My coworkers got replaced by robots. They never complain. In fact, they?re always smiling.

I work at a really big warehouse named after a river. I was just another cog in the machine, pulling orders that we?d ship to customers around the world. It?s an okay job, though it doesn?t offer much in the way of personal fulfillment, and it?s hardly the center of my world. The warehouse is enormous, the kind of place where new hires regularly get lost. I?m talking ?ugly crying, scared of dying? lost. It?s so big that when birds accidentally fly in, they end up making nests in the rafters to live out their lives. In a typical shift, I?d pass my pedometer?s daily goal before lunch. At least I did back when we got lunch breaks.
Recently, bad publicity has surrounded the company regarding workers being injured or killed. They were trapped in a warehouse during significant events like extreme weather or an active shooter. To counter this, my location was chosen for a pilot program to replace the workers with robots. My boss called me into his office to drop this bombshell.
?Emily, please take a seat,? he said, his perfunctory smile belying the bags under his eyes. On his Instagram page, his name was Ken, but his calling cards and nameplate both listed his full name with an emphasis that he was the third, as if those Roman numerals conveyed the patronage of nobility. He was all business when he sat in that brass stippled leather chair. Sometimes he would lift up his workstation with hydraulics to roleplay being of ?one of the team? at a standing desk. That was when he had to ?be the bad guy?, like when he threatened to fire anyone who even mentioned the U-word. He wore a wedding band and periodically posted pictures, but the rumors suggested theirs was not a happy union.
?I have good news and bad news,? he started. ?The bad news is corporate is dismissing your entire unit. They will be informed when they report in for their next shifts. The good news is you?ll be staying on. Management has decided you?ll be getting promoted to lead the new team of automated employees.? It was obvious from his tone he would have selected someone else, maybe one of his colleagues from Important Business School. He was a proud alumnus - the bumper sticker on his Saab was impossible to miss.
?Okay,? I said. ?Let?s discuss a salary raise before I commit to anything.? I?d been taking online courses about being more assertive. No more Ms. Pushover, please and thank you.
?Corporate has authorized an hourly rate of $16.65. You?ll find this amount is non-negotiable as it was determined by the algorithm to be the correct value for the marketplace.? Ken must have taken offense at my reference to salary, as if I dared to imply he and I would be equals paid per annum. It was a modest raise, an extra dollar and change over my current rate.
?What would my responsibilities be in this new role?? I asked. It?s important to set expectations early.
?Don?t overthink this, Em. If you don?t take the job, you?ll be let go and someone else will do it. Oversee the workers and make sure they?re productive. That?s it. Easier than what you were doing, and much better than no job, right?? He knew I did not like nicknames. His little power move was unnecessary - there really was no choice.
?When do I start?? I asked.
?Excellent,? Ken said. ?Let me offer you a piece of advice for your new role. Try to smile more.?

I was given my first ever paid vacation. A week off, during which the robots were installed and calibrated. All I had to do was watch some management training videos on my laptop for maybe an hour or two a day. It was a series of instructions for new supervisors, but most of it didn?t apply to someone who would be in charge of machines, so I barely paid attention to them. I watched television while the videos about discrimination in the workplace and zero-tolerance policies on harrassment played in the background. Driving in for my first shift, I felt a little silly imagining how it would all play out. What was I going to do, motivate a robot? You can do it, Johnny Five!
Once I really got started, I took to my new role with aplomb. The robots are humanoid - literally doing the jobs of my former coworkers. They are shaped like people - roughly human height, two arms, two legs. Their faces are flat with permanent though vague smiles illuminated on them. They?re always happy to see you, or happy to be working, or maybe happy to have a purpose. I guess it was cheaper directly replacing the workers than redesigning the warehouse to be optimized for artificial employees. I doubt bipedal automatons are the most efficient design. Maybe if the program was a success, they would move to eliminate the human element altogether. In a way, it made sense. No need for heating in the winter or keeping the lights on day and night if the whole thing?s run by machines. If a tornado hits, no loss of life. If a nutjob shows up with a machinegun and a manifesto, samey same.
The job was pretty easy at first. On my first day, I had to watch more forgettable training videos. I didn?t need to do much once I hit the floor, so I took to wandering around our section of the warehouse and spot-checking the new team. More than once, I caught Ken doing a little eyes-on monitoring of me. I couldn?t decide if he was making sure I was doing my job or imagining me giving him a different kind of job. He never touched me, but I could feel his eyes on me. It was incredibly unprofessional, and frankly just gross. He had to be at least twenty years older than me, and that wispy goatee wasn?t doing him any favors.
Only my team was automated. The rest of the warehouse folk were regular people. They didn?t say anything to me about the robots, but I knew they had to be worried. If this program took off, it would mean they?d all be out of jobs. Sometimes I tried to strike up a conversation, but their replies always felt forced, like they were only responding because I was now a supervisor. It didn?t make a lot of sense to me. I wasn?t really a boss, I just looked after the machines.
Things went pretty well for the first few days, but I got scolded when Ken saw me talking to one of the robots. I was just passing the time, making some quirky comments about the orders it was pulling, but Ken called me up to his office for a shellacking. I took a seat across from his desk, but Ken didn?t plop down on that supple leather chair. He sat on the edge of the desk, directly in front of me. It was probably another power move from the eighties that was still taught at Important Business School. His proximity made me uncomfortable.
?Em, you can?t chum it up with your team. They need to stay focused on their tasks,? he said. What difference would it make? The robots do the work that?s assigned to them. That?s the whole point. They?re machines. I knew better than to talk back. The conversation would go a lot quicker if I took my lumps without objection.
?I?m sorry, sir. It won?t happen again,? I promised.
?There?s my girl. Please don?t make me report you to HR. You?re a young woman in the prime of her life. Don?t blow this opportunity. Instead of writing you up, I?m going to assign you to watch another training video. Run along now and keep a close eye on your people.? I walked out feeling like I needed a shower. I endured the new video before I went back to the warehouse floor, though I couldn?t tell you what it was about. The videos are so forgettably bland ? they?ve all got weird tonal music and cheesy effects, like these strange flashing patterns that play during every intro.
At the end of my inaugural week as a supervisor, I ran into my first real challenge. While doing my rounds, I noticed one of the robots was missing. It wasn?t in our section of the warehouse. I checked the nearby areas with no luck, then I counted and recounted my team to make sure one had vanished. When I realized I would have to report this to Ken, I stepped into the restroom to wash my hands and give myself a little pep talk with some power poses. I didn?t learn about those at Important Business School. TED Talks on YouTube are free.
I found the missing robot in the women?s bathroom. It had somehow gotten locked in a stall. The training I received told me explicitly to never touch the robots, so I didn?t know how to get it to go back to work without pulling it off the commode. It was making some kind of weird beeping sounds, like it may have been low on juice. I never saw the robots being recharged, but it?s not like they ran on nuclear power. Something had to top off their tanks.
I broke Ken?s rule by talking to the robot. ?Howdy,? I said through the stall door. ?It doesn?t look too comfy on the can. Wouldn?t you rather be out on the floor with your friends?? The robot didn?t move, but it stopped beeping.
?Listen, I?m really new at this job and I?ve already gotten into trouble with my boss once this week. Would you please go back to work so I don?t have to tell him I?m not sure how to make a machine vacate the toilet?? The robot stood up and walked out, but not before it washed its hands. Somehow it must have known this was a non-sterile environment, like maybe they have advanced sensors or something. I tried to read its face, but it showed no emotion. That faint little smile was seemingly permanent. This strange exchange faded from my mind as I rounded out the day and dove headfirst into the weekend.

I slept in on Saturday, savoring every minute of my first full weekend off since I started waiting tables in high school. My new hours matched Ken?s, a nine-to-five from Monday to Friday. I?m sure Ken didn?t object to that equivalency. I went to yoga in the early afternoon, then my roommates and I cooked up a little pescatarian feast. We shared some loaves and fishes with a glass or two of wine, then we fired up the HBO account we ?borrowed? from Lauren?s ex-boyfriend. We had a great time hate-watching the last season of the dragon show. Alexa did a hilarious impression of the brutal ninja assassin who?s also twelve years old. She had me in tears with her monotone delivery.
Come Sunday, I slept in again. I could get used to the white collar schedule. My salary bump wouldn?t extend to the lifestyle, but I could make a second Ulta trip every month. The current outing was mostly window shopping and sample hopping, so it?s not as if an extra hundred bucks in the budget would turn me into a cosmoholic. I finally got out of bed because the Roomba kept bumping into my closed door. I guess it really wanted to clean my room, or maybe I?m just a machine magnet. I was tempted to kick it down the hallway, but I held off. It was only doing its job.
My second week started off fairly routine. The machines did their tasks, and I did the robot dance to celebrate my unit exceeding the efficiency parameters set by corporate. The reports came down from the ivory tower every Tuesday during a supervisors? meeting. I was later told by another manager that falling below 98% was bad, but going over the mark was worse. When I asked why, he said, ?Picture it this way: If you fall below the standard, you just get fired. If your unit goes above the standard, they raise the bar for the next week. Eventually, you learn to give them exactly what they ask for. Keep going over, and you?ll end up writing your own pink slip when you burn out after trying to keep up with your past best performances.? Ouch. Okay, so keep the robots out of overdrive.
After the meeting, it seemed like the team was slowing down. Maybe I was already paranoid about losing my job, but it felt like they just weren?t working as fast as they were last week. At one point, I saw one of the robots start walking toward the women?s restroom. I wasn?t sure if it was the same one as before (since they all look alike), but I couldn?t risk having one out of service for too long. I jogged over to stop it from going into the toilet, but along the way I bumped into one of the other machines and fell to the floor. The wayward robot slipped into the lavatory. If I didn?t know any better, I could have sworn the second one tripped me intentionally. Did someone sabotage their programming? Maybe another supervisor who was jealous, or a warehouse worker who didn?t want to be replaced by a machine. I began watching the team more vigilantly for signs of tampering.
By Friday afternoon, I was ready for the weekend, and my mind was on autopilot. Ken made me watch another training video that morning, and it was a longer one. I spent the whole time texting memes to the roomies and catching up with my parents. Around 4:00, I was aching to put the Jeep in gear and get the heck out of Dodge. I heard a commotion deep in the warehouse and found one of the robots had gotten its hand caught in the conveyor belt. The other workers stopped pulling orders and walked over to help it. I shooed them away - we were so close to hitting our goal for the week.
The worker in distress was beeping rapidly until it yanked its arm out of the belt, and it started leaking oil or robot fluid or whatever on the floor. Aside from the beeping, you?d have no idea anything was wrong. That placid little smile was constant. I sent the damaged unit over to the engineers to patch it up while I cleaned up the fluid with some shop towels. I was already down one worker, so I couldn?t delegate this task to another one. We had to finish the week strong. It wasn?t easy, but we hit 5:00 at exactly 100% efficiency for the week. I was sure of it, at least until I got home that evening.
The weekend was less than joyous. Instead of rebooting, I found myself swimming in doubt. I had a nightmare that my roommates had been replaced by machines. It really threw me for a loop. I spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday with a bad feeling. Lauren and Alexa tried to cheer me up, but I couldn?t shake the suspicion I had failed, that my real efficiency score would be 97% or worse and I?d be fired on the spot. I?d have to get a job sweeping up discarded stubs and rousting bums from benches at the bus station.
Ken called me Sunday evening. I wasn?t going to pick up the phone, but I thought he?d be irritated if he had to leave a message, so I answered it. Guys like him always feel the need to leave messages as if caller ID hasn?t been around since before Windows Millenium Edition. He asked if I wanted to hear the good news or the bad news first. ?Let?s start with the good news,? I said. ?I could use a little pick-me-up.?
?The question was rhetorical,? Ken said. ?The bad news is corporate is not happy that you allowed one of your workers to be damaged. This is a big deal, Emily. We can?t have any more accidents, not when your efficiency score is teetering on the edge of dismissal.? So the score was low. I knew it! ?The good news is I?ve convinced my boss that you deserve another chance. Come in early tomorrow to watch a training video on worker safety. Before I let you go, is there anything you want to tell me??
?Nothing comes to mind,? I replied. I knew what he wanted, but I wasn?t going to give it to him. He had no right to expect me to grovel in gratitude for his valiant efforts. An extra buck an hour was not worth this stress. The urge to quit pulsed briefly.
?Maybe next time I won?t stand up for you. Goodnight, sweetheart.? He disconnected before I could respond. His tone was bitter, but I?d bet my next paycheck he dreamed about calling me that with sincerity. I?m ashamed to admit I cried before going to bed that night.
Things got bizarre as soon as I arrived on Monday. I found one of the robots sitting in an employee?s car as I pulled into the parking lot. I was getting ready to call security to report an attempted theft of company property, but the robot turned its head toward me. It opened the car door and walked back into the warehouse. Was this some sort of new supervisor prank? It was unsettling. I had the radio on in my Jeep, but I could have sworn I heard the robot making those same weird beeping sounds as the one in the bathroom. Maybe it was the same one. A single defective unit out of a dozen wouldn?t be that hard to manage, would it?
The rest of the day was uneventful, though I did seem to catch the robots looking at each other when they were pulling orders in the same area. Could they communicate? What would they say? At the Tuesday supervisor meeting, one of the warehouse team leads was told that his group fell short, only hitting 97% efficiency. In recognition of his service as a long-term employee he?d be given the opportunity to step down or resign in lieu of termination. He chose to go back to picking orders in the warehouse. He looked relieved as he walked out of the meeting. When it resumed, Ken read off the list of those who were in the danger zone of termination. When he got to my team, he paused before dramatically announcing we were at 98% on the dot. He gave me a sly smile while he read our score, as if he fudged the numbers. I was safe for another week, but barely. Ken didn?t mention the teams that were at or above their productivity goals. Nobody got recognized for meeting expectations, and nobody was rewarded for exceeding them. It simply meant the algorithm had underestimated their capabilities.
By mid-week, I was already worn out. My recent sleep habits had not been great, so I was topping off my coffee in the breakroom at frequent intervals. Around noon, I was filling my mug again when I heard a noise behind me. One of the damn robots followed me into the breakroom. What little patience I had was gone. ?Christ on Sunday,? I snapped. ?Get your go-go-gadget ass back on the line and do your stupid job or I swear to God I?ll have you shipped back to China and melted for scrap.? The robot scurried away as if it knew I meant business.
Someone must have heard me yelling and reported it to Ken. He called me into his office again, but this time he didn?t offer me a seat. ?I can?t believe what I?ve been told,? he said, his voice so gruff I didn?t dare think to argue. ?In fact, I refuse to believe it. I refuse to even consider the idea that you?d violate so many aspects of company policy. I?m going to pretend you?re going through some personal stuff, maybe dealing with some women?s issues. Go home. I?m going to email you some training videos to watch before you come back.?
I said nothing, but I stood my ground. Fury was burning inside of me, an anger I did not trust I could contain. I was ready to scream at this jerk for giving me an impossible assignment of managing these defective robots, and then having the gall to be so openly sexist. How was it my fault they wouldn?t stay on the floor to work? How was it my responsibility for them to not reach the efficiency levels set by corporate? I didn?t program the robots. I didn?t choose to make them the same size as people with the same mobility limits. I was brand new at being a supervisor and I was already having the threat of losing my job held over me. This was beyond unfair. The temptation to quit welled again, and I had to fight the urge to spew a spontaneous resignation. It held heavy in my throat.
Ken read my face perfectly. His tone softened, and if he couldn?t see me as a peer, he could treat me like a fellow human being. ?Emily, you weren?t my first choice for this assignment, but corporate saw something in you. The chairman and CEO have both been briefed on this initiative, and they believe you?ve got what it takes to succeed. They believe it, so I believe it. That?s what it means to be a supervisor. You have to separate your personal feelings from your professional actions, and you have to accept that your effectiveness as a leader is reflected in the success of your team. I don?t want you to fail, I want you to prove me wrong. Please take the rest of the day to recharge your batteries. Watch the videos and come back ready to take the initiative. Your team will perform if you light the way. Lead them well, and you?ll never have to worry about hitting your mark.?
On the drive home, I stopped to gas up the Jeep. While I was fueling, I looked over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of a robot near the pumps. When I spun around, it was gone. I was getting so torqued up, I was starting to lose my marbles. When I got home, I powered through the training videos with the volume low and my attention on my phone. A guy I knew from high school sent me a message that said he always had feelings for me and wondered if I felt the same way. Then he asked if I wanted to send him some nudes. I went to bed early that night.
I resigned myself to spending the next two days leading my team from the front. Machines might respond better to another machine, so I started acting like them. I said nothing, I took no breaks, I was purely task-driven. It worked. We had no more malfunctions, and when we crossed the finish line for the week, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we had met our efficiency standard. I knew it because there was no room for error.
As I pulled out of the parking lot on Friday, some of the robots were standing outside near one of the shuttle stops. They were facing each other in a sort of rough circle. I wrote it off as just another glitch, like maybe they were waiting for the engineers to move them to an off-site location for maintenance or repairs. Still, the number of weird or unexplained things was on the rise. I let it go, and by the time I hit the highway, I had all but forgotten about the little quirks that just weren?t quite syncing.

The roomies and I had a girls? night on Saturday. We pregamed a little at home before catching a ride to a nearby nightclub to blow off some steam. Lauren and Alexa were pacing themselves pretty well, but I was off to the races after the week I had. I felt good - I danced a little and I even talked to a couple of cuties. I was trying to get the bartender?s attention at one point when I saw past him to the other side of the bar. A robot was standing at the bar, looking directly at me. I grabbed Alexa and pointed at it.
?Look, look,? I yelled over the music. ?It?s one of those robots from work.?
?Where? I don?t see anything.? Alexa must have been blind - the bar was crowded, but it wasn?t that big.
?Straight across from us, standing by the taps. No wait, it?s moving,? I said. It was walking toward us, and it was not smiling.
Instinct took over. I ran out of the bar, firing up the Uber app as I sprinted down the stairs. I had been nervous around them before, but this was pushing me straight to terrified. My driver was confirmed as I pushed through the Saturday crowd - Trevor was on his way with a silver Toyota.
Once I made it outside, I ducked down by some parked cars. I frantically checked the app to see where my driver was. Trevor was a couple of blocks away, but before he arrived, the robot followed me outside. It was looking around, searching for me.
A silver Toyota came into view. I didn?t even bother confirming the license plate. I ran for it and dove into the car, yelling at (hopefully) Trevor, ?Drive! Drive!? He zoomed away, leaving the machine scanning for me by the club?s entrance. Trevor asked me if I was okay. ?Yeah, just a little shook,? I said, my arms twitching from surplus adrenaline.
?Let me guess, some freaking weirdo was creeping on you and you had to bail before he got handsy.? Trevor was watching me in the rearview mirror.
?Yeah,? I said. ?Something like that.? He dropped me off a few blocks from the apartment. Human or machine, I took no chances. That said, I gave him five stars and a generous tip.
During the drive, my phone was exploding with messages from the roomies. I ignored them until I got inside, then sent a home-safe selfie with an apology. Sorry, y?all. Wasn?t feeling good, had to call it early. Next weekend is on me. I eventually slept after staring at the ceiling for hours, questioning my sanity.
I caught myself going through the motions in my hungover daze on Sunday. Make coffee | Strip bed | Wash sheets | Eat brekkies | Brush teeth | Dry sheets | Blah | Blah | Blah. Maybe I was turning into a robot. No wonder I was chosen to lead them.
Heavy rain fell around noon. I daydreamed while looking out the window, enjoying the slow-motion way of things during a downpour. Less traffic, fewer people, less noise. It?s very soothing. I was preparing to make a cup of tea when I thought I heard a beeping noise. Near the bushes, a robot was facing the window. It seemed to recognize I could see it. The machine backed into the bushes, concealing itself somewhat.
I panicked. I called the police, my voice unsteady as the operator told me officers were en route. The robot pulled further into the brush as the officers arrived, disappearing like the Cheshire Cat, letting its illuminated smile linger just a bit. By the time the police knocked on my door, I could no longer see the machine.
I opened the door. ?Yes, hello. I called. A robot is hiding in the bushes outside.? The officers looked at each other.
?I know how this sounds, but I?m not crazy,? I said. ?Please go look. It?s been watching me and it?s freaking me out. I don?t know how to get rid of it.?
One officer checked the bushes, and the second one asked me some questions. I?m no detective, but it was obvious she was checking if I were mental. I told her I had no desire to hurt myself or anyone else, and that I was not taking any medications, or at least not anything for psychological reasons. The officer?s partner came back. They huddled for a minute before the second one told me he didn?t see any machines outside, just a homeless guy sleeping in a tent and a hiker who was having fun getting muddy in the rain. I was advised to call them back if I saw anything suspicious. After they left, I kept an eye on the bushes. Just before sunset, a gold hatchback rolled down our street. The driver was a robot.
Ken answered the phone on the first ring. It was three in the morning when I committed to resigning. If I didn?t quit that minute, I knew I had no chance of getting any sleep. My pulse was pounding, my eyes aching.
?Emily. I hear you telling me you are stressed out,? Ken said. He was groggy but his voice was calm. ?Please don?t do anything hasty. Let?s meet at my office in the morning to discuss your position and see if we can find a way to make this right.?
?No,? I replied. ?I can?t do this anymore. I?m done.?
Turns out I wasn?t done after all. Ken convinced me to stay by giving me a week off with pay and a new crop of training videos to work through. He promised me a raise and extra help with the robots if I would work to make this pilot program a success.
I told Lauren and Alexa I was going to self-quarantine in my bedroom because of an exposure at work. That wasn?t exactly a lie. I spent the next week reviewing all of the prior training videos in my collection, along with the new ones Ken assigned. I watched several of them more than once. The videos are weird, but they?re reassuring in a way, even comforting.
By the following Monday, I was excited to get back to work. It was a beautiful morning as I drove in with the windows down and the radio playing. I caught myself singing at the stoplights. When I got to the parking lot, I did a quick reflection check before leaving the Jeep and heading into the warehouse. All systems were go for launch - I was rested and freshly retrained. Unlike Ken, I had no bags under my eyes, but I did have something of a vague smile. It occurred to me that I was starting to look a little androidgynous.


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