Member-only story
A COMPLAINT
A robot at your service
Only serious reactions, please
Apart from a positive appraisal about the quality of the coffee served by our robot barista and mentioning his capability to keep up a lively conversation, a client who identified himself as John45123 complained about an accident caused by our robot Rubén. John45123 pointed out that Rubén had spilled coffee on his brand-new posh jacket. He asked for royal compensation and a fierce reprimand for Rubén, our polylingual robot. Not only can Rubén serve any beverage warm or cold, he also can keep a conversation in 20 languages, and spew poetry in 10 of them. He’s the Rubén Darío of the robotic world.
We investigated the matter and here is our response.
Hi John45123,
Of course, we are delighted with your appraisal that, beyond doubt, Rubén served you the best coffee you ever tasted. As you pointed out, his superb speaking skills make him a polite, solicitous, even entertaining bartender.
Unfortunately, an accident happened. Rubén splashed a dash of coffee on your jacket. Our normal procedure in a case like this would be to compensate the customer for the damage done, pay the dry-cleaner’s bill, or — in a worst-case scenario — replace the jacket with an identical one.
