The Machine

Today, I met with FEMA for the 4th time in a week to review a reimbursement form for a disaster that occurred in August.

Basically, this guy's job is to fill out boxes on a 34 page form, so that they add-up from left to right and up and down. He then gives the boxes to a woman who gives them to Ellie.

Every time he's been back here he tells me, " Ellie found a problem with the numbers", " Ellie rejected this form", " Ellie wants you to redo the numbers".

And all of the stuff he's bringing back is picky bullshit stuff and I'm starting to get more than a little frustrated. So I told him, " I'm about done with this bullshit. If this doesn't work, rather than have you drive back here again and us do this shit over and over, how about I come to you, I'll meet with Ellie and we'll hash this out."

He and the woman with him looked at me like a dog that just farted.

It turns out Ellie is E.L.L.E. its a computer.

These people go into the field, gather information, take it back to a building, and a fucking computer tells them if they've done their jobs correctly, and every morning the computer gives them an assignment sheet telling them where to go and what to do like their own private god.

Once ELLE accepts their data, it pats them on the head and then takes care of the rests of the process of releasing the money etc etc etc. The only human role in the process are these minions who scamper around mindlessly filling out boxes without any though or consideration of their accuracy....only that they don't get rejected by ELLE.

They talk about the computer like its their boss and have a distinct fear and reverence for it.

That is some freaky shit.