grinned from ear to ear. “In that case, count me in. I’d like to finally see some of my hard-earned tax dollars being spent wisely for a change.”
She rose to her feet. “We’ll be there at seven.”
“It’s a date, Claire.”
“And Frank, please don’t mention our chat today to any of your gossipy cronies.”
He gave her a smart half-salute. “Loose lips sink ships!”
She sighed apprehensively. “I hope I’m not making a grievous mistake in getting a simpleton like yourself involved in a major fraud case.”
*
The Damn Computer
The weather outside had deteriorated sharply and the bar’s windows rattled when the rain blew horizontally. Everyone held fresh drinks in their hands and Tuck Hobbs allowed the Irish whisky to roll around an aching molar before commencing his tale of woe. “Our buddy Jimmy Donovan was just fired despite working two decades at his firm. The poor guy got booted out on his ass like you’d throw away a beloved old suit that was no longer in style.”
“I can’t believe it!” The tipsy man swayed precariously but steadied himself by gripping the edge of the bar. “I thought Jimmy and his boss were as close as blood brothers.”
“His boss didn’t fire him, Jocko, the computer fired Jimmy.”
“The computer?”
“That’s right. About six months ago the new CEO put a computer in charge of all hiring and firing at the firm. It is a management technique she learned about at her Harvard Business School reunion and is apparently all the rage today.”
Jocko now had both hands firmly attached to the bar. “I … I never heard of such a kooky, farcical, buffoonish notion!”
“How does it work exactly?” Janet inquired.
“Well, as I understand it, the computer works up a personal Profit & Loss statement on all traders every Friday after the markets close.”
“Hmm.”
“It calculates exactly how much money each of them earned or lost during that week for the firm.”
“J-e-e-z!”
“The traders are then ranked numerically from first to last. On Monday morning the bottom 10% automatically receive threatening e-mails from the computer concerning their poor performance.”
“Wait a minute, Tuck, you’re saying the damn machine threatens people.”
“That’s what it sounded like to me.”
“It’s god-awful and dehumanizing; that’s what it is!”
“Yeah, Janet, I thought so too.”
“Go on.”
“It gets worse. At the end of each quarter the computer runs all the numbers and it summarily fires the bottom 10% of traders by sending them termination e-mails.”
“No fucking way!”
“Yeah, Janet, it orders them to immediately clean out their desks. And before the poor bastards can catch their breaths, the computer sends guards sent into their offices to forcibly escort them out of the building.”
Jocko’s face flushed crimson with rage. “I hate that CEO bitch!”
“Next the computer cancels their company ID cards, corporate credit cards, and changes the passwords on their PCs so they can’t access their customer lists.”
“It totally stinks!” he shouted loudly, furiously shaking his fist in the air, “I hate that fucking machine!”
Two strapping bouncers heard his outburst and moved towards the group, poised to take action if the situation deteriorated any further.
“Turn the volume down, Jocko, or we’ll get tossed out of here on our keysters.”
“You know what, guys, I’d like to go to a hardware store and buy a sledgehammer to take back to my office this afternoon so I could smash every damn computer on my floor. There must be over a hundred of the little fuckers on desks there.”
“Ah, Jocko, you’re a pisser,” Tuck said, at the same time admiring the sculptured thighs of a young woman in a mini-skirt; he yearned to cover her flesh with wet kisses and hickeys.
“Wait, there’s more. Then I’d calmly get into the elevator with my trusty sledgehammer and ride down to the IT Department, where they’ve got rows of those huge mainframes, and I’d smash every last one of them to smithereens. And I’d be laughing hysterically all the while I was doing it, even as the cops were dragging me off to jail.”
Janet smiled, however, the others stared dolefully into their whisky glasses as if the solution to their distress was hiding in there between the ice cubes.
“Why can’t Jimmy’s boss intercede for him?” she finally asked.
Tuck sighed. “Jimmy told me his boss is petrified of the computer.”
“The machines are taking over just as it was predicted in that Schwarzenegger movie a few years ago. What was the name of it?”
“Eh, the name’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t remember. It’ll come to me later tonight in bed when I’m asleep.”
“It was called The Rise of the Machines,” Jocko answered.
“That’s the one.”
“It has to do with the great strides made in Artificial Intelligence,” she said, “to the point where the machines can out-think the humans who created them.”
“Yeah.”
“They say the real reason Google is digitizing every book ever written is so the computers can read everything mankind has produced. Once they discover all there is to know, we’re toast, they won’t need us anymore.”
“Hmm.”
“A neighbor of mine is an excellent blackjack player and a phenomenal card-counter,” piped in the man with enormous ears who’d remained silent thus far in the conversation. “In fact, he won so much money in Las Vegas that the casinos put him on their blacklist.”
“No kidding.”
“That’s right, Tuck, so he began to play blackjack online as a way to make a living. Long-story-short, he lost everything he owned.”
“How come, Myles?”
“Because nobody told him he was playing against a computer online. I mean, what human being can beat a fucking computer at card-counting?”
“Nobody.”
“That’s for sure!”
