The Future of Tuesday

Imagining a run-of-the-mill workday for our kids (or theirs)

Harper’s curiosity is turned up to 11.

A Level 3 customer advocate, her watch has tapped her with an offer to help a “Mr. Kaiser” solve a particularly puzzling problem with his coffee maker. The projected difficulty rating (and associated payment) is an “8”; A reasonable investment of her time on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday afternoon.

She accepts.

As an L3, Harper tends to see a lot of interesting work routed her way. Her teammates Mark and Taylor, Level 1 and 2 respectively, typically solve a good 90% of customers’ issues, meaning Harper primarily gets her triad’s corner cases. Or, as she likes to call them, “the colorful ones”.

Harper gigged with this company because every day brought new people and new puzzles. That and the fact that she could work “wherever and whenever”, which in today’s case meant the sunny deck of her grandmother’s Montana home.

Harper grabs her AR/VR headset from her bag, kissing Gram on the cheek. “I’m taking a work call Gram. Back in a bit.”

“You look like you’re blindfolded with that thing on. Don’t fall over the railing.” Gram jokes.

Harper’s headset, or as corporate called it, her “Corner Office”, made a point of ensuring that she stayed out of harm’s way. For all of its immersive splendor, it was smart enough to “go clear” if it suspected Gram’s deck was remotely unsafe, however well-decorated.

“I’ll be fine Gram. Accept Call.”

Harper’s field of view goes dark, except for a need-to-know list of basic customer and case information.

“Hello Mr. Kaiser, my name is Harper, and I’m a Level 3 Customer Advocate. I’ll be happy to assist you today. Do I have your permission to access and tailor our session to your tacit and explicit customer preferences?”

“Of course.”

Harper’s software acknowledges the explicit opt-in, and a blur of small changes manifest on both sides:

1. The audio escalates to 2 way video.

2. Harper unlocks the full history of Mr. Kaiser’s product usage and case notes.

3. Harper is shown, via her colleague Taylor’s notes, that Mr. Kaiser explicitly prefers to be called Kevin, and tacitly has a preference for both casual and fairly technical language.

Translation: Permission to keep it real, and a little geeky.

“Alrighty Kevin. Please give me a second while I scope this out.”

Harper’s company was great at this kind of granular trust and tailoring. She’d worked for two companies before this one, each coming from, in her view, ineffective extremes when it came to customer data, trust, and privacy.

Her first part-time job, during college, was with a very traditional company whose risk aversion meant they didn’t capture any customer information whatsoever. In turn, Harper felt like she was flying blind with her customers; Interactions were uniformly stiff, inauthentic, and not terribly helpful. Plus, inexplicably, the job required a ritualistic commute to a stodgy grey cubicle farm miles from anywhere fun. So old-timey. No thanks.

Her 2nd employer was far hipper, offering a more flexible gig-based arrangement. They were data-driven, even data-obsessed, so customer interactions were much more personal. The downside: Their wholesale indiscretion with that info. To wit: Harper was offered a spot bonus to up-sell diapers to newly detected parents on an utterly unrelated call about their printer. That felt creepy, and a reason to nope out.

Her current org operated in the Goldilocks-zone: Not too cold. Not too warm. Just right.

“Ok Kevin. So... my understanding is that Mark’s recommendations were a wash?”

“Yeah. Mark walked me through the basics, but...”

“Turning it off and back on again?”

They both laughed. The timeless weapon of first-resort.

“Yeah. He told me it worked about 34% of the time, but no dice. He also had me flash the firmware. Said it was a 27% fix, but not it either.”

“Well, as I'm sure you know, Mark V is an AI. He’s all about his probabilities.”

Laughter.

“Yeah. He was quick though. Asked useful follow-ups before kicking me up to Taylor. I rated him highly for what it’s worth.”

“Thanks for doing that. Your rating helps us continue to train Mark VI. So how did your conversation with Taylor go?”

“Taylor was super nice, but she mostly just asked me questions. She isn’t...”

Again, mutual laughter.

“... an AI? Yes. Taylor is also an AI. Crazy right?! She’s the newer gen: Designed to be more empathic. Relatable. The only thing our customers hate more than filling out forms is talking to a monotone machine, so we’re training Taylor to best get folks like *me* the info I need to solve your puzzle.”

“Really cool. So what’s the solution?”

“Well, between the 73% of the things Mark ruled out, and Taylor’s, ahem, “tailored” follow-up questions, I’ve been able to narrow us down to one of two likely issues: The pump or the centrifuge.

While we’ve been talking, I’ve been running our Doppelg?nger app to get a hi-fidelity look at your machine’s real time “digital twin”. A quick simulation on my end rules out the pump; That’d behave a lot differently in the sim. so I definitely think it’s the centrifuge.”

“Is it fixable?”

“Sure. There’s both a software fix and a hardware fix required. We need to push you a new, beta, software update. That’s the fast bit. In fact, you’re... updated. That part is done.

“Nice!”

“Yeah, the way these things are built, it’s pretty easy to ship new bits. Now let’s see if you need any new hardware. Can you open that cover to the right of the water tank and try to spin the... spinny looking thing? That’s the centrifuge.”

“Sure. It’s stuck. Wait. Hold on. There’s a little orange piece in here.”

“There should not be.”

“Hold on. Oh brother. It’s my son’s action figure. Specifically, his diver. In the water tank. Because of course it is. I removed it and it looks like it can spin again.”

Mutual Laughter.

“Believe it or not, you’re far from the first Kevin. This is the... 11th... reported instance of a child’s toy finding its way in there. You’ll be happy to know that our finance folks are aware and have green-lit funds to child-proof our go-forward models. Here... I’ve just sent you the digital blueprint to print out the new part for your machine, along with a simple installation video.”

“Thanks Harper. And here I was worried I’d need an all new machine.”

“Well... you’ve basically just gotten one!”

“Good point.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with today Kevin?”

“No thanks Harper. Mission Accomplished.”

“Thank you for calling, and have a great day Kevin.”

Harper removes her headset to reveal the beginnings of a textbook big sky sunset.

Gram, having sat beside Harper throughout her call, muses with faux exasperation:

“Kids.”