Job Search in Christmas, The future of Christmas

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Future of job search Episode 8

December 1st, 2008

Christmas 2100

Johnny and Maria went back to the US for Christmas. This was their daughter’s first look at her father’s homeland, and she was insatiably curious about everything. She was like a miniature Magellan, bright and talkative in her autopram, as they strolled through Johnny’s home turf.

The robots, not as common in Brazil as the US, were her favorite thing, and they were forever trying to prevent her from adopting them. They’d been talking to one of Johnny’s friends who had a big Christmas display in a shopping mall, and turned around to find a trailing crowd of robots of various kinds who their daughter had given instructions they didn’t understand. One of the robots was asking the others what a teddy bear was, and how it was supposed to install one.

It wasn’t a problem. The shop owners were too busy laughing. Things got interesting again when they tried to pick Christmas decorations.

In 2100, the technology of Christmas is a true art form. Thanks to good polymer technology, and the new organic designer software, you could actually grow your own Christmas tree, and decorations, with Mandelbrots. A charge is fired into the basic tree design, and the trees grow themselves, according to the programs.

By 2100 this was actually a very competitive sport. Some people were globally famous for their Christmas decorations, like Pine Smith (his real name) who literally covered a 300 foot high artificial mountain range with designer Christmas scenes. Smith created whole traditional scenes from the old European folk tales. He was also the first person to have Christmas art in a formal exhibition of modern art, and won a Pulitzer for his contribution to artistic development. (Pretty apt, since he wrote most of the code for his designs, and had to actually invent a new form of Quaternary code writing to handle some of the more complex Mandelbrots.)

In fact, the competition had created an industry. One of the reasons Johnny and Maria were in the US was to check the employment situation in the new seasonal market. Johnny’s friend was hoping to start a brand new business, and they wanted to see how the market reacted to his displays. These displays were huge, covering most of a whole floor.

Everything about Christmas was represented, from robot Santas to real flying robot reindeer. There were pine trees in their thousands, snow covered electronic villages, and decorations of just about any imaginable kind. There were Christmas stars, wise robots bearing gifts, and robot choirs. Johnny and Maria were dazzled, and they were wondering how their daughter would react.

Their daughter vanished into one of the shop displays. It’s not easy to get out of an autopram, which is computer locked, and monitors breathing and temperature, and has a built in microphone so the child can yell and be heard.

They weren’t that surprised. Since she was a little kid, she’d been a natural with anything computer related. She was, after all, the kid who’d aced Agility, the brain game of the geniuses, before she could really walk properly.

In this particular shop, there was a huge range of scenes, from the traditional to the new Living Art abstracts, organic natural scenes which grew from massive, complex Ecological computer codes, Ecocodes.

The child was quite safe. Several of the robots she’d adopted were sent to look for her. Even in a big place like the showroom, she couldn’t get really lost. Maria and Johnny sighed, laughed and went to look for themselves, with their bemused friend, who they terrorized with tales of their daughter’s abilities with computers.

They’d forgotten something.

Christmas displays, more or less unavoidably, include a lot of toys, of one kind or another. Since remote controls are a virtual part of the anatomy in 2100, there were plenty of those on display, too. These are very good, reliable, remote controls. They’re made into some pretty fantastic designs, and are actually a selling point. They’re real attention getters, in shop displays.

Which, inevitably, had attracted their daughter’s attention. The first thing they knew was that the Christmas Angels, flying decorations, were swarming all over the shop, singing. Then a huge furry teddy bear emerged, singing The Teddy Bears Picnic, in 14 languages. A Play Robot appeared, assembled as a big doll, and it was looking for its mother, according to it.

They stood, open mouthed, as the Christmas trees all began singing Christmas carols. In the middle of this scene, the doll and the teddy bear met, and began talking to each other. The doll asked for its mother, the teddy bear said it hadn’t seen its mother, but would the doll be interested in going on a picnic. The doll said it should ask its mother. The bear said yes, so she should, and it would help look for the doll’s mother.

By now, quite a crowd had gathered, and was watching the various events as they unfolded. The conversation between the teddy bear and the doll had the crowd listening intently. Now the doll and the bear started to check each display. The doll was pretty sure the big guy with the reindeer wasn’t her mother, which the teddy bear agreed seemed likely. Mothers, according to the bear, didn’t have either reindeer or beards.

Then the Christmas Elves, special toymaker robots, appeared. They asked the doll and the teddy bear what was the matter. Having been informed the doll was looking for its mother, they agreed to help look for her, and made special toys like telescopes and speaking trumpets to help the doll look.

There were by now about 40 robots engaged in looking for the doll’s mother, and about 400 people trying to keep track of events.

Johnny and Maria looked at their friend, who was by now doubled up laughing. Then they cracked up. The three of them were quite speechless. The crowd started laughing, and found it couldn’t stop.

The doll found its mother. Johnny and Maria, their friend, and the crowd, looked speechlessly as their daughter emerged from a Christmas tree, with a procession of teddy bear and Elves following her and the doll with the Christmas Angels singing above them.

‘Mother,’ explained the doll.

Between the news coverage and the rights for the photos of Johnny and Maria’s daughter, the Christmas industry created nearly a quarter of a million jobs overnight.

In 2100, they know good things when they see them.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 6:24 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Future of job search Episode 8

December 1st, 2008