by Ike Hamill
Tien had become the point-person of the staff. He knocked on the office door.
“Michael?”
“Yes?” Michael asked. He set his reading glasses down on the computer keyboard.
“Some of the guys are concerned about Bert coming back,” Tien said.
“Oh?” Michael asked. “You shouldn’t. He’s been fired.”
“Yeah, but wasn’t he here on Saturday?”
“I’ve talked to him, and let him know that he is fired. The police seek him for questioning. They might have already picked him up. I’m sure he won’t come back, but if he does we’ll call the police. He’s only an old man.”
“Okay,” Tien said.
At noon, the fears of the shop workers multiplied. Some people headed towards the refrigerator where they kept their lunch boxes. Some were clustered around a menu—they were putting in a sandwich order. The door swung open and all conversation in the shop stopped. The radio went silent.
Bert walked in and paced towards the biggest group of people. He held out something towards them. Michael watch through his office window, not sure if he should call the police or intervene. He was frozen at the sight of the old man.
The thing in Bert’s hand had pink flesh and ended with a red stump of muscle and bone. It wasn’t bloody, but the raw flesh looked moist. It was the size and shape of a stove length of wood. One of the workers screamed and the group was set in motion. They fled for the door to the alley.
When that door banged open and the alley sunlight streamed in, another scream erupted and the group piled up. Bert advanced.
Michael threw open his office door.
“Bert Williams,” he shouted.
Bert stopped and swung his arm towards Michael. Now he pointed the meaty cylinder of flesh at Michael. He took a step.
“Stop, Bert,” Michael said.
Behind Bert, Tien was advancing with a big length of cherry wood gripped in his hands.
“No, Tien,” Michael said, holding up his palm to signal. “Wait. Bert, we’re calling the police. You’re going to wait here for them to come and question you about Craig’s accident.”
“But I’ve brought you all a present,” Bert said. He waved the flesh towards Michael.
The group near the alley door began moving again—they were filing out of the building. Michael hoped that someone was calling the police. He didn’t dare move for the phone. It felt like his extended hand was the only thing holding Bert in his position. Tien still stood behind Bert. He lowered his cherry club to waist level.
“You don’t want my present?” Bert asked.
“Have a seat, Bert,” Michael said. He pointed to one of the stools near the light table.
Bert lowered his head and shuffled towards the stool. As he sat, he thumped the hunk of flesh down on the table. Michael couldn’t take his eyes off the end of the thing, where the sawed ends of two bones showed. It looked like a limb—possibly a forearm—with the hand or foot sawed off.
They waited for the police.
The police didn’t ask for an explanation, they simply took Bert and the piece of flesh away in their car. Michael and Tien exited to the alley to track down the other workers. They stood in a circle around a trailer. It looked like a big black stovepipe on its side. It was hinged at the back and had a large wooden handle on the other side.
“What is it?” Michael asked.
“Pig cooker,” one of the woodworkers said. He lifted the lid and showed Michael the pig inside. “You light this fire and it roasts a pig. Takes a few hours. I guess Bert wanted us to have an after-work feast.”
“See if there’s a phone number on the trailer. Let’s get rid of this thing.”
“The pig is missing a front leg,” the woodworker said. “That must be what he was brandishing.”
“Let’s get back to work, everyone,” Michael said. “On second thought, let’s all go down to the Harbor Grill, lunch is on me. Someone give me that phone number for the pig roaster.”
Michael took his staff to lunch and they turned in a couple of good hours of work that afternoon. Work continued to ramp up until they were almost back in the swing of things by the end of the week.
Craig recanted much of his story about how Bert pushed him into the bandsaw. The authorities ended up bringing no charges against him, even with Michael’s repeated objections. Michael swore to everyone who would listen that Bert had eaten a human finger. York Custom Furniture missed their deadlines and lost half of their contracts. Michael argued with his own lawyer and was eventually convinced that he had to return the deposits. Looking for retribution, Michael asked his lawyer to look into civil action against Bert—the man had ruined the harmony of Michael’s shop.
He got a call a few hours later.
“He’s done it before,” the lawyer said.
“Who, Bert?”
“Yes. He was successfully sued for creating a hostile work environment at a newspaper in Canada. The terms of his settlement included giving notice to future employers that he is disruptive to a team atmosphere. And, get this, he was accused of cannibalism.”
“What? You’re kidding,” Michael said.
“We’re not only going to go after this Bert guy. We’ve got a case against the recruiter, too.”
# # # # #
Autobiography4();
/*****
And I was sued for negligence. They got a bunch of money from Bert. They ended up settling with me. I can’t discuss the details of the settlement. I survived. That was it for me working with strangers though. It’s tough to make a living as a recruiter if you don’t work with strangers. People you know aren’t going to change jobs very often. If they do, then you’re not doing a good job as a recruiter.
I never found out for sure what happened to Bert. His house was never put up for sale—I know a real estate agent who works that region. I drove by that enormous house once. It looked perfectly normal from the outside. I couldn’t get many details about the Canadian newspaper company. When they settled with him, one of the clauses required him to alert future employers. There was a letter he was supposed to give any new prospective bosses. I never saw it. They must have been really angry to put that clause in a settlement.
Nobody knows how much Michael York got from Bert. I suspect it was a large amount of money. His company relaunched their tables a year later with a big splash.
After the settlement, I closed my doors for a few months. I couldn’t see how to make the job work, knowing there were nutbags like Bert out there in the world.
Jim brought me back.
I’d placed him earlier after a ton of wrangling. When we first met, he didn’t trust me one bit. I think he had a bad experience with a head hunter. The second time, when I wasn’t officially in business, he came to me.
I thought something had gone wrong. It was quite the opposite. He performed so well at the job I found him that he had finished. He had worked himself out of a job. There was nothing left to do. The company sold subscriptions to technical journals and Jim found a way to generate the perfect lead for each particular salesperson. Sales increased tenfold and the company found itself debating whether to increase their staff or just get rich. Jim was ready to move on to another challenge and he had a glowing recommendation under his belt.
He called me asking for another placement.
I worked that one for him as a friend. Word got around. A couple of other people who I’d placed earlier—Kevin and Dale—turned up with the same request. After a few more commissions, I realized that these guys were different. Their ideal fit wasn’t measured by the longevity of their employment, it was a function of how fast they could make themselves unnecessary. I could make a modest and safe living placing the same ten workers over and over. That’s how my business model evolved.
CH.7.Dinner ()
{
Demo();
/*****
APRIL, 2013
THE RESTAURANT required two-day’s notice to cancel reservati
ons for the second-floor dining room. Ed tried to get in touch with Jim repeatedly as the deadline approached, to be sure that he wouldn’t cancel at the last moment. These engineers were all the same with their personal projects—they couldn’t see until the eleventh-hour that they could never possibly finish in time.
Jim didn’t respond so Ed kept the reservation. The restaurant where they always had dinner would be drafty in April, but at least the food was decent.
Ed showed up early and set up a projector, had the staff take down the art for sale on the big white wall, and arranged the chairs. After Ed, Lister showed up first.
“So he’s ready for tonight?” Lister asked.
“I guess,” Ed said. “I haven’t heard from him.”
“Great, so we’re getting a demo of vaporware tonight?” Lister asked.
Maco walked in and tossed his bag on a chair.
“I don’t know,” Ed said.
Kevin, Harry, and Dale arrived together. They spread out.
During a normal night, the room would probably seat two-dozen diners. For the dinner, the staff had clumped several tables together and spread a giant cloth over them. Ed folded the cloth so the guys could pull the tables apart and use them separately. Ed saved a chair and table up front for Jim to use as part of his demo, if necessary.
The waiter came up the stairs and looked at the scattered people. He seemed confused, so Ed told him they were all together, but sitting separately. He asked for sparkling and tap water for each table.
“Where’s Jim?” Kevin asked.
“I’m not sure,” Ed said. He checked his messages on his phone. Nothing.
“Is this going to be another vaporware demo?” Kevin asked.
“That’s what I said,” Lister said.
“It better not be,” Harry said. “After all that parsing code he made me dig up.”
Maco leaned forward. “What were you parsing?”
All eyes turned to Harry.
“Every type of email format from every client. They all do quoting and replies differently, and Jim wanted a block to thread them all, regardless of type,” Harry said.
“That’s a pain,” Kevin said.
“Yeah, but I already wrote it for that work order system I built. I just had to translate it all from PERL in to C,” Harry said.
“I hope you charged him by the hour,” Kevin said.
Harry laughed.
“What’s funny? I would have charged him.”
Everyone laughed.
Jim came in and waved to the group. His hands were empty as he approached Ed.
“I don’t need that,” he said, pointing to the projector.
“What are you going to demo?” Ed asked. “You didn’t bring anything.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “I guess I can use the projector. Do you have a computer hooked up to it?”
“Sure,” Ed said. He pulled his own machine from his bag and set up it. He tethered the Wi-Fi to his phone for internet access.
The waiter arrived with a tray of water and distributed glasses to the tables as Jim setup Ed’s machine. While the waiter dropped of the drinks, the men leaned forward and began placing their orders. The waiter was unprepared and flustered by the flurry of orders.
“Are we ready?” Jim asked.
“Just a second,” Ed said. He waited for the waiter to finish. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Jim said. He stood up in front of the big white wall. He waited until he had their attention. “People are predictable. They like to think they aren’t, but they are. Because they like to think they’re unpredictable, they always build machines to respond to them. We build cars that you have to drive. We build cans with food in them and then you put them on the shelf for when you think you need them. But what if the can knew when you needed it?”
Ed tried to keep his face neutral. Jim’s introduction was confusing the hell out of him.
Kevin interrupted. “General purpose devices that can be used as needed.”
“Yes—in theory. But in practice, you wake up and drive your car to the same place every weekday. Your routine varies only on weekends, holidays, vacation, or when you’re sick. And those events can all be predicted.”
Ed nodded and saw some other heads nodding as well.
“So let’s say that I have a workday routine. It’s one of my standard templates of routines. If you think about it, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, there are a million things you do the same each day. You shut off the alarm, turn on the lights, brush your teeth, shave, shower, eat breakfast. If we put each of these events in a database, you could easily determine the next probable activity. Some of these tasks require interacting with an electronic device. Some of these tasks use up consumables. Some tasks might be optimized with feedback from other variables.”
“Example?” Dale asked.
“If you’re going to run a marathon tomorrow, you might want to alter your typical menu choices to include more carbohydrates. If you’re going to take a long trip you might want to fill up the car on the way home even though the tank is only half-empty.”
Dale nodded.
“We already have sensors or inputs for most of these events—you have your calendar online, your phone’s GPS can track your travel, you purchase some of your consumables online. What we don’t have is one big relational database to store and collate all this information. What I’ve been working on is a database that will filter and connect all this data. On top of that database, I’ve built a layer to recognize patterns and devise optimizations. When I get to my house and pull into my parking spot, the system can turn on the lights on my walkway through my home automation system.
“Regardless if I get home on time, the system is recording the news from TV and has it paused and ready to watch. If I’ve had a lucrative month financially and I don’t have any major bills coming up, the system can move a percentage of my cash into my investment portfolio.”
Ed looked over at Lister. This must have been the thing that Lister had him set up with his broker account.
“But how many useful things could the system do?” Kevin asked.
“It depends on how well your devices are connected. I’ve got my lights and appliances connected to my home automation. I’ve also got my car starter, DVR, and heat connected to my server. My banking and all my nutrition and workout information is available online. The more connected you are, the more the system can do. One of the biggest input devices for the system is the cell phone. It has cameras and a microphone as well as accelerometers and GPS. Your phone knows more about you than any other device. Once you add all the inputs from your cell phone, the database becomes incredibly rich.”
“How do you predict the patterns?” Lister asked.
“I’ve come up with a technique to extrapolate clusters of nodes. I’ll explain it more in a minute, and I’ve written a document that describes it. I’ll email everyone document. Events are classified as they’re entered into the database. If an event can be influenced by the control system, that record is marked. When the system reaches a certain confidence, it will influence the event.”
Jim was interrupted by the sounds of cellphones. Most people had their phones muted, but they still vibrated on the tables. Ed looked at his as the other people picked up their phones to see the alert. It was an email from Jim. The subject was “Description of node cluster extrapolation technique.” The email contained an attachment which was a document about the technique.
“So you scheduled this email to be sent during your presentation?” Kevin asked.
“No,” Jim said. “Fyre sent it.”
“Who is Flier?” Dale asked.
“It’s Fyre,” Jim said, “F-Y-R-E. That’s the name I’ve given to the system. It’s monitoring my phone. It runs speech recognition on the microphone. It’s not a hundred percent, but it often picks up tasks that I voice and executes them for me. A couple of minutes ago I said I would email you the document. Fyre heard that and sent you
all the document.”
“Yeah,” Kevin said with a smirk. Ed looked around the room. They all seemed to be waiting for a punch line, as if Jim’s statement was a joke. It seemed that Ed was the only person in the room who knew that Jim didn’t joke about his projects.
“That’s pretty good,” Maco said. “Ask Fyre to email me a picture of a naked woman.”
Jim frowned. “That’s not a good idea,” he said. “Lister, name a domesticated animal.”
“Dog,” Lister said.
“Harry, name a type of hat—baseball cap, bowler...” Jim said.
“Top hat,” Harry said.
“Fyre, please email a picture of a dog wearing a top hat to everyone,” Jim said.
The room was quiet for several seconds. It felt like everyone was holding their breath.
“Fyre,” Jim said with a big pause. “Please… email… everyone…”
He was interrupted by the sounds of the phones. Some smiled, some nodded, and some gaped at their phones. Ed felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as he looked at the picture of an English bulldog wearing a fancy top hat with the Union Jack on the side. The dog had binoculars hanging around its neck.
“That’s pretty good,” Kevin said.
“So your program listened to your command and then sent the email?” Maco said.
“With the help of some public services, yes,” Jim said. “There’s a web service where you can send an audio clip and it will translate it to text. Fyre just deciphered the text into an actionable command. But that’s the least of what she does. The better example was the first one—I said I was going to send you all a document and Fyre figured out the task and executed it for me.”
“She?” Maco asked.
Jim shrugged. “She strikes me as feminine.”
“So instead of reminding you of tasks, it just nags you?” Maco asked.