fiction
Coffee Machine
Daniel shrugged. “It is what it is”, he said.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Amy-Jo demanded. “The Vendex show is next week, and we don’t have a product!”
Daniel looked around the meeting room. John, the mechanical engineer was leaning back in his chair, hands in his pockets, staring into space. Michael, the senior software engineer was fiddling with his pen, while Jason, his junior, sat plaiting and unplaiting his fingers. Seb, the electronics engineer was watching funny cat videos on his phone. Clearly, there was no help from any of them, and as project manager he would carry the blame, regardless of whose fault it was.
“Look,” he said, “You wanted a voice-activated coffee vending machine that would also dispense someone’s preferred drink based on a thumb print, with an option for dry sugar, syrup and who knows what else. Oh, and for some reason you thought that it all had to be cloud-based. Well, that’s fine. But not on the timescales you want.”
“You said it was eighty percent ready!”
“I also said that the last twenty percent was the most difficult. And the Vendex show is three months before the project completion date.”
“Vendex is the only vending machine show in this country. We need a product to show people.”
“And if you had made up your mind what the specification was supposed to be, and hadn’t kept changing it then we would have had a chance. But every change you made pushed us further and further back.”
“But we have to listen to the Voice Of The Customer!” said Amy-Jo, making
“Voice Of The Customer” into a mantra`.
“By which you mean going round and asking every vending machine lease company what they want and promising them everything, even though they each had competing priorities.”
“The customer is important.”
The problem was simple. Coffee vending machines worked on a five year lease agreement. At the end of five years, the customer was given the choice of either refurbishing their old coffee machine, or getting a new one on suitably beneficial terms. Except that the business model broke down if you hadn’t developed a new machine in eight years and were desperately trying to play catch-up.
Michael stopped playing with his pen and looked up. “It works. It will dispense the drink the customer asks for. It just needs refining.”
Amy-Jo scowled at him. “If it is a perfectly quiet room. Any background noise and it dispenses something at random. If someone asks for an Americano, they don’t expect to get English Breakfast Tea with a shot of hazelnut syrup. And that’s if you ask in English. The Italian and German don’t work at all.”
Michael shook his head and said, “Noise cancellation is not as easy as you think. We can do it all, yes, but not for next week.”
“That’s not good enough. I promised Donovan that we’d have the machine ready for Vendex.”
“You promised the CEO, I did not,” said Daniel.
“It’s your responsibility to deliver on time.”
“Yes, to the agreed timescales. This is not the agreed timescales.”
John stirred in his seat. “Jason, you speak Italian, don’t you?”
Jason jolted upright. “Si, mia Italiano è molto bene.”
“Perfect. And your German?”
“Not so much.”
“I think we can work with that. Look, what we need is a cabinet that dispenses whatever drink someone asks for, with automatic identification of three languages, yes?”
Amy-Jo nodded abruptly, once.
“Do we need the thumbprint activation for Vendex?”
“No, because of data retention and GDPR problems for the show.”
“Fine, so as long as you get the drink that you asked for in the noisy environment of the Vendex show, then everyone is happy, yes?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Pull everything out of the cabinet. Put a stool in there and a kettle, a few teabags and a jar of instant coffee. Someone sits inside listening, and when someone asks for an Americano or whatever, they drop a cup into the vend area, boil the kettle, add instant coffee and pour the drink.”
“You mean, fake it?”
“Is anyone going to look inside the cabinet?”
“What about the cloudy thing? Everything has to be in the cloud these days. It won’t sell if it isn’t cloudy.”
“Laptop connected to a computer outside over WiFi.”
“Yeah,” said Michael, nodding. “I could knock that up in an afternoon.”
“And this could be ready in time for Vendex?”
“Well, it depends on how quickly Jason can learn German, but yes.”
“What?” asked Jason, “you want me to sit in the cabinet all day dispensing drinks? Why me?”
“Two reasons,” said Daniel. “First, you only have to learn one language whereas we’d all have to learn two.”
“And the second reason?”
“You’re the junior engineer. It will be valuable experience for you.”
Jason’s protests were quickly overruled and vague offers of potential promotion and maybe bonuses were insincerely offered. The meeting broke up and Seb left happy that he’d been able to last an entire meeting without having to engage.
Luckily for Jason, Vendex only lasted a day. The vending cabinet was cramped and lacked ventilation. With the steam from the kettle, it was baking hot, and every time he had to refill the kettle he scrapped his knuckles on the unfinished metalwork inside. On the plus side, he was allowed as much coffee as he wanted. On the minus side, he wasn’t allowed out until the show finished. By the end of that time, the waste bucket contained more than just coffee dregs. Still, it gave him time to think. Gave him ideas. And a week after the show, he made a presentation to the CEO.
Amy-Jo stared at the e-mail in disbelief, then dashed to the CEO’s office.
“Ah, Amy-Jo, I see you got the e-mail,” said Donovan, regarding her over his glasses.
“You’re firing me?”
“Letting you go. Yes. I think your market analysis is faulty, and your projected sales figures are unrealistic. I’m also letting most of the rest of the team go as well. Giving them the opportunity to pursue their careers in a different direction.”
“But the new coffee machine…”
“That project has been cancelled. It has wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds with nothing to show for it.”
“But, but…”
“Let me show you the future of coffee vending. I have listened to the Voice Of The Customer and they are quite enthusiastic. We’re calling it the MicroBarista.”
He swivelled his laptop so she could see the screen. It showed a PowerPoint presentation with a picture of a unit the size of a standard vending machine. Except that the door had been cut away to reveal a person sitting inside. In front of them was a coffee machine. They were smiling as they handed a happy customer a cup of steaming beverage.
“Such as simple idea. That young Jason, smart lad. He’ll go far. He gave me the figures and they were very convincing. Employing someone on minimum wage to make drinks for customers, engage in a bit of banter at the same time. The entire coffee shop experience in a format suitable for vend areas – and at a fraction of the cost of your coffee machine.”
“But what about the cloudy thing?”
“I understand we already have the software. The barista just enters the details on a laptop and it sends the data over WiFi to a cloud-based server. The whole idea – genius.”
“But, what’ll I do now?”
“Well, I understand that one of our customers is already looking for baristas. It’s worth thinking about.”