thinkblog

THINKBLOG July to Dec 2116

Contact Thinkbot @: thinkbot@thinkbot.co.uk

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22^nd Dec 2116

A state of corporate panic was declared today as a key development engineer left Globalbot to join a customer.

'We'll never be able to pull the wool over their eyes again!' spat out a wide-eyed GAT.

'Yes, he'll understand all too well our inward-facing concept of 'best effort'' lamented Wendy Bafers.

'If only he'd gone to a supplier. We could have made his eyes water.'

'Yes, YES! We could have locked him in the room where you can't hear people scream.'

GAT and Wendy hugged platonically and wept openly (i.e. in the open plan).

But at least they didn't get out the sackcloth and ashes this time.

19^th Dec 2116

From: Adminbot
Sent: 19 December 2116 11:01
To: All@Globalbot
Subject: Employee DNA Check/Emergency Data Collection

Dear Soft Organic Colleagues,

As part of Globalbot corporate emergency recovery planning, we are in the process of issuing ‘Employee Personal DNA Details’ self-swabbing kits. This is to ensure we have correct genetic information on our database for emergency cloning purposes. In the unlikely event that you have an unexpected encounter with a bus, Globalbot reserves the right to activate a new copy of yourself for business continuity purposes. This puts human and robotic employees on an equal footing since robotic employees are backed up each night. If there are any questions please do hesitate to contact me or consult the FAQ.

Regards,

Adminbot

FAQ

Q: What happens in the event a clone is activated but in fact I've survived and recover sufficiently to return to work?

A: The clone, who is after all up to speed with the latest developments, is deemed to be the rightful owner of your job function. Please do not contact Globalbot again.

Q: What about my pension?

A: The clone gets it.

Q: What if I nobble the clone and return to work?

A: Don't worry - we'll spot you! We're aghast that you'd even consider such a course of action or think you could get away with it.

16^th Dec 2116

Doom stared out across the angry sea and cursed GAT for sending him on this 'jolly' to investigate first hand a persistent pumpbot failure on a mid-Atlantic oil rig.

'It'll be fun!' GAT had said, smiling cheerily, 'Just like going to Tenerife!'

Well hardly reflected Doom as an enormous wave crashed against the rig legs sending bone-shuddering vibrations though the superstructure. The comms had been down for two days and it was all beginning to get a bit tiresome not to mention life-threatening. He peered out to sea searching for the light he thought he'd seen flickering on the wave crests from time to time over the past 6 hours.

There! Much closer. Some sort of robotic relief craft. Phoosh! A rocket fired a grappling line onto the deck and made itself secure. A small robot appeared on the bobbing craft and started inching its way up the line. Several times it was overwhelmed by a large wave and Doom held his breath until the white-streaked slate grey swirling surface receded to reveal the small bot tenaciously clinging to the line. Eventually it hauled itself onto the deck and staggered drunkenly towards Doom, its gyros shot by the experience.

'Important Message for Doom' it intoned.

'Yes?'

'Your timesheet is overdue.'

13^th Dec 2116

Out! In!

Britain has lapsed once again into an 'Are we in Europe on Not?' crisis.

As a result, the EU CE Mark has been replaced by a more fitting 'Brit Mark' on products manufactured in the UK.

9^th Dec 2116

Globalbot Announces Joint Venture With Itself
Robo-Reuters: Wednesday 9^th December 2116

Filton, Europa -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Golbalot.Corp. (LASHDAQ-100), a supplier of advanced robotic equipment and related automated technologies for the global robotics industry, today announced that it has formed a joint venture (JV) with itself.

Globalbot Robotic Product Technology (GRPT) will take a 50% stake along with Globalbot Galactic Robot Technologies (GGRT) to form a third entity Globalbot Pan-Galactic Robot Product Technologies (GPGRPT).

'This is a unique opportunity,' commented Graham Cracker CEO of Globalbot, 'Usually there are some unknown risks involved with joint ventures, but the risks in this merger are limited to whether we'll all get along with ourselves okay.'

Industry analysts were not so convinced, one commenting, 'It wouldn't surprise me if the Globalbot Divisions affected knew less about each other than if they were merging with a external entity.' Another expressed the view that prospective JV partners view each other through rose-tinted spectacles. 'Truly spooky,' tweeted the analyst, 'looking at yourself and liking what you see is plain weird.'

6^th Dec 2116

Great news at Globalbot today - an Xmas crockery amnesty.

But hoarding teaspoons remains a disciplinary offence.

1^st Dec 2116

30^th Nov 2116

Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) scenario #510 - Invasion of Site by Zombies

Probability: 0.0001

Impact: 1,000,000

Score: 100

Priority: HIGH

Next week: Attack of the Mutant Camelbots

25^th Nov 2116

34 è 13 = 11

Woopee! I landed my first patent!

(19) EURO_GB Global 710104387482EURO_GB

Thinkbot et al Pub date: 25 November 2116

Method for Dealing With Incoming Mail

Correspondence: BlenkinsopBlenkinsopandBlenkinsop@BlenkinsopBlenkinsopandBlenkinsop.eu

Abstract

A method for disposing of incoming mail without ever seeing it. A conventional shredder (34) is adapted to fit inside an office pigeon hole (13) such that mail is instantly shredded on entry and bagged (11) for eco-friendly disposal.

Cited: 17 prior art

Claims: 92¾

Filing date: [shredded].

24^th Nov 2116

JoinedUp^®

From: messages-noreply@bounce.JoinedUp.com [mailto:messages-noreply@bounce.JoinedUp.com]

On Behalf Of JoinedUp Updates
Sent: 21 November 2011 08:08
To: GAT
Subject: JoinedUp Network Updates, 24/11/2116

New Connections = NONE

JoinedUp is pleased to announce that:

Everyone is now JOINED UP with Everyone

The project is complete!

'Fantastic,' said GAT beaming from ear to ear, ' Now I can actively ignore everyone!'

Sometimes he really does deserve a big wedgie.

20^th Nov 2116

Children in Need day.

There we lots of events at Globabot, including:

1. Facilities man walking backwards down the corridor with a large notice board.

2. Phone call from irate Taiwanese customer whose Globalbot robots have been assembling something upside down for months without anyone noticing.

3. Mad panic throughout Material Control over a few VCR fittings.

4. 'Premium meal' offered in canteen at twice the price of ordinary meal for no apparent reason.

5. Continued endemic cross-group pilfering of milk from the communal (and forgetful) Fridgebot.

[Ed. Thinkbot, all this just sounds like any other day at Globalbot you muppet!]

Most unusually I was sure I heard piano accordion music in the distance several times throughout the day, for some reason accompanied by screaming, but I just donned my headphones and turned up the volume on my Botify music feed.

16^th Nov 2116

11^th Nov 2116

Remembrance day. 200 years ago millions of people were embroiled in a conflict dubbed by Norman Davies the great European historian as the 'greatest diplomatic failure in history.' On the 11^th November 1916 the following seemingly anonymous events occurred, but for many individuals it was the day they lost their lives.

Western Front

British bombard Germans on the Ancre; French recapture most of Saillisel, and repulse German attack at Deniecourt.

Eastern Front

Russo-Romanians occupy Topalu (right bank Danube) and advance south.

Southern Front

Serbs seize Polog village.

Asiatic and Egyptian Theatres

British air raid on Beersheba and Maghdaba (100 miles east of Ismailia).

Remembrance events occur all over the world, including in primary schools where commemorations include the observation of two minutes fidgeting.

'What? Awwwh! How long? Two minutes! We've got to be quiet for TWO MINUTES!? Why?'

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Quite frankly, given the option, I think they'd rather have grown old as these kids have every chance of doing thanks to their sacrifice.

5^th Nov 2116

PPE UPDATE

FOR EMERGENCY USE IN EVENT OF CATASTROPHIC COOLING WATER LEAK

4^th Nov 2116

Challenging times for Engineering at Globalbot as some Euro-Muppet has decided to revise a key standard, with the main change being moving it from being eminently sensible to thoroughly incomprehensible.

This has led to some hopeless discussions.

'If it's a low catgeory B MTTF with possibility P1 I don't think we need to change anything.'

'That's crap, category B is lower than category 1 if the severity is S2 and is valid for 100 years!'

'No it isn't! The summation of C1 for MTTF is DC medium, the robot will kill someone every 6 minutes'

'Don't you raise you voice with me!'

Twack! Blam! Pow! etc.

Furthermore, this exercise has triggered a review of risk assessments which has thrown up some anomalies including the 2 below.

Author: Mack

Risk: Robot stabbing

Preventative measure: Don't let robot have a knife

Author: Safetybot

Risk: Human designers little more than monkeys dressed as engineers

Preventative measure: Replace humans with robots

O P

31^st Oct 2116

Now Doom has published a book! I'm afraid the plot revolves around two interchanged digits in a part number and somebody losing a finger in a nasty industrial incident.

Who knows, it may become a cult classic, particularly with ex-chain saw incompetents?

29^th Oct 2116

GAT's latest tale of woe. While in Torquay for the weekend with Helen, he thought they'd have a nice quiet trip on the Dart Valley Railway.

What GAT imagined.

GAT walked straight past the Thomas bouncy castle without it registering,

And then did the same to the Fat Controller,

Only when he'd bought the tickets and got onto the platform amongst the hoards of toddlers did the full horror dawn on him . . .

26^th Oct 2116

In an unexpected development today Planet Earth was declared a magnetic hazard and all pacemaker wearers were notified for evacuation into low earth orbit pending discovery of a non-magnetic exo-planet and faster than light space travel.

24^th Oct 2116

Choices, choices!

Due to the nature of the market the value of your shares can go down as well as up and you could get back less than you invest.

Or,

Select from our finest range - satisfaction guaranteed!

18^th Oct 2116

Great excitement at Globalbot as we've all been offered more share options AND the canteen is running a 'sausage-off' to determine the best brand after someone moaned about the incumbent (Bert's Bangers).

We're all breathless, with gaggles of people engaged in furious discussions all over the site - but are they talking shares or sausages?

TO BE CONTINUED

14^th Oct 2116

From: Nostradamubot
Sent: 14 October 2116 14:31
To: All@Globalbot
Subject: Stationary for 2117

No need for 2117 diaries etc. as world ends 16^th Dec 2116

Surely a spoof? Nonetheless, it sparked off some rejoinders:

'That's a relief - I forgot to budget for them.'

'We'll have to pull in the end Q4 shipments!'

'Can we leave early for Christmas?'

'Great news for turkeys!'

[And other festive bah humbug]

'Damn! I knew I shouldn't have spent that 2 Globo on the share options'

11^th Oct 2116

Become a ScrumMaster for just G999.95 + VAT!

Scrum is now a predominant agile methodology in product development. Rhinoceratops is glad to announce the upcoming two days Certified ScrumMaster training. This training will gives you hands-on understanding of how to implement scrum in complex projects.

I had no idea what ScrumMaster was, so I asked Doom, who helpfully told me:

As I understand it ‘scrum’ is a controversial methodology for running projects (and in particular software projects). I have no idea of how widely adopted the approach is. I guess the person giving it the name scrum had a different view of rugby to mine. For me the word scrum conjures up a picture of opposing gangs of beer swilling oiks wrestling in mud.

9^th Oct 2116

kxT™ Yrx™

Customer question: 'How many common parts are there on Globalbot's kxT and Yrx series robots? 50%? 60%?'

Engineering answer: 'x'

Marketing complaint: 'What do you mean, x?'

Engineering: 'They both have x in their product name. That's it. Unless you want to go for the 100% answer as both lines are composed entirely of electrons, positrons and neutrons, but I think even the dimmest customer will probably see through that one?'

6^th Oct 2116

Globalbot Ships 1,000,000,000,000^th Nanobot
Robo-Reuters: Tuesday 6^th October 2116

'I thought it was our thousand billionth,' complained Mark Eting, VP of Marketing at Globalbot, 'still I guess a trillion is still a big number with a lot of zeros.' Pedantic industry experts believe it's only a millionth of a traditional trillion and should the announcement should read 'thousand billionth.' GAT, Director of the Domestic & Industrial Robot Technology (DIRT) Group added, 'This is all complete b*((o%^ks! We ship the blasted things by weight - we don't sit around counting the b(**%y things! Who knows how many we've made?' When questioned about this outburst, Graham Cracker, CEO, commented, 'We needed a press release to hit our KPI publicity target.'

3^rd Oct 2116

Stupidly, I offered to help Opal with her philosophy essay.

The primary theme of Carbuncle's model of neostructural modernism is the common ground between society and culture. Sommerbot's analysis of the Derrotist situation states that the use of post-modernistic socialism is to analyse class. However, Derrotist situation holds that the goal of the observer is deconstructionalism. Thus, the subject is interpolated into a dynamic neostructure that includes art as a paradox. Discuss the semantic implications of this dialectic theory (5000 words).

Makes astrophysics look simple.

(Ed. neither Opal nor Thinkbot figured out the above was based on a Post-Modern Text Generator http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ It's complete bunkum.)

30^th Sept 2116

Excellent Moderate

Could be better . . Condemned

Mad panic! Combined unannounced OHSAS18001/ ISO9000000 desk audit. People's beloved working spaces mercilessly categorised:

Excellent 2%

Moderate 34%

Garden shed-like 17%

Non-compliant 10%

Structural integrity compromised 18%

Condemned 12%

Missing 7% (presumed crushed)

I got done for 'garden shed like'! I think it was because I had dismantled hedge trimmer sub-assembly from a Hortibot all spread out at the time of the inspection. They also found a part that Tech Support had been desperate for a few days ago - some nonsense about a 'robot down escalation'. My collection of midget plasticine daleks got confiscated, as did a bit of blutak I'd been using as a desk football for years. To cap it all off some desperate individual had off-loaded their collection of 'Legends of Lust' magazines into my bottom drawer, presumably as I'm a robot and therefore wouldn't face disciplinary action being a non-sexual or electro-eunuch or whatever the politically correct description is.

26^th Sept 2116

GAT's published a book! We're all gobsmacked - is he trying to tell us something?

Hardback - 470 pages - 62 illustrations

144 exercises

Publish date September 2116

247mm x 174mm, 0.94kg

ISBN: 5567029658210

In Stock - G45 + FREE DELIVERY - ORDER NOW!

People who ordered this book also liked:

And don't miss the related series titles from Random Robot:

- 'How to be a Professional Chef Without Knowing Anything About Food' by Larry Le Lambot

- 'DIY Dentistry: The Pain and the Gain' by Tuthfri Gobacher-Monibags

21^st Sept 2116

Globalbot Implements Full Jargon Protocol
Robo-Reuters: Monday 21^st September 2116

'The impact of anti-upwards market conditions on supply added value means a move to a quick win best of breed killer product,' declared Mark Eting, Globalbot Marketing VP. 'We're continuously focussing on a broad front,' added Graham Cracker, CEO, 'By being above board we want to go off-line and solutionise the future outlook in a positive framework.' Business analysts consider this a vanilla move by Globalbot in an attempt to painlessly leverage its synergies to access low hanging fruit by in-out-in-sourcing. 'Such user-centric granularity is a bold move to undergird geographically dispersed set of metric milestones,' concluded Eting,

Wall Enclosed Coastal Boat Protection Statement: All emerging data in this press release is presented without resort to prejudicial indemnification. The juxtaposition of negative market buoyancy with a baked in boiling ocean connect the dots sales situation is entirely incidental . .

(Hang on, shouldn't that read 'coincidental'? Don't release this without further review by departmental champions!)

20^th Sept 2116

From: Adminbot
Sent: 19 September 2116 12:02
To: All@Globalbot
Subject: Package in reception

A package has arrived with Royal Mail this morning from Enlargements-R-Us with no contact name.

If it is yours could you please collect it from reception.

ADMINBOT

Automatic Administrator

Doing everything better than a human could!
Globalbot Limited

Office: +44 (0)56 003 4000

18^th Sept 2116

Globalbot safety drive continues with the introduction of the full body safety shoe (pictured above) and the multi-person safety shoe (below) suitable for mass entry to odds-on toe-crushing environments.

15^th Sept 2116

Mass issuance of hi-vis jackets at Globalbot today in preparation for 'incidents' and 'situations'.

Each came with a set of helpful instructions.

User instructions:

In event of an incident, wear jacket.

1. Pick up jacket

2. Place arms though holes

3. Fasten at front

Suitable for use at day or night 24/7

If garment gets dirty then clean it

Do not iron

('Better keep it away from my mother then!' muttered GAT)

For correct size refer to dimensioned ergonomic drawing - do not wear garment if too big or too small

Not suitable for incidents or situation in combat zones

! Warning: When wearing this jacket you may suffer delusions of authority or being in command. In the likely event these feelings occur remove jacket immediately, drink 2 bottles of Theakston Old Peculiar, and lie down.

Disappointingly, nothing about use under water or in outer space, nor warnings about ridicule, butt of all jokes or injury risks to unadorned work colleagues due to uncontrolled laughter.

13^th Sept 2116

'We need to form a tiger team to nail this problem!' bellowed Graham Cracker.

Of course, being engineers we immediately started wondering what sort of Tiger he had in mind.

How about:

Or:

Or even:

And, incidentally, while on the subject of endangered species, I was lucky enough to visit the Panda Base in Chengdu recently where it struck me that while there are not many Pandas left, there is a pandemic of stuffed effigies.

Global Population ~ 2,000 Global Population ~ 54,000,000

(Optimistic estimate) (Conservative estimate)

10^th Sept 2116

Today, I offer you a 'Fly on the Wall' opportunity to see the Globalbot Materials planning team in action, dynamically dealing with continuous new inputs from Sales and Marketing via the Rapid Reaction Slot Plan™.

Narrator (hushed 'David Attenborough' voice for dramatic effect): 'The materials planners Kristal Balle and Hej Betts know that their decisions will be critical to the business; one false move and the manufacturing team will be building the wrong thing with the wrong parts for the wrong customer at the wrong time,'

Kristal Balle: Did you hear if slot 27 has been exchanged with slot 22?

Hej Betts: Marketing said they thought that the customer indicated that we'd said if they placed a PO immediately then we'd say that we think that we know that they'd take the robot as currently spec'd.

Kristal Balle: Was that a yes or a no?

Hej Betts: Both.

Kristal Balle: Both?

Hej Betts: Yes, unless slot 36 goes away so we'd take the robot core from there and merge with slot 11 and 18's Drillbot modules to satisfy slot 25 unless the PO for slot 8 comes it in which case we'll take the core from slot 7.

Kristal Balle: Can we stop now? This is doing my head in.

7^th Sept 2116

'The Tunnel' - An Engineering Parable

The good news - there's light at the end of the tunnel.

The bad news - the train has broken down.

Manufacturing Industry Interpretation

For each and every outbreak of hope there is an equal and opposite setback.

(Thinkbot! This will not do. If you're going to be all miserable and philosophical then stop blogging; the idea of this blog is to cheer people up! Are you feeling alright? Ed.)

5^th Sept 2116

After Ops presented a spaghetti workflow plot showing how they'd cut a cumulative annual 14km of walking out of one specific assembly process, Engineering worked out they'd similarly save a staggering 1,802km per year if there was a coffee machine placed in the centre of the office.

4^th Sept 2116

TNET 010377 - Escalation!!

Subject: Cannot connect to Botsphere

Customer: Botsphereduffsales-R-Us.com

This is an automated notification from TroubleNet to inform you that TNET 010377 has been escalated from status HAPPY to ECSTATIC. Ecstatic customer support protocol should now be enacted: do not reply to customer enquiries; ignore requests for on site service report; increase all spares prices by 10% with immediate effect.

31^st Aug 2116

To: Thinkbot

From: TroubleNet

Subject: Chinese Wirebot Faults

Dear Thinkbot,

All wirebots go up of pole to loose screws and cable sag to head of underperson. Warning sign put on pole below upper underneath wires where falling up to down on top of head can become reality:

Hope now all clear not if then get back to ask if clearing can be increased to level of knowing disclosure of not wrongness.

1^st Aug 2116

wHAT IF i GOT CAPSLOCK STUK ONNNNN? aNNND i DID NNNOT NNNNNOTICE?

eVENNNNN WORS, WHAT HAPNNNNNES IF SPELCHEKR OR ORTOCORECT FAILS?

aNNNND IF THE NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN KEY KEPS GETINNNNNNNG STCUK ONNNNNNNNNNNNNN MY FILTHY KYBORD?

eVENNNNNN it sUPPORT ARE APALED AT helth hazrd!

cRETURES LIV IN MI KBORD ANNNNND THE LETERS R AL WORNNNNN OFFF.

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnIGEL IS FED UP

30^th July 2116

28^th July 2116

Old New!

Antiquated State of the Art

New Printbots arrived in the office today, and that means . . . training, complete with a couple of Muppets heckling from the back.

'Call that a printer, I could do better with a potato and a penknife!' - raucous laughter, and so forth.

Anyway it boiled down to learning a new procedure. The old procedure was:

1. Print document from your PC.

2. Collect document from printer.

New procedure is:

1. Print document from your PC.

2. Go to printer.

3. Go back to office to get reading glasses.

4. Hunt around for special little pen thingy for operating the touchscreen.

5. Press 'login'

6. Press 'login' again.

7. Stop next person who passes and ask if they know how to login.

8. Continue until logged in or, failing that, go to the canteen.

9. Place bread in Toastbot

(Concentrate Thinkbot, you're supposed to be doing the Printbot blog, Ed.)

9. Once logged in press the button 'PKBLODGE'

(No one knows why)

10. The screen should now display your queued print jobs.

11. If not then stop the next person who passes . .

12. Evacuate building due to fire alarm caused by burnt toast.

(That's enough! Ed.)

23^rd July 2116

Project development phases #1 - Concept and Feasibility (C&F) - a summary.

Engineering's Understanding of 'C&F'

Well, if we . . . could, um, er . . it's tricky . . . arrr, um.

Marketing's Understanding of 'C&F'

We've engaged with 37 customers and quoted 14-16 weeks delivery.

Example Conversation

Marketing: How's the C&F looking on project [insert project name]?

Engineering: It's not feasible

[Awkward silence]

Marketing: Sorry, didn't quite get that.

Engineering: It's not feasible

[Awkward silence II]

Marketing: But we've told the board that it's going to be our new best of breed killer product.

Engineering: The only thing it'd kill would be us.

Marketing (angry): Why did you spend all that time on it if you knew it wasn't going to work?

Engineering (mystified): Er, we only realised it wouldn't work after the C&F study.

Marketing: Couldn't you have done that first?

Engineering: We did.

Etc. continues until next killer product concept emerges and triggers fresh C&F, quotations, & outbreak of eggless mass chicken counting.

21^st July 2116

Oribal Adminbot Upgrade!

Bing! New mail:

To: Thinkbot

From: Adminbot

Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Germany

This is a message from ECO Adminbot to notify you that ECO 92748 has been implemented in Oribal Germany.

Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing!

INBOX

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal France

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Brazil

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Malyasia

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Falklands

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Russia

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Bognovia

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Namibia

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Bolivia

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Japan

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Failed Release in Oribal North Korea !

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Andorra

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Walthamstow

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Blessed in Oribal Vatican

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Spain

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Seychelles

From: Adminbot Subject: ECO 92748 Released in Oribal Easter Island

From: GAT Subject: Turn your b^&*dy audio alerts off !

Hmmmm . . . methinks this might be a strong candidate for an autotrash rule!

16^th July 2116

Oo-er, trouble on TroubleNET

TNET 009211

Problem: Since building works that altered internal layout of building, robot constantly walks into wall where doorway used to be. Cannot find a way to update robot mapping. Customer getting jumpy as frequent impact of robot on wall has resulted in the new plasterboard breaking through. If robot persists it may well succeed in creating hole in wall eventually. Customer demanding we fix robot and repair wall AT OUR COST.

When we checked the robot as-shipped mapping, guess what, someone had accidently deleted it. Globalbot's next move looks like being that we'll offer to pay to reinstate the doorway . . .

12^th July 2116

As a thinking robot I admire human eccentricity. For example the obsession of a tiny (like tiny) minority who build a Lego cathedral inside their home.

When I met one of these characters at Globalbot, I was so impressed that I developed a Legobot personality that caused those networked little Lego people to turn up at 11am on Sunday and hold a service. In keeping with the real C of E, I made it so that only a handful turned up.

I thought I was a ground breaker, but after a quick run out on Googlebot I discovered right wing evangelical American MegaLego Churches:

A fundamental belief of these Lego people is that they were created ex-nihilo & not assembled in a factory from injection-moulded plastic parts.

9^th July 2116

Another ~~victim~~ consultant on site trying to understand Globalbot document management systems (DMS) and recommend 'One DMS to write them all, One DMS to file them, One DMS to bury them deep and in the darkness bind them', or something along those lines.

'Ok, first let's brainstorm what systems are used for document storage now,' he asked innocently of a room full of stressed Globalbot employees representing a cross section of the whole business:

'Oribal'

'Cripel'

'Multiple partially accessible network drives'

'Sorepoint'

'The other Sorepoint'

'The new Sorepoint hardly anyone can see'

'TroubleNet'

'Intranet'

'The other intranet'

'Filing cabinet'

(Gasps of astonishment)

'And there's read only legacy systems like Lotus Nuts'

'And Frantic'

'And Misery Face'

(Looks of bewilderment)

The consultant had visibly sagged and was muttering 'I've never seen anything like this before.'

Then he perked up and asked, 'How do you find things then?'

'Oh that's easy,' came the reply from nearly everyone, 'we triple file everything individually as attachments in email. The problem is that Pyschosoft Outrage requires multiple annual archives to cope with the volume which requires a filing methodology that would only be used by a madman, so we have to memorize how old documents are so we know which archive to look in . . . '

'And the archives are only held on local drives.'

'If your hard disk dies, you become a Globalbot unperson.'

6^th July 2116

More disaster contingency planning today with a focus on the risks posed by terrorism. Brainstorming quickly established that the biggest terrorist threat to Globalbot is Sales and Marketing (S&M). In terms of further refining this threat, the worst outcome is that whatever S&M say turns out to be true. The weapon of choice for S&M terrorists is the IPD (Improvised Powerpoint Device). This is similar to the better known IED (Improvised Explosive Device) but instead of blowing off limbs, on triggering the device by looking at it, the IPD blows the mind clean out of the victim leaving the body intact in a pure vegetative state - known in the trade as 'the audience'.