The story - part 8

“I doubt it.” said Betts turning and walking towards the parking lot. “I own the building and the company.”

“Aha!” shouted George, following after him, “You do need the report. Its your company so you have the report whether I give it to you on paper or not. Even though you throw it away, you need it.”
“Not exactly.” Betts answered, continuing towards his car. “True, I do need the end product, that being the report. But more important is what goes into making the report.

Betts stopped at his car and turned to lean against it facing George. “Any idea what that would be, George?”
George thought for a moment. “Office supplies?” It was all he could come up with quickly.

“Did you eat lunch today?” Betts was frowning.
“The lunchroom food?” George attempted.
“That was a joke.” said Betts. “Go back a step. More important to me than the final product, is the means by which it is generated.”
“The computer!” George blurted out.
“More precisely, the software. The data analysis algorithm that is used to analyze the data that I send is more than just a pretty number cruncher. It’s a learning program. Every time you run a data set through it, it compares it to the last set, determines how you used the analysis the last time and uses the same analysis method on the new set.”
“So it thinks for itself?”
“Something like that. Machine learning doesn’t mean it decides that it likes icecream better than cake, but it does learn from mistakes and past experience, to become more efficient. When you change the analysis results to fit the data better, the software remembers what you did and uses that method the next time.”

“So what is the big secret about that? Why not just tell us and be done with it?” asked George.
“Because people cheat!” said Betts leaning forward, “When people know about the test, they meddle with it, try to fool it, try to cheat. It spoils the analysis.”
“You told me though.”
“I did, but that was because you already cheated.”
“How?”
“The misspellings. You put one in by accident, I think, but when you put in the second one, the program remembered the last one and somehow linked the two, and thought that it was no accident.”
“A typo threw your software into a tailspin?” George grinned a little at that.
“Sounds silly doesn’t it? Something about the two errors in sequence that just hit a soft spot. Its being corrected.”

“So nobody knows? Not even my boss?” asked George.
“He doesn’t know either. Even my ownership of the company is not widely known by most employess in there. I’m quite certain your boss has no clue about it either.” replied Betts.

“What happens now? I mean now that I know.” asked George.
“Now you decide what you really want to do. You can go back to your job and do what you have always done, or you can move on to something a stone’s throw away.” Betts grinned.
“Quit?”
“Do you like your job?”
“Not really. Not any more.”
“Do you want to do something different? Something more?” Betts asked folding his arms, almost impatiently.
“I do.”
“Good. I have other companies with other positions that would suit you better. You just need to say the words.”
“Which words?” asked George.
“I quit.” Betts said in a whisper as George heard footsteps coming up behind him.

“George!”
George turned to see his boss standing behind him.

“Mr. Stanton! I thought you were out today?” said George looking startled.
“I was, but I came by after my meetings to pick up some things. Hello, Elliot.” he said turning to Betts.
“Good to see you.” said Betts reaching out his hand and shaking Stanton’s. “George here has something he wants to tell you.”

George could feel the heat welling up in his face.

“Oh? What’s up, George.” his boss asked.
“Uh, I need to…I mean…maybe we should talk about it inside.”
“No, its ok, we can talk here.” his boss assured him.
“I’d much rather we went inside.” George insisted.
“Why inside?” his boss looked a little annoyed. “Just out with it George.”
“No, I really think that-“
“Just tell me, George, I don’t have all day!” his boss interrupted.

“I quit!”

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 11:37 am and is filed under The Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.