Wait Bot Why: A Short Story About Hotels.ng’s Robots

A day in the life of everybody at Hotels.ng begins thusly:

We arrive the office via our preferred means of transportation. Bikes, cars, helicopters and the occasional camel. Since the office building is right beside the Magistrate court, we have to endure the cries of ‘affidavit! affidavit! Brus you wan’ sign affidavit!?’ — from court clerks who, for some reason, despite having seen your face for the millionth time, insist on treating you like this is your first time in front of your own office building.

Push the gates. Welcome to Hotels.ng.

Depending on your department, you are either going upstairs or downstairs. If you’re downstairs you’re lucky — you are neighbors with the kitchen. If you are upstairs, well, you have to brave the stairs.

As soon as you are seated, one of the first things you open on your Chrome browser* is Slack, and you log on to the Hotels.ng team, instantly connected with your colleagues, both within the office and working remotely from various corners of the planet.

Nobody ever talks about the one time we ate the bear.

One of the first Slack messages we receive is from Hotels.ng itself. Prompt, by 8:30am, the first bot fires up its cheery message: “”Good morning everyone! The website is happy to see you guys!”

It is the equivalent of the ever-chipper Dave in marketing saying ‘HEY HEY HEY GUYS WHAT’S CRACKIN’ FAM?’ or something like that.

As soon as the website announces its gladness at seeing us, somebody in the team almost always responds.

Usually the response to Hotels.ng is ‘we are also happy to the see the website. That CSS has us like whoa. Look at that jumbotron. Damn.’

Shortly after that, we usually have someone from one department putting a funny photo from Reddit or Twitter in the general channel. And we would laugh, of course. And add reactions.

And reactions to reactions.

And reactions of us reacting to the previously reacted-on reactions.

In the midst of all this excitement (I’m sure you understand), somebody might type “HAHA OMG my stomak.”

And that is where the GrammarPolice comes in.

A typical convo between you and Hotels.ng’s Grammar Police** would occur thusly:

@jigipop: Hey guys I want to go to the mull.

Grammar Police: Would you like to mull this over?

@jigipop: What? @Grammar Police

Grammar Police: Did you mean to say ‘mall’?

@jigipop: Stop correcting me I speak prefect english.

Grammar Police: Stop correcting me*. I speak *perfect *English.

@anothercolleague: lol

@yetanothercolleague: LMAO

@hastycommentingguy: am dying here.

Grammar Police: *I’m dying here.

@hastycommentingguy: Oh carp.

Grammar Police: *crap. Unless you’re thinking of a certain aquatic animal.

@hastycommentingguy: WOW LEAVE ME ALONE. I’M SORRY FOR LAUGHING, OKAY?

This happens more often than you would imagine. But that is not all. By 9:30am, the Lunch Order bot comes to life and shrieks:

Very…formal, that one. Food order begins now. Ends strictly by 10:00am prompt! VIOLATE THIS INSTRUCTION AND I WILL BE FORCED TO RELEASE THE KRAKEN.

So you open up your Slack, hit up the bot and go, ‘uh, yeah. I’ll have the shawarma. Just the shawarma.’

And work continues, temporarily bot-less and filled, hopefully, with actual human interactions.

Like Mark:

@mark: Guys. Have you done the thing?

@guys: the thing has been done.

@mark: good job on doing the thing.

@guys: thanks for congratulating us on the completion of the thing.

Or, well, me:

@justin: Hey guys! Free lunches to everyone who can do the thing!

@guy1: *Does the thing.*

@guy2: *Does the thing.*

@guy3: *Does the thing.*

@guy4: *Does the thing.*

@guy5: *Does the thing.*

@justin: Welp. How much do these lunches cost even?

FoodOrder: N15,000

@justin: WHUT

Grammar Police: *what?

@justin: COME ON!

So life moves smoothly. A few bots make appearances, like the OTP bot that pushes precious one-time-passwords for the more secure systems, the Jira Issues bot and other jolly bots that ensure we do not have to retrieve info from too many places to get our jobs done. Life, made infinitely simpler because of these unobtrusive, reliable and downright good-natured fellas who just give us the data when we need it.

At exactly 1:01pm (dunno who set this one like that), the IFTTT bot shrieks! “Another {{day_name}} lunch!” and the crowd goes wildddddddddddddddddd.

Then we’re down at the dining area. I’m usually seated with the people discussing everything and nothing. Sometimes, if we are lucky, someone starts up a conversation about the funny quirks of the team. Sometimes we’re making lunchtime fun for the new guy.

Other times we’re pondering between mouthfuls about optimizing one thing or another. True story.

Ding.

Aside: We once watched in mute wonder as the Cookie Lyon Bot, the Lucious Lyon Bot, the Jamal Bot and the Hakeem Bot engaged in very hot debate about their roles in the Empire series. As I recall, each bot was trying to prove to the other that they were a waste of script.

Which is ironic, if you think about it.

Ending note: I’d like to give a nod to the first bot that ever did it: the beloved @slackbot. Such a sweetheart.

— — -

*Note: the use of the Chrome browser isn’t a law in the office, but by God I wish it was!

** I should mention here that Grammar Police was, unfortunately, not involved in the editing of this post and as a result I will be taking full responsibility for all typos and other errors. Have mercy.