Buying A Watch
Landauer, in his book, The Trouble with Computers (p. 1), relates an experience he had:
I went into a department store to buy a cheap watch. The man ahead of me said to the sales clerk, "I really like this one."
Clerk: "I can’t find its stock number; I can’t enter the sale." The clerk went off to a back room where I heard her consulting one person, then another. A loudspeaker paged the manager. Eventually the clerk returned, apologizing, "It isn’t in the book, and I can’t find the manager."
Customer: "There’s one right here. Can’t I just pay for it?"
Clerk: "I’m terribly sorry, I can’t sell it without the number. Do you like this one? I have the number for it."
Customer: "I like the first one better."
Clerk: "Well, let’s wait for the manager . . . I’m so sorry."
Customer: "I don’t have much time. Can’t I just give you the money?"
Clerk: "I’m really sorry. The manager should be along any minute."
After five minutes of fidgeting and apologies, the manager appeared. She said, "Did you look for the number on the box?"
Clerk: "Yes, but I didn’t find it. And I asked the others. They didn’t know either."
Manager: "I’ll go look."
Off she went. Five minutes later the PA system spoke: "I can’t find the number either, would the customer like a different watch?"
Customer: "No."
Of course, once the number (when found) was entered, the computer would fly at high speed to tote up the sale and place an appropriate mark in the inventory record. But in this case a sale was lost. In both cases above, the airplane or the computer would likely perform at the speed designed but the total system within which these devices operate may or may not be productive, that is, produce the actual effect intended – arrival on time for class or the purchase of a watch. An important value for technological design noted in the book Responsible Technology (a Christian perspective on technology) is machine-person harmony. Here we see in an obvious way that the system, air-travel or watch-buying, did not achieve this harmony.