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The Employees QUOTES

The Employees QUOTES

1 " It’s me and it’s not me at the same time. I’ve had to change completely in order to assimilate this new part that you say is also me. Which is flesh and yet not flesh. When I woke up after the operation I felt scared, but that soon wore off. Now I’m performing better than anyone. I’m a very useful tool to the crew. It gives me a certain position. The only thing I haven’t been able to get used to yet are the dreams. I dream that there’s nothing where the add-on is. That the add-on has detached itself, or perhaps was never a part of me. That it possesses a deep-seated antipathy towards me. That it hovers in the air above me and then starts to attack. When I wake up from one of these dreams, the add-on aches a bit, and it feels as though I’ve got two: one where it’s supposed to be, and, floating just above it, another one that can’t be seen with the naked eye, but which comes into being in the darkness where I sleep, arising out of my sleep. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

2 " You'd probably say it was a small world, but not if you have to clean it. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

3 " We don’t fly under a sky here, but through a slumbering infinity. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

4 " Why do I have all these thoughts if the job I’m doing is mainly technical? Why do I have these thoughts if the reason I’m here is primarily to increase production? From what perspective are these thoughts productive? Was there an error in the update? If there was, I’d like to be rebooted. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

5 " Am I human or humanoid? Have I been dreamt into being? "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

6 " I look like a human, and feel the way humans do. I consist of the same parts. Perhaps all that's needed is for you to change my status in your documents? Is it a question of name? Could I be human if you called me so? "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

7 " It’s easy talking to you. It feels like whatever I say is right. I speak and you write down what I say. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

8 " I know you don’t wish anything bad for me as long as I submit to the workflow and remain loyal to the values of the organization. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

9 " That’s why I’ve come to see you today, in the hope that there might be some other function in which I’d have less responsibility, without having to relate to the overall workflow to the same extent. I’d like to be assigned to that kind of position. I realize the abilities I’ve been allocated won’t be fully exploited in that case, but does the pain I feel not mean anything? I venture to suggest that such pain impacts the quality of my work and moreover may negatively influence the work of my colleagues. OK. I see. So I wouldn’t have the power of speech? No, I understand. I hereby consent. When "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

10 " I’ve flown some of the most dangerous routes. But it doesn’t feel the same as before. I don’t think of it in terms of piloting. We don’t fly under a sky here, but through a slumbering infinity. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

11 " Since I’m no longer a senior employee, but an old employee, everyone else has lost interest in me, and this has been an extremely liberating experience. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

12 " You can say what you want, but I know you don’t want us to become too, well, what? Too human? Too living? But I like being alive. I look out at the endless deep outside the panorama windows. I see a sun. I burn the way the sun burns. I know without a doubt that I’m real. I may have been made, but now I’m making myself. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

13 " I like him, this human coworker of mine, his interface is impressive. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

14 " I’m stronger than him, and have more endurance, but sometimes he’ll get an idea that means we can do our job in less than the designated time. He’s got an incredible knack for streamlining, from which I gladly learn. I’ve become a lot better myself at seeing how a workflow can be adjusted so that the task at hand can be completed more efficiently. This has surprised me rather a lot, because I’ve never known such improvements in my performance without an update being involved. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees

15 " What I miss most from home is shopping. It sounds a bit silly, I know. If ever I couldn’t grasp that something was happening, like when I got the job here and departure time was coming up, I’d go out and buy stuff in preparation for it, and in that way I understood it was for real. I understood impending events through shopping. I understood the circumstances through the items that characterized them. Shopping had a kind of numbing effect on me, and now that it’s no longer something I do, I’ve started having thoughts and feelings that have turned out to be sad. "

― Olga Ravn , The Employees