I’d wandered into a sushi joint. The place had sushi (which is Japanese or possibly Californian) but was named “Shanghai something or other”. What the fuck? Isn’t Shanghai in China? Do they not have a map? The inability to differentiate between two ancient and long time competitors and enemies is how Americans got an international reputation for being morons. It was like walking into “Hockey palace” and instead of Canadians selling poutine finding an Italian guy making spaghetti.
The place was mostly empty. I sat at the bar and pondered the menu. I love sushi but vapor lock when choosing among odd combinations of whatever Japan traditionally scoops out of the ocean. It’s delicious but sounds gross. I still can’t quite grok why I love an ingredient called “eel sauce”. I do not want to know where eel sauce comes from! If you know, don’t tell me. Eels are gross! If they make sauce out of them I just can’t even imagine…
Yet I love sushi; even if I’d never wrap anything in seaweed of my own volition.
I ordered and the bartender keyed my order into a terminal. I downed the first beer like it was trying to escape. The second beer went pretty fast. It might have been hotter than I’d thought. I might have worked harder than I’d registered. He handed me the third beer but I set it at arms length. I had to pace myself!
The bartender laughed, “Hot out today?”
I smiled “Yep, please pour me an ice water before I get sloppy drunk.”
He was a good guy. It turns out he ran the place. He was obviously overworked. He started talking about his business. He’d almost gone broke but had been doing OK since the covid thing ended. Unfortunately, getting food shipped to East Bumfuck Nowhere was a constant challenge.
I was enjoying the conversation. I’m the kind of nerd that likes hearing details about supply chains that deliver octopus to middle America.
He’d shifted gears to personnel issues. Apparently, the one thing harder than sourcing exotic seafood was finding workers to be waitstaff. (He and I are not the only ones to witness this systemic development.)
I glanced at the sushi cook in the back. He looked like he might be a samurai. How does one hire a sushi cook from the land of the rising sun? Don’t tell me he advertised on Craigslist! What pay must you offer to lure someone from Tokyo to flyover country? The dude making sushi came from God knows where but there wasn’t a local college student to wait tables?
A dude came in and sat down. He was doing some sort of food delivery service. They’re all the same to me; Uber food, or just eats, or doordash, or whatever. The bartender / owner gave him a friendly nod. Neither one discussed food orders. I gathered the food order had been electronically transferred directly from the hungry consumer to the hard working sushi chef in the back. A system that seems pretty efficient to me.
This was another variable in the equation. Nobody wanted a job inside the restaurant but someone was willing to be a “sub-contractor” delivering from it. Is the role of waitress slowly evolving into cell phone software and a delivery guy? I’ve no opinion. I’m merely interested in the larger pattern.
This meant that the local pool of college students and residents too lazy to work as waitstaff were simultaneously rich enough to pay delivery fees. How the heck does any part of our economy actually work these days?
Then shit got weird. A robot went trundling by!
I had to ask. “You have a robot?”
“Yes!” The owner / bartender enthused. “I was afraid it would be a novelty but it’s really working out.”
Aside from the bar there were tables. Every table had tablets on which to place an order. The information went to the chef and the food was delivered by robot. The robot was a hit with customers. Soon I was listening to a discussion on the pros and cons of automated food delivery. Clearly the owner / bartender was smarter than the average bear!
As with all things automated, the robot handles grunt work like a champ. The downside was that it required the owner / bartender to take on additional “mindwork” duties. He was the robot maintenance guy. He said it wasn’t much; three hours a week or so. I mentally compared three hours charging batteries and cleaning wheels versus the hassle of hiring waitstaff that might flake out, screw up, or not exist at any price. Sounded like a good balance but it requires a secret ingredient. It depends on an owner / bartender clever enough to manage robot software AND do all of the other jobs.
Meanwhile we have delivery sub-contractors and robots in the same restaurant where there are no waitresses. All this depends on an owner who can both program robots and tend bar.
The interaction between jobs not done and automation is fascinating. I sense a mountain within the fog; a world that has already changed in ways we don’t quite fathom. Perhaps it’s neither good nor bad; it simply is. Waitresses were a job for millennia but nobody wants to do it in 2022. Pizza delivery is 50 years old or less. Covid made pizza delivery level up to “anything delivery”. Many consumers are more or less shut-ins. Apparently shut-ins still have money. How do the pieces of the puzzle fit?
If there was a legit self driving car, wouldn’t the car and table delivery robot merge? It could go either way. The Doordash guy could wind up broke. Or he could get rich. Right now he can drive one shitty car at a time. What if he could dispatch six self driving vehicles at once? What happened to the pre-covid experimental Amazon drones?
The hard working Samurai in the kitchen dispatched food on a self piloting electronic gadget for a rural American who wonders if his truck is becoming irreplaceable. Gas is $5. Container ships still float in the Pacific. I’d ordered fresh seafood delivered from God knows where. The beer was cold and the power grid is still up. What does it all mean?
The robot approached gently and beeped. Oh for fuck’s sake. Really?
“Did that robot just make sounds like R2D2?” I grumped.
“Yeah,” the owner / bartender chuckled “it needs to make a sound so people notice it. The sound people like is R2D2.”
I pushed my chair back to blocked its way. It burbled R2D2 robot gibberish at me and carefully piloted around the chair.
“A real robot mimics the sounds of a fictional robot from a movie in 1977?”
“Yep!”
“Doesn’t that seem weird to you?”
“No, why?”
“It’s a real robot. It can make any sound. Human voices, opera, heavy metal, it could have a Japanese accent, or meow like a kitten. Why make a real thing mimic a fake version of itself that never actually existed?”
“It’s what people want I guess.”
“Everyone here except us,” I waved around, “wasn’t alive in 1977. Shouldn’t it sound like Ultron, or Jarvis, or Alexa?”
“Speak for yourself, I wasn’t born in 1977.”
Great! Now I felt old AND disconcerted.
“Well if you ever program it to talk like HAL9000 give me a call. I’ll give it a big tip.” I chuckled and left it at that. I complimented the bartender / owner on the best sushi I’ve ever had and prepared to leave. Meanwhile, the robot wandered away and came back with paper bags for the Doordash guy. He patted the robot like a dog.
As I walked out the empty robot passed by. I stepped into it’s path. It stopped and beeped at me. “All your base are belong to us.” I snarked. Patiently, it routed around me and went back to work..