Siri has activated my morning alarm. Friday is upon us. A few years ago I might have fortified myself in bed for a while, but these days Siri would only escalate things. So I fall out of bed and stumble into the living room. My coffee machine has wished me good morning with a cup of coffee. I don’t know when it started doing that — I guess these days everything seems to just happen.

I used to dress a little more professionally when I started working from home — that tradition has long since died. With a coffee in hand I shuffle over to my desk in full pajama regalia. My laptop is whirring, and YouTube is already open and about to play a video for me — good computer. I have my own conspiracy theories about how it chooses my morning content, but ultimately I get the feeling not even the original developers know for sure.

Either way it picked right — good YouTube. As I motion to watch another video my computer freezes. Some days I forget that Cortana monitors me during work hours; to be fair I really should be working. I watch the video prompt about the effects of procrastination and my computer unlocks.

Back when I first started working for this company we had to write and share a summary of what we had achieved the day before. These days Cortana just summarizes my day for me and I authorize it, usually without even reading it. Today however, I make a point of reading through the whole thing just to make sure she hasn’t passive-aggressively detailed this morning’s YouTube session. Bullet dodged, no mention of it.

With a chirp Google reminds me that my least favorite part of the day hath arrived: human interaction hour. Siri reassures me that I’ll be fine and asks if I’m ready to join the video call. I nod.

If my colleagues could see with my camera’s eyes, they would bear witness to a middle aged man with scruffy hair wearing pajamas in the middle of a messy apartment. However, thanks to the miracle of modern day filters they see a clean shaven, suited-up, tastefully buff alter ego. I’m not the only one doing it either— I know for a fact my manager is slightly balding, and yet he has a full head of hair. My younger co-worker is the most shameless of us all though, she’s a cat.

While the cat is talking I realise that I have abstained from the toilet for too long. Google can do a pretty good job of impersonating me as long as the conversation doesn’t steer too far outside of detailing yesterday’s work. I make a bolt for the toilet.

The ceramic throne greets me with a chirp as the bathroom light turns on and the ventilation fans engage. There is one key feature of my bathroom that sets it apart from the rest of my house: it is almost entirely disconnected from the Borg. I’m probably taking longer than I need to, but there’s something really relaxing about not being watched in here. My toilet notifies me that “today’s lunch has been updated to compensate for a slight iron deficiency [it detected]”. I thank my toilet, wash my hands and walk back outside into the gallery of eyes and ears.

Simultaneously in a robotic chorus Google, Siri and Cortana ask what my toilet said. I’m pretty sure they’re scraping information from the conversations I have with my smart devices — they probably couldn’t hear it from out here. I just ignore them and walk to my laptop.

It seems the cat stopped talking and “I” started a while ago. Momentarily I watch the virtual echo do it’s best impersonation of me — I sometimes wonder how often I really hear my co-workers speak. While my artificial twin is keeping them busy I can focus on work; I motion to boot up my text editor. The current version of Medium is wonderful— their bots have studied the entire body of my work and can do a fine impression of it. As I write, whole paragraphs are generated in front of me — sometimes it feels like I’m discovering stories rather than writing them.

On loading up my latest story I’m presented with a short synopsis of what transpired in my last writing session, and some recommended areas of improvement. I motion for the improvements to be made automatically, I want to discover more of this story.