Back before it all, we used to have a man on the door. He\u2019d smile and swing a slow hand up to the rim of his cap and say, Good morning, Sir, or Madam, depending on what you looked like. He was always a man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Women never seemed to go in for that job. They\u2019d be on the counter inside. Reception. They\u2019d greet you too. It was all so friendly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your print has not been recognised. Please try again.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, so it was unhygienic, but there was nothing serious going around back then, nothing you\u2019d worry about picking up on the air, and anyway, nobody was shouting at you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n OK, there were days when you didn\u2019t want to be told, Have a good morning, because you knew that however much you wanted to, and however much they wanted you to as well, you weren\u2019t going to have a good morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You were going to have a lousy morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your print has not been recognised. Please activate the eye-pad for retinal recognition.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus. And you couldn\u2019t stand and debate the point, besides which, when you scratched off the foil he didn\u2019t really give a dam. He didn\u2019t give a flying fart what sort of a day you were going to have. Not unless he\u2019d been there a long time and so had you and you\u2019d got to know each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Retinal recognition processing, please remain motionless and in contact with the eye-pad.<\/em>Jesus <\/p>\n\n\n\n Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You have broken contact. Please repeat, using the eye-pad.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like the day they fired you. Williams was on the door. You could tell he was upset to see you standing there. He knew. You knew. He put out a hand, touched your shoulder. He shouldn\u2019t have done that. Unprofessional. Infringed your personal space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Familiar. Condescending. He\u2019d still got a job to go to. Take your God-damned paws off me, you said. Line from an old movie. You\u2019d always liked it. Never got the chance to use it before. Hurt in his eyes. Not a good morning for either of us. Emotion out of the picture these days. Impersonal. Efficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recognition complete. Identification positive. Entrance denied.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fucking stupid machine!<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you enjoyed this story why not read more from Brindley Hallam_Dennis<\/a> <\/a> Here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A short piece of creative writing Press Pause, in our automated world, where the doorman no longer exists; read here…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":91633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"features_issues":[],"featured_themes":[15374],"ppma_author":[16714],"class_list":["post-91613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature","featured_themes-automated"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/staging.centmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/red-stop-sign-white-hand-symbol-icon-vector-illustration-146759730.jpg?resize=580%2C580&ssl=1\"){kind=icon}
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