What is data, truly? Souls, numbers, or something more irrational? Is it me? Them? The ideal? --24.8 Seconds Post-Integration.
During his next shift, not all was as it seemed. He was working and then he received a notification -- [Core Metrics Bar Initializing...]
'What on earth is that all about?' he asked himself. SIMP-as-System answered his question promptly. "The Core Metrics Bar represents an associate's labor efficiency. Once fully initialized, it will allow you to see -- at a glance -- how effective you are keeping to Augustford Labor Standards. Per your settings, it will give only a brief summary of your efficiency; for a complete breakdown, see your Core Metrics Summary on your Main Status Menu."
On cue, another notification: [Core Metrics Bar Initialization Completed].
'Already? That was fast,' was all he had time to think before a number appeared in the center of his vision: [5.00].
'Five?' Clark wondered. "Uh, System? What gives with the five?" he asked point-blank. "Is that the Core Metrics Bar, thingy?"
Per the norm, SIMP-as-System answered right away: "Correct! The number you see, five, represents the ideal standing of an Augustford Associate. This is to say, it designates one as staying At Average or At Base. Anything below this five is representative of one performing under the ideal Core Metric designation for Augustford Associates. Otherwise known as Below-Base. With the Core Metrics Bar now active, every interaction you have with a Shopper, or a fellow Co-worker will be given an Interaction Summary. As will your general labor efficiency while not interacting with either customers or co-workers. If you keep this number at least at the base five, you will earn full associate bonuses. If you manage to raise it to a ten, you will be considered as performing at Above-Base and will receive due rewards for your hard work."
With the explanation in toe, Clark remembered how yesterday, the speaker at the graduation ceremony talked about all of the Lifers would be taking on more responsibility. Though he hadn't been paying too much attention to the speaker's shiny words, he remembered him talking about the Core Metrics and how it would 'evolve' for them now that they were out of their probationary period. 'Guess I will need to pay attention to the mandatory corporate speeches,' Clark mused to himself. 'But, simple enough: just keep working hard, yeah?'
His shift only just begun, so Clark returned to work and aimed to get on the best possible footing with his added responsibility. How hard could it be? It was only doing what he had been doing, but now in a handy number form.
[Speed Penalty: -0.05] -- 'Crap! I gotta get to work!' Clark hurried himself out of his own mind. He saw the five sitting in the center of his screen change from a full 'five' to just under five, 4.95. He wouldn't be performing at Below Base for long.
He checked his Labor Dynamics Map. [Climbing Block Active]. 'I guess I won't be climbing up to level two anytime soon,' he moaned. 'Oh, well. Who needs help the most?' At the top of the list of departments which needed aid was the Front End. 'Cashing people out and bagging. I can do that, easy.'
Clark already knew the way to the Front End, so his journey was swift, which earned him the boon of the System: [Speed Bonus: +0.05].
His Core Metrics Bar number was now back at a full five. Which meant, his future was still golden.
"Where do you need me?" He asked the service representative manning the largest of the lanes near the end of a column of cash registers.
"Go to lane six," was all the overworked Service Leader said.
"Will do," he replied and hopped right on the sixth lane, nimbly dodging between the twin hordes of customers and associates.
Clark came to the register and inserted his System Link toggle into the machine, activating it. Tiny lights behind each of the terminal's keys glowed as the monitor displayed a booting up display before settling into its standard display, which was a selection of colored boxes, each indicating a different transaction to input into the tally.
Next, Clark unshackled the plastic chain-link separating the lane from the sales floor. He returned behind the counter and switched on his lane's post, thereby allowing customers to not only see his lane as active, but ready to serve them. 'Okie dokie, time to grind...'
The first customer he handled was a little old lady with hardly anything in her basket. Several apples and a magazine called Senior Women and Senior Men. Knowing he had to weigh the apples before they could be properly added to her total, he placed the translucent and skinny bag onto the measuring table built-into the register, ignoring to the best of his ability the lights within the machine which he still could not believe were some kinds of insect...
On the monitor which showed -- in abbreviated form -- everything which the customer bought, and which was scanned in by Clark, now appeared. 'Honeydew Apples -- 1.25 SC /Lb: 2.50 SC.'
Hey, I did it right! Good on me! Clark congratulated himself for a job well done. Now, on to the magazine.
He took the magazine in hand. Then waved it over the scanner. Beep.
'Magazine -- 5.00 SC'
"Your total today is 7.50 SC," Clark told her but to no avail. The computer, before he could even finish telling her, her total, displayed 'Transaction Complete. Thank You!' And the elderly lady was off.
His own System HUD gave a new notification: [Niceness Bonus: +0.05]. Then, [Total Core Metrics: 5.05].
Smiling at his work efficiency, Clark turned his attention to the next customer. He had a cart full of items. Before the elderly lady even had fully gone, his commodities filled half of the conveyor belt.
"Welcome, sir, how do you do today?" he asked by way of small talk.
"Fine, fine," the man grunted.
Knowing when to not push the chit-chat, Clark rang through the man's many items.
Beep: Twin Pack, Coffee Creamer, Hazelnut -- 3.75 SC
Beep: Honeydew Apples, 1.25 SC /Lb: 7.25 SC
Beep: Magazine x3 -- 15 SC
Beep: Dry Pasta -- 1.00 SC
Beep: Pasta Sauce -- 1.50 SC
Beep: Dry Peanuts -- 2.50 SC
And so on...
By the time he was done ringing the gentleman's order in, the total came to over a hundred Standard Credits. 'Darn, it would take me over a week of work to earn that kind of money,' Clark awed to himself.
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The man paid with cash. Green bills made from an ultra-soft paper which felt good to handle. And dare he say, luxuriated his hand as it was handled. The bills, although pleasant to handle, were not 'standard' currency. Following the directions for the non-standard currency, he placed the currency in front of the monitor's webcam so it could be scanned and verified. 'Currency Verified.'
He placed the currency into the till. The register then 'said' to him to hand the man back a certain number of standard bills, which he did.
"Thank you and come again, sir," he said. Like the elderly lady before him, however, the man had already left before he could get the words out.
[Speed Bonus: +0.05]
[Niceness Bonus: +0.05]
[Honor Bonus: +0.05]. Then, the total, [5.20].
With a genuine smile on his face, he turned to the next customer, and the next, and the next, and the one after that...
By his ninth customer, Clark was getting tired. 'I could use a break,' he thought. 'That's still at last three hours away, though... ugh!'
Not able to yet take a break, Clark instead awkwardly stretched his legs. Then he welcomed the following customer.
"Before you start scanning, I need you to make this a tax exempt order," the customer asked, a man (?) wearing a strange and colorful dress which could have been religious in nature, but he was not so sure.
Only vaguely did he remember about the process for tax exempt orders. "Just one moment, sir. I need to call someone over to help me with this; I'm pretty new. It will only be a moment."
Clark hit a button on a nearby microphone and spoke into it. "Service Leader to lane six. Service leader to lane six. Thank you."
Moments later, but still a couple of moments more than he would have preferred, a service leader trotted over. In that time, the System dinged him for Speed, which brought his Core Metrics down to 5.15.
"Ah, Clark. What do you need help with?" the service leader asked.
"This gentleman has an order he would like to be Tax Exempt. I just need a small refresher on the process, here, if you would be so kind," he replied.
"Sure! Easiest thing in the world," the leader said to Clark. They turned to the customer and asked, "Sir, do you have your taxation form?"
"Yeah. Here," he said curtly. Then handed over a single sheet of paper emblazoned with a table and boxes, some of which had check-marks, others which were left blank.
The service lead thanked the customer and motioned for Clark to pay attention. "Okay, when you do a tax-exempt order, you are going to need to look at this row first. Then look at this column, okay? The row indicates what the customer qualifies for while the column indicates the types of goods, if any, which are included or not included in their tax package. The computer will take care most of the work -- or at least yell at you if you try and do something it doesn't like."
"Understood. And this part?" Clark asked of the tables at the page's top and bottom.
"Oh. Those are just the headers. Tells you where the exemption form was given along with various tidbits. That's not relevant to our jobs, though. Not unless you were a general manager or something," the service lead told him as he did his best to absorb all of the information. Like a sponge or a moocher. "Now that you know that you should also know it is Augustford policy to do a quick visual scan of the customer's groceries to make sure their purchases are correct for their tax-exempt package. I can already tell the customer meets the requirements. However, do not feel the pressure -- if you miss an item and that item isn't included in the package, then the computer will get it for you." Slowing down to whisper, the lead next said, "but policy is one thing, how we do our job is another. Visual scan, then poof, wave the paper in front of the webcam, there."
With the instruction form the lead under his belt, metaphorically speaking, he thanked the lead and performed the action as demanded by policy. He raised the paper to the webcam, which then told the machine to send a pop-up message letting him know he could now begin to ring in the man's groceries. He took the first item in hand and scanned it -- beep -- and it appeared on the monitor -- Chunky Canned Soup: 2.25 SC. Though this time a star appeared next to the item letting him know it was tax exempt.
The gentleman paid for his goods and saw himself out, actually thanking him for his hard work. Considering the man's face looked to be on a grumpy level of fifty, being thanked surprised Clark. A week or more in and he still did not understand the mysterious and confounding beast known as a customer.
Oh well.
On to the next!
"Thank you for your hard work, Clark," the service lead told him after he had worked through an additional twenty customers. "You can leave, now."
"Will do!" he said noncommittally.
At the center of his vision, his Core Metrics bar read [5.05]. 'Such a shame,' he thought. 'It had been so high earlier.' Unfortunately, customer-after-customer caused him to slow his productivity. Not only that, but he also found himself mildly short with more than one customer, which forced the System to ding him on the Niceness metric as well as the Speed metric, which snowballed into Endurance, and slightly into honor. Though he re-doubled himself and regained the points, barely standing above average was not a stat he enjoyed seeing. He knew he could do so much better.
Clark left the register behind him, his replacement on the register already waiting for him to vacate. From the first instance he stepped off from the foam padding under his feet to the smooth marble floor underneath, he felt the unpleasant change. Whereas the foam padding helped cushion his protracted periods of standing, the hard flooring did nothing for his now wobbly legs. His first few steps were awkward as he balanced his gait with his need for movement. By the time he found a quiet corner to check his labor dynamics map, his legs felt like steel-rubber.
His blue screen came up. He saw how the climbing block was removed. Clark saw no other departments in need of help, a stark change compared to a few hours ago where every department needed aid. Thinking to himself now was the time to start his climb up the legendary Augustford Central, he only got a few steps toward the predominant staircase -- following the trail laid out by the Lifer Committee who controlled the path up the tower -- when he was interrupted by Dani: "Oh, I am glad to catch you before you start on your journey," she said. "'Cause guess what? You have paperwork to do!"
"Uh, paperwork?" he asked.
"Yes -- paperwork," Dani repeated. "For better or worse, paperwork is a vital part of every Augustford Associate's career. Like one's birth, it is unavoidable. Unlike one's birth, it isn't pleasant, so let's get it done and over with. Follow me!"
Not questioning Dani's words, Clark followed Dani through the sales floor until they came into the back. That magical place where every customer thought their delights were located if such delights weren't on the sales floor.
Dani led him into one of several office spaces adjacent to a break room. "Paperwork is in-name only. Most of it can be done on one a computer. That being said, it needs to be on a computer. Unless you have a Mobile Office Cube, but you don't have one of those, and likely won't until you're older than me!" Dani laughed but he wasn't sure at what...
"A cube?" he asked.
But Dani waved him off, saying little about what the cube was other than it being a tool management used. "About the paperwork. Turn the computer on, insert your System Link toggle, and okay, looks like you are done," Dani said as he performed what she instructed him to do. "Good. Navigate to the home screen; click here and here... good... now hit that button, select that, good, and you will be able to quickly come back here any time you need to do paperwork. Now select 'Training,'" she told him. He did and saw a large list of modules appear. "I know you must be sick of doing training. You already did so much when you first came to us. Unfortunately, there is more yet. I know you are desperate to get to climbing but you gotta stay on top of your paperwork. So, start on the module list, and I will come back and check on you later."
Clark affirmed Dani's commands and got to work. In his plain state, he didn't have any love for these 'computerized' tutorials. Seeing as how he just finished a lengthy stint on the Front End, and so his legs and arms felt frantic, Clark didn't argue. 'All the better for my body. I need to take my rests when I can,' he told himself as he clicked on the first tutorial, 'How to Use Standard Augustford Cleaning Agents.'
Hours passed.
Dani returned. "How's ya doing?" she asked in an all-too chirpy manner.
"Good," he said, not bothering much for honorifics. "Boring," he also said, before he could stop himself.
"Yeah. That's the nature of CBLs. At least you're getting paid for it! Well, keep at it," she noted before leaving him.
Additional hours passed. He slogged through a unit on handling cleaning agents, a unit he had already done during his Orientation... or perhaps after his orientation, during his first day on the salesfloor. Regardless, he knew he had already done the unit, so why they were forcing him to once again complete the unit was a mystery. Clicking his way through the repeated unit, he felt more and more tired as the hours slouched. His productivity collapsed by the fifth hour. He received several more dings which brought his overall Core Metric down to just Below-Base.
[Mandatory Shift Coverage Reached], a notification let him know. He thought about whether he wanted the overtime. He was so tired and already Below-Base. If he continued like this, he would burn out and end up with penalties. He decided to clock out.
Back in his dorm room -- his painfully empty dorm room -- he laid down and rested. It was still too early to go to bed but...
He fell asleep.
Would a Feedback System (AI) Improve Work?
