Meat Robots

A few days ago I used the term “Meat Robot” to describe the brainless sector of our workforce commonly found manning the counters at fast food restaurants. I like the term and feel it’s an appropriate description for a subsection of the working public. However, I feel the need to clarify that I’m not just knocking low paying or entry level jobs – not even singling out the fast food industry. A Meat Robot – in any industry – brings nothing to the table beyond a body able to perform some mechanical task. They’re almost less customer friendly and just as unable to expand upon their jobs as their mechanical counterparts. Also, most ATM machines don’t give me attitude or scare me that I’m going to run into them in the parking lot later. Why hire them? Ultimately they’re still cheaper than their industrial robotic replacements.

You come across a Meat Robot and your best hope is that you get whatever product or service that you paid for and make it away from the interaction with a minimum of stress and negative feelings. As far as I’m concerned the future of our national labor development is a race. A race between the ability to make an actual mechanical replacement to the Meat Robots that is affordable to the business community, and the implementation of an educational/training program for entry level employees that imparts some humanity back into the Meat Robot shells – as opposed to just pinning on a nametag. Cold steel and gears or flesh and blood? I’m hoping for the latter solution to win the race, but the crass American consumer in me ultimately doesn’t care so long as my drive-thru meal comes out right and I can get through a grocery check-out lane in less than forty minutes.