I'm Being Stalked By A Robot

One day last week, I was in Boston for a job fair where I was representing my employer and hoping to find good candidates for our team.  I don't go to the city very often, but when I do I'm reminded of days past when the city was the epicenter of my social life and the backdrop for many late night and early morning alcohol-inspired outings.

While looking for a parking space, I was stopped at a traffic light I know very well.  On that particular corner stands a watering hole at which I spent many Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights for a few years in my early to mid 20s.  There were several of us in my core circle of friends who knew, without speaking, that we would end up there on those nights for as long as we were alive and not still recovering from the previous night.

I should mention here that there was a time during this era in which I started to get tired of the same old routine.  I wasn't the type to just start chatting away with strangers, so my conversations were limited to the friends I went there with.  Although I enjoyed these relationships, by Sunday night we had exhausted every possible topic.  The "So.... what have you been up to since I last saw you at 2am this morning?" discussion lasted about 10 minutes.   This was often the extent of our discussions anyways, because the music was too loud to truly hear what others were saying.  I had my own version of Cheers, except that nobody knew my name because they couldn't hear me.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I was known by some as Tile, Tire, and Filer.

Feeling more and more disconnected from my own friends, I once proposed a "night in". 

"C'mon guys... let's watch a movie, take it easy and catch up over a pizza?"  

By the reaction I got, you would have thought I was proposing we all move to a dark cave in the Andes and eat fire roasted mutton while we play Pictionary with wild boar dung.  I eventually gave up on my efforts to redirect my friends towards less expensive and more audible discussions.  

Therefore while sitting at the traffic light in front of this once favorite bar of mine, I couldn't help but reflect on how much my social life has changed since then.  I smiled as I looked over my shoulder at the two car seats and Elmo books between them.  Here I was, driving to a job fair where I was now the hiring manager going to interview many young college grads who were probably getting ready to go (or had just come from) a local pub to yell over the music at each other.  I have bought a couple houses and been a landlord as opposed to being a renter with insurmountable debt.  

I also started to think about another major change; one that prompted me to write this anecdote.  

In the mid-90s, I did not have a cell phone or text messaging.  If someone wanted to reach me, they would email me (if they could even do that) or call my answering machine at home.  My social life and dating would have greatly benefited from a cell phone and (better yet) text messaging.  I even wonder if my wife and I would have texted each other after we first met, rather than let six years pass before we met again in person to plan our first date.  It would have been wonderful to have a "nice 2 meet u" text while driving home, especially given that she was on a date with someone else when we first met. Now that technology has advanced, we rely on it heavily to communicate to each other throughout the day.  

My Friday nights look very different than years ago.  I no longer eat mac and cheese on a beat up couch, nap for a couple hours in the early evening, go to a bar until 2am, and go to bed at 3am.  Instead, I get home from work in time to give my kids mac and cheese, put them to bed, do some laundry/dishes/ice cream eating/blogging/work/television watching, and go to bed earlier than a younger version of me would have awakened from a pre-drinking nap.

But thanks again to technology, I now get unexpected late night text messages.  Are these from my wife upstairs with a sweet message such as "Don't forget to lock the doors before you come up"?  Are they from my friends asking "Are you coming over to watch a movie? We're going to catch up over a pizza"?  

No. Instead, I get text messages from robots at work.  That's correct. Robots at work. When the robots we use nearly 24/7 to process biological samples encounter any problems, they send an email which is converted into a text message to my phone.  (A couple of the robots actually have their own Facebook pages, but that's a story for another day).  

I can't help but wonder if the robots are lonely and text me and my colleagues because of their desire for attention.  Whenever my phone beeps with a text message from the robots, my brain translates this to "Hey. HEY! What are you doing? It's me. One of the robots. I NEED you to come and see me.  Please. I need you now to come NOW."  I'm often tempted to text back: "No. I can't right now. I'm busy. Stop texting me. I'll come see you later..." 

Therefore, I can't help but think that this is the most dysfunctional variation of a man-robot relationship ever.  

On some level, I need the robots too.  They text me on Friday nights.  And they never ask me to go to loud bars where we'll never be able to truly catch up on the day's events.  Besides, from me it would be about the daily grind and from the robot it would be a recount of some very repetitious behavior.  On the other hand, I'm worried about the day when they drink too much WD-40 and text me with photos of themselves with their exterior hardware removed.