You hired me and forgot about it. That’s MY fault is it? Of course it is

Just install the trial software on 1,000 PCs and I’ll be on my way

Let me in! Photo © 2024 Craig Whitehead | https://unsplash.com/fr/@sixstreetunder

“I’m sorry, you are…?”

I wait patiently for her to finish her sentence but she just stares at her screen. I wait a bit longer. Eventually she looks up at me with raised eyebrows.

I am being challenged by a polite but slightly baffled receptionist. I repeat the declaration I shouted into the video intercom at street level a minute earlier: that I have been hired for the day to train a number of staff on-site.

She repeats: “You are…?”

Oh, I see, I am being asked to complete a form, verbally. Good, I like games in which you fill in the missing words. It’s like sparring with the psychotherapist, responding to prompts with the first random thing that comes into your head.

She continues: “And you live at…?”

I reply: “Home.”

“Your birth date is…?”

“Last century.”

“You are not…?”

“A robot.”

I point at some bicycles, staircases and pedestrian crossings, and before I know it the identification foreplay moves on to the heavy petting of finding out who booked me.