Baffle, he may also be agglomerating useful internal evolutionary strategies.”

“Could you explain that in some detail, Ironica?” says Bond. “I don’t get the bit about evolution at all. Chaibo just seems to become more of a cranky child every time Nina makes a change in his program and attempts to iron out an earlier bug. How, exactly is he evolving?”

“He’s learning to mirror all our emotional states, Brooky,” says Nina. “Don’t we all become more adept at handling our moods as we grow? If he’s cranky, Chaibo’s programming makes it a point to record the outcome of his crankiness on the environment. Next time, he’ll do things differently, or maybe do nothing at all.”

“That’s right,” says Ironica. “He’s got the flexibility to vary his tantrums, just like we have. Or he could be just sitting around, apparently doing nothing. Take our own way of corporate existence—even when we are not keying in data or numbers or otherwise visibly working, we might just be thinking, or agglomerating in the middle of a meeting. Now would you call that being unproductive?”

“That’s not the way I define productivity,” snaps Fina. “All right, let’s equate robots with humans, Ms Asimova. I work round-the-clock, practically. I expect all my officers to be on call, with their cell phones switched on. Our customers are calling us any time of day or night, so where’s the question of us being idle?”

“That’s true, in a way, Finny,” says Ironica, sweetly. “Do you notice how, during the past several years, the war against spare time has shifted to a new domain, beyond machinery and supply management?” she continues, warming to her theme, “Now the enemy is no longer physical goods, but spare time. IT is being used to schedule people’s activities down to the split second. We struggle to eliminate any lost moments of productivity in our lives by allowing mobile hyperactivity of all kinds. Mobile talk, mobile e-mail and mobile computing. But who’s thinking ahead about the fate of the business?”

“She’s right, Finny,” says Gulabi, suddenly. “If you’re leaning back in your chair with your feet on the desk, you may appear to be dozing, but you could easily be thinking about something profound like balancing assets and liabilities in your head. And wasn’t that what knowledge workers were supposed to be all about? In fact, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish between human slack and knowledge worker productivity. So why should Chaibo be treated any differently if he’s spinning evolutionary strategies?”

“True, Gulabi,” you say, “But we’re not really all that keen to spin strategies here at Baffle. We’re more the action-and-reaction types, and we enjoy being stimulated. If you ask me, this frantic battle against human indolence is, in part, a good thing. I really like my laptop and cell phone, and I would not want to give them up, especially since the average cell phone can be a multitude of things—a camera, a juke box, a conference table, a game console or whatever—so I can think of a lot of exciting ways to soak up each idle moment as I hold a cell phone in my hand.”

“Plus, I like the idea that I am always connected virtually to my most important doma-ins, and always available for selected people to interrupt,” says Bond, nodding happily at Nina, and tapping his cell phone. “Oh you geeks, the lot of you,” says Nina, touching Chaibo gently on his domed top. “Not sensitive and reflective like my favourite boy here.”

“Here is my assessment,” says Chaibo, purring as he hugs Nina’s long legs.