back to article Boss leaves robot in charge of office

When you manage an office of 25 staff members, working from home can be an impossible prospect. Not for entrepreneur Richard Garriott, though, chief of a games development company in Austin, Texas. Since July, he's apparently often been found directing the company from home, using a moving robot that wheels around the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Someday...

    ... we'll be swapping cyborg bodies at will. You know, ghost in the shell type or something. Maybe rent-a-bodies, possibly. Though equally likely they'll still be butt ugly and we'll make up for it by only paying attention to full-immersion CVRS* networking, or whatever the buzzword-du-jour will be.

    Honestly, I probably wouldn't care too much. There's more pressing things that urgenly need fixing or the resulting world will be painfully dystopian regardless of the 'bots.

    * Figure it out, smrtgui.

  2. Armando 123
    Pint

    Ya know

    ... that robot still seems more warm and humane than some of my previous bosses.

  3. Pete 2 Silver badge

    What's robots for the goose are robots for the gander

    > after buying the robot ... he could use it to spend time with his wife in New York,

    Presuming of course that his wife doesn't buy a robot to take his place.

  4. CD001

    Richard Garriot...

    Lord Bottish?

  5. TheRealRoland
    Terminator

    I, for one,

    welcome my Surrogates overlords.

  6. Buzzword

    I can see the value in this. If you're working from home, being able to pick up the telephone or Skype isn't quite enough. Sometimes you want to see who is there (presence information), sometimes you want to be able to overhear group conversations; and in both those scenarios the other people in the office want to know you're listening/watching. For a boss, it's a way to check that your staff aren't playing Solitaire or making spreadsheets for the fantasy football league when they should be working.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      In theory maybe.

      But it's quite hard for a whirring robot to creep up on you. A lot easier than learning what your bosses footsteps sound like.

  7. TheRealRoland
    Happy

    Advance warning...

    Do you think the staff will put some noisemaker on this thing? Just so they know the Boss is rolling in on them?

    Cans & string, make one of the wheels a bit squeaky?

  8. scott 73
    Happy

    We're off...

    To button mooooooooon

    8)

  9. Qwelak
    Terminator

    But...

    Does it check the lift is there before entering? Does it check overhead? Can it be fitted with Tasers, ball bearing launchers or tear gas?

    Just asking

    1. TheRealRoland
      Thumb Up

      You! Meatbag!

      Fix that bug! You have 20 seconds to comply!

    2. Asgard
      Joke

      @"Can it be fitted with Tasers, ball bearing launchers or tear gas"

      Microsoft are working on a boss robot as well, but its delayed as Steve Ballmer wants a chair throwing attachment.

  10. Tim #3

    Maybe if all bosses have one of these each then they may even start to talk to each other at last...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Gimp

    They could make autonomous ones programmed to "game changer" , "paradigm shift" and "synergy", generate pie charts, and hold meetings about the meeting schedule. they could replace lots of managers.

  12. Mondo the Magnificent
    Devil

    I'd fool it...

    I'd go upstairs.. surely that thing doesn't do stairwells!

  13. Kay Burley ate my hamster
    Thumb Down

    Err... gaffer tape?

    Across it's visual sensors!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Roboclod?

  15. Johnny Canuck

    Big Bang Theory

    Didn't Sheldon do something similar in one episode?

  16. LaeMing
    Thumb Up

    Clever.

    And the $15000 personal purchase becomes tax-deductable.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Some thoughts on "Roboboss"

    1. Judge Droid? Should I expect robotic actor Anybot to replace the robotically acting Sly Stallone in future action flicks?

    2. Am I allowed to affix a black pointy-haired half-dome wig onto the head of said bossbot??

    3. Oops!! I spilled my coffee all over your power supply, boss!!

    4. Oops!!! I did it again!!

    5. Fire alarm!! Someone save the bossbot!!! What!? The fire was caused by some idiot spilling his coffee on the bossbot's power supply??

  18. John Tserkezis

    Big Bang Theory

    Yes, Sheldon created a Remote Presence Device, after he got spooked by Real Life reducing his life expenancy.

    All it did was piss everyone off.

    One blanket should be enough to disable it though.

    Or better yet, encourage it (a little push) to go for a walk down the stairs.

    1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      ROTM

      That's Daleks.

      But what nobody knows yet is that this guy died in August. Fell down the stairs, ironically. And ever since then......

  19. John H Woods Silver badge

    Presumably ...

    if working from home is fine if you send a robot to the office, the staff could also send their own robots to work?

  20. Graham Bartlett
    Pirate

    History fail

    If anyone here needs an explanation of who Richard Garriot is, they either don't belong here or they have some preparatory reading/gaming to do...

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