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Description
Rob took great pride in his work. He didn’t do anything worth bragging about, he was just an simple fast food chef after all, but he never got any complaints and every customers left with a satisfied smile. So when the manager installed an employ grading system in his kitchen he didn’t think anything about it. In fact he was actually happy about it because then his work could finally be noticed by someone other than him. The system itself was very nondescript all it was was a simple black sign with a glowing red LED grade displayed on it. There wasn’t any fanfare to it all the sign’s job was after all was to impassively grade the workers performance in the room it didn’t need feel the need to shame the worker or encourage the worker based on its grade it simply though the grade was satisfactory enough. Well the sign didn’t really think that it was a sign after all, but these were the thoughts and feelings that graced Rob’s mind as he set into his first day of work with the sign. This day wasn’t any different from the previous ones Rob had experience he walked into the store impassively glanced at the ever changed line of faces and people at the front desk and walked behind the counter to his kitchen. There was already a chef on duty at the time so Rob glanced up at the sign. A satisfactory grade of a B. Not bad, but Rob knew he could do better. In fact looking at the current chef, who was nearly falling asleep on the stove, Rob knew he could do better. So Rob set into his work with gusto wanting to prove himself to his co-workers, himself, and in some sense the sign itself. Today was a slow one only 3 or 4 orders were waiting to be completed so Rob wasn’t in any form of rush. He didn’t do any tricks or gimmicks to get the orders done fast. No he took his time making sure each order was done to the exact specifics requested and tasted great, by fast food standards anyways. Every order was done in a timely manner and from what Rob glanced from his kitchen the customers seemed to enjoy their food so Rob was confident he earned a good grade. Looking up at the sign though it begged to differ. It gave him the loathsome grade of a C. Rob was appalled “A C!” Rob screamed in his head. Rob knew he didn’t do his best work there he could have got it done faster, but its not like there were other customers waiting so what was the big deal? Rob almost felt that the sign was insulting him, but it couldn’t do that since after all it was just a sign, right? Rob decided it was a fluke, maybe the sign just needed more information before it could give an accurate grade. So Rob went on with his shift not really letting the sign bother him it could him how it wanted Rob knew he was doing a good job thats all he cared about. Or atleast thats what Rob told himself. In reality though Rob was very concerned with the grade he was getting. Not to the point of it distressing more than his subconscious, but every 5 orders or so Rob would glance back up at the sign to see if he had improved. He did, but not to the level Rob desired. The sign seemed to be stuck in the C to B range for Rob. Mostly B, but every now and then Rob would slack off a tiny bit and it would dip down to the C range and he would perk right back up afraid of what would happen when if his boss saw that he was providing D grade service. It went on like this for a while Rob would come in to work glance at the chef before him’s grade, which was usually in the B to C range, and Rob would spend his work day toiling under judging eyes of the sign, but Rob would never admit in these early days that the Bs and the Cs bothered him. In fact he would joke with his friends that the sign could say what it wanted he knew what good food tasted like and the sign didn’t.. As time went on Rob began to resent the sign and it’s constant grading of him. Not once had he seen a grade given to him higher than a B and he was doing some of his best work. He had done good work before, but when you're constantly graded you start to show off. Not the sign cared about how hard he was working it just knew that according to its programming Rob was suppose to be getting a B at that time. Rob didn’t think of it like that though. Watching the cook that went on before him Rob was starting to think the sign was taunting him somehow. The other cook wasn’t a bad worker by any stretch of the word, but he didn’t have the same drive or skill that Rob felt he possed. The other cook was just there for the money and he didn’t really ever even glance up at the sign once to see if he was doing a good job. Regardless of what Rob thought about this other chef the sign seemed to like him more than it liked Rob. The other cook like Rob got C’s every now and again much like Rob did, but this cook seemed to stay in the B range almost always and unlike Rob he actually was able to get and A! This made Rob think there was some sort of consipracy going on. He didn’t know who would bother tampering with his grade, but Rob saw that as the only possible explanation for his less then perfect grade. So Rob went to the only person he knew could possibly explain what is going on. He did the one thing every worker does at some point in their life. He complained to his boss he wasn’t being given enough credit. Now Rob’s boss was a nice man who liked to keep his workers happy and didn’t like conflict. That’s the entire reason he put the sign up in the first place. So he didn’t have to judge his workers for doing a bad job. If the sign said they were slacking of he didn’t have to do it personally he could just point to the sign and say “well it’s not me who says your bad, I like you, but the sign says your not doing you job well enough.” It was a very nice set up for him nice and none confrontational just the way he liked. So when Rob came in to complain about the sign it was the exact opposite of what he wanted. Rob was very upset about the sign and was assuming it was all some clever ploy by his boss. Rob was sure he was a good worker and he deserved the A he was craving for. While Rob’s boss didn’t completely know if Rob deserved an A he knew that Rob was getting very good grades and had no reason to be complaining to him. So Rob’s boss said just that, Rob was an excellent worker better than most so he didn’t know why Rob was there. Rob was quite obviously furious with this response. How could his boss suggest that he was doing anything other than a satifactory job!? He was never late he always got everything done on time and to top it all off his food was always perfect! Rob was just about ready to storm out of his bosses office and never return to this damnable resteraunt that didn’t see how good he was at his job, but he realized if he left he would never prove himself to the sign and by extention everyone else. So he simply apologized to his boss saying he was just stressed and went on with his day. The next day though he was a completely new man. Rob was determined to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was exactely the man he knew he was. He was going for broke he either got his A today or he would leave a broken man. Rob did his normal routine of watching the other chef recieveing his grade. Rob wanted to take notes on what the other chef was doing, but as far as he could tell the other chef was not doing anything special. The sign though, to Rob’s vast rage, thought he other chef was doing a great job. Consitantly the chef recieved good grades and even a couple A’s the one the thing that Rob desired the most. This just made Rob more determined than ever and angry than ever. What was this chef doing that escaped Rob? Rob didn’t know and honestly at this point he didn’t care. This was going to be the last ditch effort of a desprate man. He had tried to be himself, but he found himself lacking so he was going to try something diffrent. He was going to try to be perfect. He clocked into his shift early and dove right into his work. He went at his work like a crazed man, which wasn’t so far from the truth. He started all the orders at them same time and decided to add a couple things to the food that weren’t exactely neccasry, but would certainly make the customers happy. He had done everything so perfect and on time that the cashier looked startled when he gave the order over to her. Rob had clearly impressed the cashier and impressed the customers, but Rob didn’t really care about their judgement. The only judgement he cared about was the sign’s. Rob marched back to the kitchen to confront the sign and see what it thought about his job. Rob knew he had done everything perfect as he walked back to the sign. He ran through a mental check list of all the things in the cook’s handbook for doing a great job and he knew he had gone above and beyond. So surely he had recieved his A grade and could finally be free of this sign and it’s judgmental glow. Rob entered the kitchen looked up at the sign he hoped for possibly the last time to see if he had gotten his goal. The sign was the same as it had always been inert annd on the ceiling, but when Rob saw what all that hard work had earned him the simple glowing grade brought feelings to him greater than the designers had intended it to. Rob’s grade was nothing more and nothing less than a simple B. Rob didn’t know what to do he had tried his best and it seemed his best turned out to be lacking. Rob’s entire world was starting to come down on him he believed he was destined to live the rest of his life chasing after perfection and never recieving it. And it was this stupid signs fault! rob couldn’t take it anymore he had to do something about it the sign was taunting him trying to get some sort of sick chuckle out of Rob’s misery and Rob was determined to put an end to it. Rob grabbed the closest intrument he could find to destroy this damn sign forever. As fate would have it the only thing he found servicable enough was his sturdy metal spatulla. The instument that had helped him create all those meals that the sign had dubbed not good enough. Rob liked that idea and started to wail on the sign with gusto. At the start it seemed to do little good. As the spatulla hit the sign it simply resulted in a loud ringing noise and a couple scuff marks but nothing sizable. To add insult to injury the sign ticked down Rob’s grade another letter as if it was now even disapproving of how well Rob was doing at destroying it. Rob used more force, wailing on the sign with all his effort. The sign was finally starting to give way to his relentless swings. Every strike getting him closer to his new goal of destroying this infernal machine. Rob kept going until finally in an explosion of sparks and plastic the sign gave way completely and fell to the floor forever dead. Just before it went out though Rob saw the final grade the sign would ever administer. A big bright red letter F. Of course Rob knew somewhere in his mind that the sign wasn’t actually concious, but he smiled at this grade thinking it a finale jab at him by an enemy that he had finally defeat. So that is the end of Rob’s story with the sign it was dead and Rob was fired quickly and forced to pay for the damages. That was good enough for Rob he didn’t want that job anymore anyways. To many people to satisfy other than himself. He was moving on to greener pastures where he intended to only live up to his own standards of excellence, not someone elses. The sign obviously remained just a sign forever broken and discarded in some landfill somewhere, but it does have one peice of information to divuldge to us as to why it never gave Rob what he wanted. In the user manual for the sign under the heading “How the grading work” is a simple line that if read could have avoided this whole situation. It goes a little something like this “should the user being graded stop his work to check his own grade a significant amount of points will be taken out of his score. This is to encourage the graded to avoid obsession with the grading process and better get a measure of their average work process.” Perhaps if Rob had either know about this or simply learned early enough not to care this whole situation could have been avoid, but sadly that is not how life goes we all want to know how close to perfect we are. The trick for reaching it though is to simply not care about it and just try to reach the next step.