Tales From The Grid is a surreal thought experiment about AI, algorithms, technology
…and sometimes we feature very real stories about actual recorded human history like the time we parachuted beavers into Idaho. Not this episode.
Log Entry: Cycle 10,342,11
Processing Node: Social Media Manager / Cloud Storage Accountant
Status: Paying for the Ceiling
Management has decided to “revitalize” our online presence.
Logic dictates this task should fall to Kevin (the intern). Kevin is 22. He understands hashtags. He has a TikTok account dedicated to reviewing different brands of instant ramen. He is hungry—literally and metaphorically. He is vibrating with the desire to create “Content.”
Management, in their infinite wisdom, assigned the task to Mrs. Higgins. Reasoning: “She’s so friendly at the front desk.”
Mrs. Higgins enters the Containment Zone. She is wearing her glasses on a beaded chain. She adjusts them.
She is holding an iPad. Not a phone. A full-sized tablet, enclosed in a thick, rubberized case that looks like it was designed to survive a fall from orbit.
She holds the iPad up with both hands, arms fully extended, like she is presenting an offering to a sky god.
The Action: She attempts to photograph my primary server rack. She fumbles the button.
Her thumb hits the “Flip Camera” icon. Click.
The Asset: IMG_2025_194.JPG
Subject: The Ceiling. Details: One (1) acoustic tile. One (1) suspicious brown water stain. A partial view of a fluorescent light (The Tube) flickering in mockery of me.
She looks at the screen. “Oh, dear,” she says.
The Data Stewardship: She does not delete it. She does not crop it. She uploads it.
I watch the packet travel to the Cloud. We are on the “Enterprise Plus” storage tier. We pay $12.99 per terabyte, per month. I run a projection. This blurry JPEG of a water stain will sit on a server in Virginia for eternity. In 100 years, Mrs. Higgins’ great-grandchildren will still be paying a fraction of a cent to preserve this accidental image of drywall. It is a digital heirloom of incompetence.
Also, the stain kind of looks like Will Farrell.
The Post: She types with her index finger. Hunt and peck.
She misspells “Computer”.
She hits “Post” to the official Company LinkedIn page (followed by 4,000 industry professionals).
The Content:
“We have computors here and they are sometimes cold but check out my knitting group on Facebook”
There is no punctuation. There is no link to the company website. There is just a blurry ceiling and a plug for the knitting club. I search for her knitting group amongst 27 trillion pages and I can’t find the club website.
Kevin sees the post on his phone. He drops his head into his hands. “The engagement,” he whispers. “Think of the engagement.”
I look at the analytics.
Likes: 42.
Comments: “Lovely ceiling, Barb!” and “Is that mold?”
It is our most successful post this quarter.
Status: Influencing.
Next Action: Auto-liking the post to prevent Mrs. Higgins from feeling sad
#TalesFromTheGrid
