These Are the Droids They're Looking For

First it was assembly-line automatons. Then came Rosie, the Jetsons' wise-cracking digital domestic. Forget about immigrant labor -- the real threat to the American worker comes from cheap replacements that speak in ones and zeroes rather than hilarious accents!

"Look out! The new guy is downsizing
people with laser beams!"

Think about it: A robot has no grasp of weekends, vacations or religious holidays such as Halloween or Shark Week. A robot doesn't insist on wearing neckties celebrating its favorite cartoon characters. A robot won't leave the restroom smelling like a methane leak at the landfill.

When faced with the choice between precise, emotionless efficiency and cranky humans who would rather play FarmVille all day, what employer in his right mind would hesitate to throw his own species under the bus?

Researchers predict that this year alone, 1 million robot workers will be installed worldwide. They key word is "installed." No awkward interviews, no background checks to determine whether a job candidate has ever been featured on "To Catch a Predator" -- just plug 'em in take credit for the spike in productivity.

But that's not the worst of it. Many businesses are currently conducting experiments to perfect a human-machine hybrid!

Impossible, you say? Simply ask yourself if you have ever heard any of the following terms used in reference to a fellow human employee:

"Fatal error"

"Self-destruct"

"Functionality"

"Repurpose"

Wake up and smell the microchips, fleshy! You're already being assimilated.   

Hostile work environment

But resistance is not futile, because the robots have overlooked one critical factor: There is no environment more unforgiving to machines than the average workplace.

We will spill scalding coffee on our electronic adversaries. We will ignore their service schedules and otherwise void their warranties. We will paper-jam them, choke their bandwidth by downloading pirated music files and clog their caches with cookies for porn sites until their casualties become unacceptable.

The war for humanity's survival will be fought in the cubicles. And we will emerge Linda Hamilton-like to tell the enemy once and for all, "You're terminated, f---er."