This is an auto-generated email: Difference between revisions

{{a|work|[[File:Dalek.png|450px|thumb|center|Resistance is useless.]]}}Is there anything grimmer, in a [[High-modernist|high-modern]] working life strewn with grimnities, than the autogenerated email reply? It is so disempowering, so [[passive-aggressive]], so ''ignorant'' of every basic principle of a life well-lived, full of rich professional experience — a life to which our [[Human resources|dark overlord]]s pledge [[Virtue signalling|public, undying commitment]] — that you would think no thoughtful modern business administrator would dream of using it.

Even well-designed processes rust over time — those that envision the [[meatware]] playing “[[Simon Says]]” with an automated compliance system are ''not'' well-designed, let us be clear — and those responsible for them still need the occasional nudge to give the whole thing a going over with a [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ofy6l wire brush and Dettol] just to make sure it remains fit for purpose. This nudge usually comes from those [[Meatware|obliged to ''follow'' the process]] ''complaining'' about it.  

Now the [[user]] doesn’t know who sent the email, who owns the system, or whom to whine at. She may try to work it out, by searching [[Quantum indeterminacy|fruitlessly]] on the [[intranet]]<ref>It is a truth universally acknowledged that no intranet contains any information that is both up-to-date and useful.</ref> but her wave of ire will eventually crest and she will go back to her other [[Tedium|tediae]], the matter unresolved. The responsible middle manager — if there is one, and we cannot now even be certain of that: for all we know, the system may have become self-aware, generating its own Kafkaesque processes — remains blissfully ignorant of the [[waste]] and exasperation. Indeed, unshackled from the responsibility of keeping the process serviceably un-stupid, she is free to create ''more'' wasteful processes, watched over by ''more'' unmonitored accounts, and for each one of them she can report a full slate of green indicators on her [[RAG status|RAG]] dashboard at the monthly [[opco]] [[stakeholder]] check-in. Compliance is ''inferred'' and, when as they surely will, something catastrophically breaks, [[internal audit]] must look ''ex machina'' for the fault in our stars and will find it, instead, in the mortal [[Human error|human hearts]] of the subject matter expert. Our care-free middle manager may even get a promotion.