Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future (2 page)

So,
the first wave of fast food robots did not replace all of the burger
flipping employees as everyone had expected. The robots replaced
middle management and significantly improved the performance of
minimum wage employees. All of the other fast food chains watched the
Burger-G experiment with Manna closely, and they started installing
Manna systems as well. Soon, nearly every business in America that
had a significant pool of minimum-wage employees was installing Manna
software or something similar. They had to do it in order to compete.

In
other words, Manna spread through the American corporate landscape
like wildfire. And my dad was right. It was when all of these new
Manna systems began talking to each other that things started to get
uncomfortable.

Once
Burger-G proved that Manna worked, the idea spread like wildfire.
Every restaurant chain used Manna. Every retail store, whether it was
a discount store, a home improvement store, a toy store, or an office
supply store, had Manna systems. You saw people wearing headsets on
construction sites, in airports, at amusement parks, in hospitals, in
movie theaters, at the grocery store... They were everywhere.

I
can remember sitting down one day with my friend Brian at lunch. He
was working at the giant discount supercenter in Raleigh, and they
had just switched over to Manna. He was stunned.

"It
doesn't matter if you are a hard worker or a slacker -- once you put
on the headset, you are going to be working every minute of the day
or you are gone. The system has already fired five people."

"What's
it have you do all day?" There were something like 50 people
working in the supercenter at any given time -- it was a 200,000
square foot store.

"Manna
has you moving through the store aisle by aisle. I bet I am walking
six or eight miles a day right now. I am constantly straightening
merchandise on the shelves. Manna knows where I am, and it knows
where everything is on the shelves, so it asks me item by item to
straighten them. Manna wants everything on the shelves looking
perfect. It is also big on restocking. So it will ask me, 'How many
rolls of masking tape are on the shelf?' Whenever anything gets low,
it has me go to the back and bring stuff out to the shelves. It knows
what is selling through the cash registers, so it knows exactly when
to restock everything and it makes sure that every single item in the
store is fully stocked."

"That
doesn't sound so unusual." I said.

"It's
not unusual, except that Manna is telling you exactly what to do
every second of every day. If it asks you to go to the back and get
merchandise, it tells you exactly where to walk to go get it. And
here is the weirdest part -- I never see another employee the entire
day. The way it makes me walk, I never run into anyone else. I can go
for a full shift and never see another employee. Even our breaks are
staggered. Everyone takes their breaks alone. We all arrive at
staggered times. It's like Manna is trying to totally eliminate human
interaction on the job."

"That's
spooky. Why would it do that?" I asked.

Brian
looked down, "I'm guessing that talking with co-workers wastes
time, and Manna is eliminating the waste everywhere it can."

"What
else does it have you doing?" I asked.

"I
am constantly checking for spills and other problems in the aisles --
Manna uses us as its eyes to constantly look for problems. I am also
looking for customers in the aisles and asking them how I can help --
customer service is huge to Manna, as long as it takes less than 30
seconds. And Manna always has us looking for shoplifters. All day
long we are walking back and forth up and down the aisles
straightening things, asking people if they need help and looking for
shoplifters. And like I said, you never run into another employee.
There's no chatting. I never see Amy anymore. Or Kevin. The minute
you put on the headset you are working, and you work alone without
stop until you take the headset off at the end of the shift."

"Shit."
That's all I could think to say.

Brian
asked, "Does Manna count you down during your breaks at
Burger-G?"

"Yes,
every minute you get a reminder."

Even
your breaks were supervised. I had never thought about it, but all
the breaks at Burger-G were staggered as well.

When
Mom and I went to shop in Brian's store, you could feel the
difference that Manna made. Every two or three minutes an employee
would walk past you no matter where you were in the store. The
merchandise on the shelves was always neat, and everything was
stocked. The floors were spotless. Shopping carts never stacked up in
the parking lot. If you needed help, you knew that all you had to do
was stand there and an employee would walk by in a minute or so.

As
the Manna software evolved, it gained more and more responsibility.
From the start Manna was able to schedule employee hours. Manna
printed a piece of paper for each employee to put on the refrigerator
-- it told you your hours for the week. In version 2.0 they went
further. They connected Manna to the telephone network and the public
email network. So Manna was able to begin calling and emailing
employees and reminding them to show up on time. If an employee
didn't show up, Manna could call in a replacement. If the store
became unexpectedly crowded, Manna could call in reinforcements.

In
version 3.0, the software gained the ability to fire employees as
well. I had a friend who got fired that way. He came into the store
late for his shift, and it was his third time being late. He punched
in and put on his headset. He walked over to the eye scan station to
log in. He said Manna sounded normal, and had him working normally
for about half an hour. Then Manna asked him to walk to Zone 7 at the
back of the store. A Burger-G security guy was standing there with
three sheets of paper. The security guy was wearing the solid black
security uniform, the opaque sunglasses and a headset integrated into
the helmet. He looked back and there was another security guy
standing near the door. Manna said to him, "Steven J. Canis,
employee number 4378561, your employment at Burger-G store number 152
is hereby terminated in accordance with employee manual paragraph
12.1, failure to appear at work on time." Manna read him the
three pages of termination information paragraph by paragraph and
asked him to confirm each paragraph. He could not return to that
Burger-G store for a year. He could not reapply to Burger-G for five
years. Stuff like that. Manna made him sign the papers and the
security guys escorted him out of the store to his car. The security
guys never said a word, but Manna was talking to him during the
entire walk, telling him to look down, to make no gestures, to speak
to no one. The last thing Manna said to him was, "Remove your
headset and hand it to the security officer on your left. Goodbye."

It
didn't take long for word to get around. Pretty much, if you knew you
were going to be late and you had been late before, you called Manna
on your cell phone and quit. Manna emailed the forms to you, had you
phone in when you got them so it could read them to you, and you
signed them. It really cut down on people being late.

By
version 4.0, Manna gained the ability to outsource. Let's say that
Manna decided it was time to repaint the lines in the parking lot.
Manna would make this decision using customer surveys and by
periodically asking employees questions about the parking lot, the
paint inside the store, the exterior of the store, the roof, etc. An
inspector from Burger-G corporate would also come once a month and
feed information about the store and grounds into the Manna system.

When
Manna made the decision to repaint the stripes in the parking lot, it
would call several companies and get bids. Manna did not do this on
the phone, obviously. It did it electronically through the Internet.
By this time, most companies were hooked into the Manna network, even
if the company did not use Manna to manage employees. The two pieces
of software -- the Manna software running the Burger-G restaurant and
the Manna software running the parking lot maintenance company --
would bid and negotiate through the Internet.

Because
everything was done by machine, the restaurant's Manna system could
send out a request for bids to all the parking lot maintenance
companies in the area. Those companies would send bids back through
the network. The restaurant's Manna system would then connect with
hundreds of other Manna systems to check references and get feedback
on past experiences with each vendor. Based on the bid prices and the
feedback, Manna would select a vendor, negotiate terms, make a
deposit and schedule the repainting job. The entire process from
start to finish took less than 10 seconds.

As
these communication networks between all the different Manna systems
built up, things started to get uncomfortable for every worker. For
example, the Manna software in each store knew about employee
performance in microscopic detail -- how often the employee was on
time or early, how quickly the employee did tasks, how quickly the
employee answered the phone and responded to email, how the customers
rated the employee and so on. When an employee left a store and tried
to get a new job somewhere else, any other Manna system could request
the employee's performance record. If an employee had "issues"
-- late, slow, disorganized, unkempt -- it became nearly impossible
for that employee to get another job. Nearly every company with
minimum wage employees used Manna software or something similar, and
performance records on employees were a major commodity freely
exchanged between corporations. A marginal employee got blacklisted
in the system very quickly.

That
ability to blacklist employees is where things got ugly, because it
gave Manna far too much power. Manna was everywhere, and it was
managing about a half of the workers in the United States through
headsets, cell phones and email. Manna moved in and took over a big
chunk of the government as well. There came a point where tens of
millions of humans did nothing at work unless told to do so by a
Manna system.

You
can imagine what would happen. Manna fires you because you don't show
up for work a couple times. Now you try to go get a job somewhere
else. No other Manna system is going to hire you. There had always
been an implicit threat in the American economy -- "if you do
not have a job, you cannot make any money and you will therefore
become homeless." Manna simply took that threat and turned the
screws. If you did not do what Manna told you to, it would fire you.
Then you would not be able to get a job anywhere else. It gave Manna
huge leverage.

For
example, Manna could call in reinforcements as it needed them. You
would get a call from Manna and it would say, "Your Burger-G
restaurant is experiencing unexpected customer volume. Can you help?"
The word "help" meant, "Can you be here in less than
10 minutes?" You could say yes or no. The problem was that if
you said "no" too many times, you got fired. And when you
got fired, it meant you were blacklisted in the system.

Once
you figured that out, you were pretty much forced to say "yes".
That meant that the printed schedules started to become pretty much
irrelevant. Manna would call you when it wanted to call you. Then it
started calling you to other restaurants. If things got slow in the
restaurant, Manna would send you home, then call you back in later if
things got busy again. You really could not say "no" very
often, meaning that Manna could interrupt your life at any time.

Version
4.0 of Manna was also the first version to enforce average task
times, and that was even worse. Manna would ask you to clean the
restrooms. But now Manna had industry-average times for restroom
cleaning stored in the software, as well as "target times".
If it took you too long to mop the floor or clean the sinks, Manna
would say to you, "lagging". When you said, "OK"
to mark task completion for Manna, Manna would say, "Your time
was 4 minutes 10 seconds. Industry average time is 3 minutes 30
seconds. Please focus on each task." Anyone who lagged
consistently was fired.

At
the supercenter, Brian said that Manna was now tracking how fast
employees walked from point A to point B in the store, and if you did
not walk fast enough Manna would warn you about it. It was just like
working on an assembly line, where they could speed up the line to
make people work faster. But now the assembly line was everywhere,
and if you didn't keep up you knew that you would be blacklisted
nationwide.

The
most surprising part of the Manna system, however, was the effect it
had on wages. As Manna spread to so many businesses, your choice was
to work for Manna or to be unemployed. When you started to work for
Manna, it paid you minimum wage. There was no reason for it to pay
you any more -- your choice was minimum wage or zero. There was no
way to ask Manna for a raise. You could quit, but when you quit you
would be applying to another business that used Manna. It was going
to give you minimum wage too.

This
was the societal power of Manna, and the basic equation was pretty
simple. You could take the job for minimum wage, or you could be
unemployed making zero. At any moment Manna could replace you with
another warm body, and that meant that you did what you were told for
minimum wage or you got fired. Manna, and the corporations that used
it, knew that that was the equation. There were plenty of unemployed
people who would take your spot as soon as you left.

The
effect of Manna was to stratify out all the minimum wage workers in
America. At the bottom you had the people who were unemployable. They
had screwed up and been blacklisted by Manna. They were back living
with their parents or sleeping on the sofa with a friend. You could
get yourself un-blacklisted, but if you got blacklisted more than a
couple times, you were dead.