The Man Who Would Be Robot

There’s this guy I work with. Annoys the fucking shit out of me. And I figured it out. I think he’s a robot.

There’ve been a few times I’ve hung out with him outside of work. And I’ve seen him malfunction. He dresses like what he thinks a man should dress like (even though his programming seemed to end in the 1970s) and he talks in measured, unemotional, non-specific tone. Like a computer. When he does laugh, it sounds like what a robot thinks a human would laugh like. Then it goes frozen again. He also really likes to spread a lot of “whites are better” vibe. He was curious why I felt this way, not about him but to others. Obliquely, I mentioned a friend of mine invited me to his wedding but his wife, while being a left wing, vegetarian cause-nutter, gives off a vibe of being bigoted. I’m not sure why. She seems like that socialite woman who has a cause to get behind, but throws opinions at it, without really knowing what she’s supporting. Only that it’s all hunky dory universe we live in. Which it’s not. A sheltered person gets to think like this. Anyway, Robot (which I’ll call him now) seemed to have flipped a switch and really interested as to why I would feel this way. I couldn’t quantify it with anything substantial other than it was a feeling me and my friend Roxanne got. Roxanne being a black woman who was also at the wedding who I’ve spoke to about the odd invite to her wedding. We both believed it was to show how liberal minded she was, even though her high school chums were lily white. Change is good. And good for her, but I’m talking about Robot here.

So Robot, could process that someone can “sense” something wrong. The programming in him didn’t allow him to accept that Roxanne and I both sensed something odd about Miss Lily. He proceeded to ask me a lot of pointed questions, to which luckily my shift was over and left. Robot left with so much more to learn…as Johnny Five was also starved of data.

And I thought at first it was curiosity, but I think it was self-preservation. Robot has showed many signs of his own prejudices. He’s skinned of a white male, with blue eyes and sandy brown hair. To him, this was grounds to be the superior model of robot to others. According to the manufacturing date of his creation (he’s about 50 years old). But Robot is uncomfortably odd around women. On the many times he’s assist me in photo shoots, he’s gotten at the edge of creepy. He once shared with me that a girl at work stopped speaking with him because he had given her a gift. He explained it was just a friendly thing, and it seemed to have tripped him that the friendliness wasn’t reciprocated. Robot’s malfunctioning board didn’t take into account “give women gift=they like you” has to be uniquely accepted by the recipient. You can’t just go robot’ing into the office with gifts for no reason, a conversation and such would be appropriate. The girl in the office also happened to be half his age. To which, Robot seems to prefer. His interests aren’t their interest…ever. Robot doesn’t understand about humanity. He processes human behavior and thinks he can replicate. So he is a lonely robot.

Anyway, Robot has a tendency to whine a lot. Just this Friday, he whined about the fact that our department has been gutted by death and dismissals. And that he is the only one who can do the work required. He does the work fine. But he really seems to be stressed about the minutiae of things. Things that don’t really matter. I told him it’s a good thing to be needed. Robot doesn’t understand this. In fact, we got into an argument about another employee who quit years ago and left a DVD Robot had given him. To which I replied “Yeah, he’s known to be a flake.” Robot didn’t like that response, he shot back with “I’ve never known him to be a flake.” The fact that he gave a gift to this guy, and he left it behind, you have to acknowledge that the guy was bullshitting you. But Robots don’t understand being humored. I pity Robot. I think his core is dying from the inside out. A fan doesn’t kick on like it use to. A frayed wire somewhere. I believe he’s starting to understand robots, like humans will have a shelf life. To which I think when things understand a termination date, their natural programming is preservation.

Robot doesn’t understand how to process anger, sadness, happiness, and so forth. Even if they seem like it. I’m sure we put the emotion on inanimate objects.