Another Monday… Cliff finds me at my desk, as he always does. He’s back from his last conference with a new tote bag, an ugly lanyard to wear…
and THE new word: “Agents, Norm.”
“A year from now, I won’t be managing people anymore! I’ll manage only agents! An army of agents! You know what? They don’t take PTO, they don’t push back: they just do what they’re told. Best part? You don’t even have to say thank you. It’s just execution.”
“What do they execute?”
“Workflows!”
“Oh and what workflows?”
“Well the speaker did not cover that part, it’s on next session’s agenda… But it’s big!”
Whatever…
27 minutes later, Teams notification. Cliff: “Can you come to the kitchen? Kind of urgent.”
While Cliff was traveling last week, they installed a new very fancy coffee machine; very high-tech with a touchscreen, fourteen programs, two bean hoppers and a companion app nobody has downloaded… not even me.
He’s there staring at the machine.
“It’s asking me some weird questions!”
The grind profile…
I tapped for him: hopper 2, medium-fine and Americano, and VOILA.
Cliff watched the whole thing like I was a sales rep doing a demo...
Grabbing his cup, he nods and goes: “See? That’s exactly what I meant: delegation.”
And he left, leaving me staring at the machine...
Six years of nearly-monthly password resets, fixing his supposedly broken printer, file-sync issues, Outlook signature updates... And today: his coffee.
A year from now? He’s had his agent since 2020! Doesn’t take PTO; doesn’t push back; just executes. And he never even says thank you.
And nobody ever sent me to a conference…
I guess I just got promoted to agent.
Norm works in IT. He has opinions. They are allegedly his own.