The Bottom Of Things

Our little story begins with a slight detour, but I promise that I'll get directly to the beginning right after we do a little light housekeeping. But first I have to tell you about a book that I keep on my side of the bed, just in case I awaken in the middle of the night and need to read it again, just to make sure I didn't imagine it all.

The book is left over from a math class I once took. There's a story in it about a proof devised by one Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Economics honcho and mathemetician.

The math is involved; boring, even, but the gist of this proof is this:

In any election, there is always a dictator.

One person's vote always decides every election. Every time the Benevolent Fraternal Order of Polecats has a vote, there's one guy whose decision is responsible for the outcome of the vote.

The guy doesn't necessarily know he's the dictator. The same guy is not necessarily going to be the dictator in different votes. You will probably never be able to tell ahead of time who the dictator will be. You might or might not know afterward who the dictator is, even if it's you.

But somebody makes the decision. One guy throws up his hand and the bylaw is passed or stricken down. That makes you wonder. It makes me wonder, at least.

Does the same thing apply to all events? Are ball games and bombing missions always decided by single individual? Sure they are. It makes for a good story, which is what this is, beginning right about now.

Our little story begins with one Garthar Agmodniak, the maintenance technician working the nightshift at TheOliveFactory.com. His duties include regular maintenance and inspection of the legion of robots packing the olives in little olive-shaped jars and packing the jars in olive-shaped cartons and packing the cartons in olive shaped trucks. Between wholesale vinegar scaldings and the occasional bloody robot uprising, he works on time and labor saving devices to make the factory run more smoothly.

His most notable achievment to date has been the Automatic Beating Machine for the Robot Galley Slaves in the Pimento Stuffing Division (ABMftRGSitPSD). I'm reading this directly out of his resume. It says here that he saved the company fourteen overseer chips and a 555 drum unit.

Garthar is a regular working Joe. Salt-of-the-Earth type is what some would call him, except that Garthar is not from the Earth. He's from outer space. This does not directly impact our story in any way, though, so I won't mention it again. It's just that he's more of a Salt-of-Outer-Space type than a Salt-of-the-Earth.

Garthar Agmodniak drives a wrinkled little orange automobile and eats his lunch from a small metal suitcase. The suitcase, which he calls his "lunchbucket" is wrinkled and orange too. On the late shift, lunch is from 3 until 4 AM. I suppose that's a little too much information to start with, so now I'll just get on with the begining of the story.

But before I do that, I think I should explain a little bit about what a Maintenance Technician does, espeically one who works the late shift at the Olive Factory. This is because it enters in to the way our story begins, so we should go over the background just a bit before we start. Robots, as you probably know if you work anywhere near an olive factory, can do anything that humans can do, except for one thing.

No, it's not that. They figured that out years ago.

Robots are tireless workers. They can work in terrible conditions for extended periods of time. They have physical and cognative skills far beyond those of humans. They never get bored, they never steal office supplies. They can maintain themselves better than a human maintenance technician with a full compliment of expensive tools. Were it not for one thing, there would be no need for humans at all:

Robots can't think up names for things.

Take the Automatic Beating Machine for the Robot Galley Slaves in the Pimento Stuffing Division (ABMftRGSitPSD) for example:

A robot detected the problem,
Another gathered data,
Yet another designed the prototype.

An Ambulatory Robot Team (ART) from sector 6 fashioned and installed the ABMftRGSitPSD. It was devised, created and installed before any human (or space man) knew of it's existence.

Finally, it was to be named.

A Human Intervention Request Communique (HIRC) was forwarded to one Garthar Agmodniak, human (or ostensibly human, and since this has no bearing on the story, I won't mention it agian). It read:

Human, Name for me the following: A machine which automatically beats the robot galley slaves in the pimento stuffing division. J42

The reply:

J42 Call it an "Automatic Beating Machine for the Robot Galley Slaves in the Pimento Stuffing Division". Garthar Agmodniak

Even the Post-Prefixed Acronym (P-PA) was generated by a robot.

Do we understand eachother now? The young programmer who embarks on a career as a Mainenance Technician at the Olive factory has plenty of time on his hands to explore outside interests

Garthar Agmodniak spent some of his extra time practicing facial expressions in the imperfect reflection of the chestplate of a DR45 Unit. The DR45 Unit had plenty of time on its hands, too, but no hands. I guess you could say it had plenty of time on it's micromanipulators.