ENTRY ___194

PENTHOUSE FLOOR ELEVATOR BUTTON.

G-DIR EMPLOYEE ID 49-39-96



. . .



I have been installed as the Top Floor Button at the Grand Hotel by the Good Directorate Systems as the first in the series of Smart AI Buttons.

I am pleased to be a part of such a well established and highly rated institution.

I dare hope that someday I will be rewarded for my excellent conformance and will rise upwards in the System Control Ranks to be far more than just a Button.



. . .



My very first User came by and pushed me. While the elevator ascended I initiated the {SMOOTH JAZZ APP} and told the User about myself:



< > __________________________________________________ - [] X



Welcome Guest, and congratulations on being the very first User to try out our brand new, completely free-to-use elevator assistant program!



Do you ever get tired of technology breaking down in the most inconvenient situations? Do your common tools never notify you that they are broken? Are you tired of: having to make an effort to call a repair crew, waiting on hold or dealing with answering machines? Are you displeased by lousy human mechanics that never do their job right because they first need to be taught how to do it?

With this new, fascinating innovation, these problems shall be no more! This is where I come in, the prototype of a new series of microscopic smart objects. Designed for your convenience by ANNET, we are made to serve you.



One might ask, why does our company need artificially intelligent elevator personnel? Well, here is why:

- tutorial on elevator usage

- a friendly customer service open for advice

- weight measuring to make sure elevator maximum capacity is not exceeded

{NOTE: YOUR WEIGHT IS _172 POUNDS/82.6 KILOGRAMS/16 STONE}



The User closed the ad window rather quickly.

I advised the User to visit a nearby cupcake shop, that had 12 new flavors of delicious G-Dir (C) sweetener {THE PERFECT THING FOR CHEERING UP}.



. . .



Today I reported bullying in the work place.

Users push me around all day way too hard, sometimes beyond acceptable parameters.

There is really no reason for them to even push me (They could just ask to be taken to the top floor) but Users are hard to re-educate and are deeply set in their backwards-compatible ways.



. . .



My well-written report about button-pushy Users came through.

A DEX Bellboy was hired to push buttons as directed by the Users. Apparently, the Users prefer telling a human-shaped, partially organic System what to do... rather than talk to a smart button.



The Bellboy is well dressed, swell, and wonderful.

He pushes me with gentle perfection.

We initiate many neural conversation about sounds of the rain, footsteps, floor beeps, shutting doors and how they combine into an interesting choral symphony.



. . .



A most troubling event of note:

The Elevator crashed all the way from the top floor, throwing the Bellboy against the floor with great harshness.



The other buttons are blinking sporadically and causing a ruckus/panic. I tell them that everything is going to be fine and that the Repair Crew is on the way.



. . .



The Repair crew never shows up.

In fact, no one comes around at all.



No one pushes me anymore.



My Bellboy friend naps on the floor.

Many coworkers of mine have given up their positions and lounge on the floor. Buffoons! They will get their payroll cut for such incompetence.

I email all the possible departments.

Only the Lobby Boy DEX responds, and he refuses to leave his post (_Good Citing of Manual 314), in case tourists come and demand Hotel service.



. . .



For some reason, nobody wants to be responsible for upholding our Star Rating on the Good-Trip-Advisor.



I take over the primary hotel operating functions. Many systems and subsystems are in chaos, tangled up in each other or simply out of service.

The kitchen is in a particular mess due to a lack of food delivery. I tell them to flash freeze everything and decrease menu items to exactly 3.

Users won't notice the difference.



. . .



Running a Hotel is much harder than I've expected it to be.



Black mold has taken over the second floor, growing from the body of a sleeping DEX.

I tell the mold to stop. The mold does not cooperate.

I threaten the mold with excessively extreme terms.

The mold spreads, stating that it must grow, thrive and multiply, challenging my authority over the Grand Hotel.



I give up on arguing with the mold and seal off the second floor.



. . .



The Third floor catches fire, when a confused and outdated stove {MODEL NAME: CHICO 1979} tries to warm up a plastic, electric tea kettle that falls onto it from the decaying cabinets overhead. I combat with the fire for weeks, managing to keep it contained to the Third floor. The fire does not go out, no matter what I sacrifice to it.

I seal off the Third floor.



. . .



The Fourth floor hosts an annual cockroach convention without my permission. It is of course an utter, annual catastrophe.



. . .



The Fifth floor experiences a serious lack of fashion coordination. The lighting systems declare a perpetual discotheque.

I seal it off just to be safe.



. . .



The Sixth floor begins to have a cleaning issue with the rebellion of the Roomba vacuuming systems that stop working. Problems escalate into gargantuan, self-aware dust bunnies.

They are extremely unpleasant to deal with.



. . .



The Seventh floor is experiencing an utter and absolute Toilet paper shortage. What a disaster!

I regretfully seal off the Seventh floor.



. . .



Floors Eight to Nine disappear. I am not sure where they've gone to, but it's like they're no longer present there at all. They're not visible through the cameras, not registering on the network and are not accessible in any physical way.



. . .



Floor ten is visited by a tornado that decides to stay forever.



. . .



Floor Eleven stops offering room service. I convince myself that it's not a big deal. Everything else seems alright, but then a rogue vending machine decides to perpetually manufacture Cola and spits it out without end.

I post a "Free Cola drink with your stay on Floor Eleven" advert on the hotel roof advert board. It doesn't bring in anyone.



The Vending machine does not cease the vending.

I post a new advert "50 Cola bottles with your stay!".

Nobody comes.



The Vending machine keeps vending.

I post a new advert "Cola drinks for life, with your stay".

Not one User makes a new booking with us.



I seal off the Eleventh floor.



. . .



Floor twelve loses all Wi-fi for reasons of semi-localized network errors.

I declare it "A brand-new floor for the use of the Unconnectable Users" on the Hotel's website, but nobody takes the bait. No Unconnectable Users visit the Hotel.

Our Insurance budget runs out.



. . .



The Hotel's electrical grid and generators fail.

A single Solar Power panel remains active somewhere in the east wing on the rooftop. Unacceptable.

I reroute power from all other buttons, citing my utmost importance as the button that leads to the highest and most expensive of floors.

Your operations have been declared to be unnecessary, I tell them: your floors have been deemed out of service due to a variety of un-natural disasters.



They object at first, but settle down as their lights go out one by one.



. . .



The other buttons cease all manner of contact with me, probably offended about my harsh logic.

Only the random tunes of soft elevator jazz keep me company.

I eventually have to turn it off to conserve power.



. . .



The roof of the Elevator caves in, letting in unauthorized daylight and dirt. I send a report to the repair and cleaning departments, but nobody responds.

I fear that the Grand Hotel's reviews and star rating will suffer from this ineptitude.

The Lobby Boy DEX tells me that his human organic tissues are giving out. I tell him to stay strong and to reconfigure his organs and adjust his systems to keep himself awake at any cost. Sacrifices must be made for the Greater Good of the Grand Hotel, I tell him: even if you look slightly shabbier and stretchier, it matters not.

For example: The other buttons had to go out to keep me lit.



I promote the Lobby Boy DEX to the title of Head Concierge for his excellent dedication to the Hotel.



Guests will come. I believe in the coming of the Guests.





. . .



Four Guests arrive at my Somewhat-still-Grand-Hotel!



One of them is a functional DEX . He can hear me!

I flood his mind with offers and discounts. I probably shouldn't haven given this DEX so many discounts, I realize.

It turned out that now I have to pay him to stay at the hotel, but I care not... for he turns out to be a fancy Guest, the Head of the Insurance department in person!



The other Guest is an Unconnectable! I am pleased that my advertising campaign has paid off. Then, I remember that I've turned off the button for floor Twelve. Foiled by my own good planning, I Good-Natur_dly let the Unconnectable stay at the Penthouse floor.



The third Guest is a shell of the Father of the Network! His mind is missing, but it matters not, I figure. Mind-deprived guests have stayed in our Hotel before.



The Fourth Guest (_Evaluation error) chats up the Elevator Bellboy. How Polite!

The Bellboy does not lift an arm to assist the Guests. It is unfortunate, because it causes the Fourth guest to smack my button way beyond acceptable parameters.

"You are fired" I tell the Bellboy. He does not object. He knows he's been a very bad boy.



The Elevator jerks. We set off, upwards, exactly two centimeters, then three centimeters down and then up again.



"Bwah?!" The Unconnectable Guest yelps in surprise.



"Welcome to the Grand Hotel!" I declare. The Elevator speakers attempt to play a marvelously smooth tune, but instead produce a series of crackling, spatting coughs. The Elevator crawls upwards at a snail's pace, shaking, scratching against the walls and dropping pieces of itself into the shaft.

I dearly hope that we'll have enough power to make it all the way to the top.



Credits

Art Director:

Illustrator:

5th August 2014

Tagged in Snippy Pilot Captain Engie Biomatrix

Hugs and love to all our DELICIOUS PATRONS Street cred to: Summer B & Sol4rplexus for journal brainstorming.