Pay The Machine.

I was pulling out of the parking garage at the Hyatt in Rochester, NY.  After a month of staying in the sketchiest motels on the company’s dime, decadence prevailed at the Hyatt.  But unlike the Red Roof’s and Super 8’s of the world, coffee isn’t free at the Hyatt.  Neither is the parking.  $4.00 for an overnight spot in the parking garage.  That was fine, but when I slipped my ticket into the machine, the machine demanded $8.00 in a robot voice.  I ejected the ticket, put it back in.  $8.00.  I ejected the ticket, checked the timestamp (3:00 PM the previous day), put it back into the machine.  8 bucks.  A new voice came onto the intercom, a human voice.

“Is there a problem?”

“The machine wants 8 dollars.  I only owe it 4.”

“Pay the machine.”

“I’m glad to pay the machine, but I only stayed here one night.”

“What does the machine say?”

“It says 8 dollars.”

“Pay the machine.”

“But the machine is wrong.”

“Pay the machine.”

This fantastic customer service confused me to the point that it was worth 4 bucks not to have to talk to either the machine or the human machine advocate anymore.  After paying the 8 dollars, I realized that I just witnessed my personal dystopian future.  A future where the best jobs, perhaps the only jobs, are jobs where humans tell other humans that the machines are right and we are wrong.  Machines are infallible.  You’ve never experienced a machine that malfunctioned, miscalculated, or broken down.  We’ve made the machines, so the machines are infallible.  Because we’re infallible.  Except when we get in disagreements with the machines. 

Pay the machine.