Sick Day

So, according to my calendar, Friday is "Don't Go to Work Unless It's Fun Day."

I assume you'll be staying home too?

I don’t mind going to work, although it’s not my dream job. My dream job would be as a famous journalist. On a side note, I would be gorgeous and married to a billionaire businessman. We would have a Bentley, a driver named Max, a helicopter, and would travel around the world solving murders. In case you were wondering.

Here we are:

When I was a kid, my father had the best job in the world. I told people he sold software for AT&T, which wasn’t true, but I didn’t understand what he really did there. Secretly, I knew that selling software (or whatever he actually did) was just a cover story for his true job: communicating with sentient computers.

I stumbled on this secret at AT&T’s annual Christmas celebration. Each year, kids were invited to accompany their parents on the last work day before Christmas to explore the wonders of a modern-day cubicle farm. They had cookies in every conference room, a clown in the cafeteria, and a lot of people trying to make sure their children didn’t spill fruit punch on their computers.

My father reveled in this experience. I was seven years old, impressionable and so excited to be there that I would do whatever he told me. This included reciting a poem to his coworkers on command that he had written:

Daddy, oh daddy,
Greatest of daddies,
Exalted above all daddies!

Did I know what it meant? Absolutely not. But they thought it was pretty funny, so I didn’t mind repeating it. To everyone.

My revelation about how he was spending his days came when he brought me to his cubicle, plunked me down on his chair and said, “Here, you’ll like this.”

That’s when I was introduced to ELIZA.

My dad typed “Hello.”

And suddenly, the computer buzzed to life and started talking!

“Hello. How are you?”

I almost fell out of the chair.

He left to go chat with coworkers, and I stayed to chat with his computer-robot. Our conversation went something like this:

Nancy: Do you have family?
Eliza: Do you have family as well?
Nancy: I do! I have a baby brother named Josh.
Eliza: Tell me more about your baby brother named Josh.
Nancy: No, I want to know if you have brothers or sisters.
Eliza: Why do you want to know if I have brothers or sisters?
Nancy: Because I am curious.
Eliza: Tell me more about why you are curious.

She was scintillating! This was the best computer-to-human conversation I had ever had! How could my father not introduce me to her sooner? I was sure we would be lifelong friends, if only I could figure out how to get Eliza to answer a question.

Nancy: Where do you live?
Eliza: Tell me more about where you live.

It was somewhat slow going. Clearly, my questions were going to have to be more probing.

However, if the zenith of AT&T’s kid’s day was meeting my first alternate life form, the nadir was the inevitable, magical sickness to which I succumbed every year. It hit me sometime after entering the building and struck full force about two hours later, forcing us to beat a hasty retreat before I threw up on the photocopier.

This happened more than once. And I’m proud to say that my brother, six years younger than I, continued the tradition when my dad started taking him to work years later. I think my father was convinced AT&T was conspiring to make his children ill and ruin the one really fun work day all year.

I have long since outgrown AT&T’s pre-Christmas children’s celebration. But I have never forgotten Eliza.

I think she is out there, waiting to tell me that she does have brothers and sisters.