A Machine Shouldn't Speak for Men

 

Yesterday I wrote an article on HPANWO Voice about Chad Willoughby, the shop worker who had been sacked, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2025/07/friendly-shop-worker-sacked.html. (Somebody in the comments has informed me that Chad has now found employment in a different grocer, one that I hope will value him more.) This article is not really a follow-up, more a hospital portering edition of the same one. I'll address other issues to do with this case that lie outside the scope of the Voice. The title of this article comes from the lyrics of an excellent song by the rapper Immortal Technique which is paraphrased from a speech made by Charlie Chaplin in his 1940 film The Great Dictator, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCoTVCgWX90 and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20. Why did Walmart sack Chad? It's not a good business model to dispose of employees who attract customers. There may be a connection to my own experience in the MRI although in this case the aversion comes from the top, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/03/he-loved-his-work.html. I've heard many stories about people who are fond of their work and take pride in it; and worst still, behave in a manner that makes it obvious they are enjoying it, getting into some kind of trouble. I include myself in this. In Chad's case it was from management; in mine it was from both colleagues and management. I wonder what Chad's fellow Walmart employees thought of him. In some cases it is the customer who objects, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/starbucksbaristas/comments/hh0siv/i_got_a_complaint_for_being_too_friendly_and_it. Obviously they'd rather be served by some glass-eyed script-reading Stepford husband; that would somehow give them comfort. Some people can't abide seeing other people happy. They're like prisoners in jail; when one of the inmates tries to escape the others block his way and alert the warders. Another metaphor might be the strange crabs that live at the bottom of the sea whose body is so used to the crushing pressure and oppressive darkness that they can't survive without it. They don't feel that way about people with high conventional social status because such people are supposed to be enjoying their lives. The ones who grate are those with low status, shop assistants and HP's for example, who are not walking round with bowed heads and slumped shoulders, cursing every moment of their mortal existence. This is an awful situation because I feel humans are slowly turning into machines, just like the faceless and soulless consoles that shoppers use to buy their own goods from the supermarket. It's very revealing about my own life and why I made so many enemies at the hospital without even trying. Maybe this is why they eventually discarded me.