Productivity? What’s that?

Productivity? Do you mean input/ output? Quantity versus quantity? Or have you developed a metric for it which more subtle? Maybe you are in the “just ordinary feel good” camp? You know, my muscles are stretched, that pile of mulch has been moved, and I’m going to find a chair, sit down and have a coffee.

Lots of measurements of productivity have been alienated from the individual and are controlled by the corporation. Doesn’t matter if it’s industrial, post-industrial, information economy or what. Reading the news, I assume that soon AI will usurp the authority of the “man”, the boss, ot “that idiot in the office” to tell us how lousy a job we do.

Think about it the andriod body housing the AI will soon stroll around and sympathetically tell you thet there’s nothing personal in your layoff; it’s just the economy. Flattering comments won’t work on the android, it has no sense of style in attire and wouldn’t understand the compliment of the gleam of it’s casing. So don’t try to appeal to it’s vanity. It’ll offer to shake hands and escort you out of the building. Your replacement, the little industrial robot goes beep beep sympathetically at you as you walk past.

But look on the brighter side, you’ll now have the time to dedicate to self improvement programs for displaced humans ( offered on the internet by the AI’s. There are currently openings in the programs for Toastmaster, and Deipnosophist! Soon you’ll be able to thrill your family with your toasts at dinner and the witty dinner table conversation you have become so adept at! It will almost make up for the fifth time this weeks you’ve eaten fish sticks , or beans and franks. But hey, that’s the dole for redundant and obsolete humans.

As they said in Life of Brian:

When you’re chewing on life’s gristle,

Don’t grumble, give a whistle!

And this’ll help things turn out for the best,

And…

Always look on the bright side of life.

Always look on the light side of life.