For Your Safety...

Do you remember reading an issue of the Weekly Reader or watching the news in the late '80's about robots and how they were the wave of the future in businesses, hospitals, and other industries, potentially replacing human resources in jobs around the globe?



Alvin, an 1980-something-crafted state-of-the-art equipment, is one success story from the age of the robots. He travels the floors of the Veterans' Hospital in Indianapolis, delivering medications to appropriate wards from the pharmacy. Donning his "Happy New Year" party hat, he delights patients and staff alike. He speaks at times in his monotonic drone and will avert his course if someone stands in his way. And occasionally, his temper flares in the elevator...or at least, that is what I deduce from this sign and past stories of people trying to ride the elevator with him. He craftily waits until the doors close and then fires dramatically, "Please get off the elevator". You fear for your safety as this 500+ pound piece of steel and...vinyl? continues to shout orders at you to exit while you descend from the 5th floor to 4-3-2-and then by God's grace the first floor.




Though I have not personally seen much progress in the once-anticipated age of the robots in performing human-like tasks in the hospital and society in general, I hope that Alvin is the first of many....hopefully safer...more elevator-friendly work-force technology. Until then, Alvin will be delivering his medications and I will be taking the stairs.