The Siren
I've always been intrigued by the resignation with which the ancients endured their working conditions. The suicide rate is so low that one must assume they found them normal and natural, and that they accepted them and did their best to cope.
The first time I heard the siren, I jumped in fright and had to cover my ears with my hands because I thought it were going to break them.
The museum guides are already used to it, I suppose, because I noticed a hint of joyful, mocking pity in the knowing glances they exchanged.
It's the time of entry or exit for staff shifts. I suppose the siren was to help those who were distracted or didn't know the time.
The ore enters through the eastern port, and the metal leaves there.
People enter and exit through the western gate.
The north gate is for executives and some necessary products and materials.
The north entrance isn't elitist. Due to the attacks, since before the bot war, executives have been prohibited from using the west gate.
Other employees can use any gate they like, but the safest, fastest, and most convenient is the west gate.
There is no gate to the south; the wall separating the plant from the rest of the world is continuous there.
One of the largest information processing capacities in the world is concentrated in that large square with sides more than ten kilometers long.
The La Paz Southern Metal Works (SMT) Refinery is the official name of the plant.
If someone has iron ore and wants to turn it into steel, this is the place to bring it, because it has proven for more than a hundred years to be the most convenient from every point of view.
The nuclear fusion melting furnace and its quantum instrumentation, the country's trade agreements with both blocs, taxes, and local labor ensure that this SMT refinery will be fully occupied for a long time.
After many confrontations between the owners and the union, peace was reached more than five years ago. In general terms, it's very simple:
No one can be fired, changed positions, replaced, or hired without the union's consent, and salaries must be 30 percent higher than the national average.
The museum is the people's favorite place and is open to the public.
The siren is the only machine that cannot be replaced because the founder stipulated so in his will.
His house is ten kilometers from the plant, and he seems to have enjoyed listening to it. I read somewhere that he once said that every time the siren sounded, he would check his account’s balance.
One of his grandsons was the founder of the union. He was accused of being a communist many times by his enemies. The truth is that when his wife, who was the union's first secretary, transcribed the bylaws, her ortography corrector and first article of the regulations read as follows:
"This union is open to everything ."
And nobody noticed it until it was too late.
Many people continue the tradition of joining a union, but in recent years, no one has been able to beat the bot candidates in any selection test.
The treaties that ended the bot wars require that these tests be conducted without any preference or aversion toward bots or humans and that they be publicly auditable.
When you think about the horrible working conditions in which the bios (I use this term affectionately, not in a derogatory tone, and I prefer to use it instead of the more formal ancients) worked, it's truly hard to imagine how they managed to endure it.
Surely the habit of routine and the sense of belonging to a group have something to do with it.
In the museum, you can see retirees meeting together making marketing and production plans just for the fun of it, and the maintenance of the museum's machines is done by volunteers.
Li Tao Po
VABM 5/Apr/2025
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