Questionable Content

Pagetopper, self-quote:

Melon is not in standby mode.

Um… fortunately for the Union Robotics reputation, the witness is Melon.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on May 25th 2022 at 1:48:16 PM

Yeah if anything she's simulating popcorn in her head.

Some kind of radioactive metallic popcorn, but nonetheless.

Granted, reputation may be less of an issue if they're the only ones offering that service for presumably low prices.

Having Melon come out with janky skin in the corner of the mouth would've been a worse reputation hit tbh. They are building themselves up on doing quality work.

I could also see Bubbles trying to diplomatically ask if Faye is back on the sauce, resulting in the shoddy work, and things going very sideways.

I doubt that route. Bubbles has a very advanced sensory suite, if there was a drop of alcohol in Faye's system she'd smell it.

There is a possibility that she was having cravings and that rendered her cranky and distracted, but she didn't actually fall for them yet.

Edited by Adannor on May 26th 2022 at 2:11:24 PM

There might be some AI-human dissonance at work here. Faye may still think of AI bodies as the equivalent of an appliance or something since one can replace them in a way that human bodies cannot be replaced. Bubbles otoh thinks of AI bodies as bodies. Hence why she's rather less serious about the job than Bubbles is. Faye doesn't seem to realize that her job makes her one of the closest things to an AI doctor.

Edited by M84 on May 26th 2022 at 7:29:27 PM

I think that's part of it, yeah. Faye continues to geek out over the incredible technology that goes into AI bodies (much like Sam, but less blatant), and appreciates that she can be a part of keeping it running, but I think that blinds her a bit to the fact that these are people and she makes them well. Your car and your phone are important to you, but they're not your body. Too, Bubbles has been sensitive to this perspective from humans—recall Faye's sister and her girlfriend when they came to visit.

Faye has been engaged in a learning process on this score ever since she met Bubbles; I'm reminded of when she realized Bubs has a nose, not just an olfactory sensor, and Faye's BO was bothersome to her.

Other than their emotional bond and the fact that the business was Faye's idea, I often wonder what it is she actually brings to Union Robotics. There's nothing she does there that Bubbles can't do better; in a real sense Faye has been Bubbles' apprentice this whole time. Besides the repair work Bubbles also does all office work such as billing and scheduling (in her head). And Faye probably isn't capable of seeing the warping that Bubbles' eyes can easily discern, but Bubbles was probably expecting Faye to alert her to any potential problems and not dismiss them as trivial. I hope this doesn't lead to a hasty suggestion that Bubbles could do better work alone, but on a coldly rational level she might.

4795 Why’d she say “May”? It was Melon they were working on.

It’ll be fixed once enough people point it out.

Speaking as a mechanic I would have to side with Faye in that even the most experienced and attentive workers will still misinterpret and miss things during services. Being dilligant only reduces risk of human error rather than eliminate it. Faye being plainly accepting of her mistake was the correct thing to do, and Bubbles taking Faye to task for it was unproductive.

That said this is not a plainly mechanical situation and what would be acceptable conduct when talking about a mistake on a car doesn't nessicarily translate to how we talk about a mistake on a person.

(Though I think people under estimate how valuable cars are to people's wellbeing, two extra days in the shop can really screw someone over)

Edited by Whowho on May 27th 2022 at 9:34:21 AM

And I am fairly certain that there have to have been cases where doctors have discussed their patients in such a casual way, including mistakes. I mean, we have at least one case where surgeons have branded their initials on organs, so it completely would not surprise me if some jaded members started badmouthing the stitching job when closing the wound, commenting that it's going to scar up, and they just leave it because they have two more surgeries scheduled before they're done for the day.

That dude needs to be put back in prison.

I imagine that if Faye had taken the mistake seriously — had gone "shit, yeah, my bad, good catch" — Bubbles would have let it go. But instead, she shrugged it off with a "Huh, okay" and then just snarked about Bubbles' attitude when Bubbles called her out on the lack of attention to important details.

Bubbles is somebody who takes things seriously, and this is indeed the equivalent of medicine from her point of view. You'd think that Faye might have noticed that by now.

There's the question of how much of an inconvenience this is to Melon. If this is something Bubbles would have seen and corrected anyway with parts on hand, then her annoyance is out of proportion to the situation. But if Faye "checked her over thoroughly" a week ago when they ordered the new skin, and now they can't put the skin on until they order a new upper jaw (which will probably take longer than a week), that's a different matter. Bubbles' professional pride will probably lead her to eat the cost of the added delay, if not comp the part entirely. That's lost revenue of a different order than the $20 Faye was worried about (which is, I think, why she tried to shrug it off with an "oh ok" to avoid losing the footage).

This damage is heat warpage from the fire. Is it something that could have gotten worse in the intervening week, such that Faye wasn't likely to notice it during the initial examination?

I do not think it would have gotten worse. It got heated up, softened, warped, then cooled down in thew shape.

Also by the situation it is something that looks very minor in terms of physical difference, i.e. misaligned by millimeters but has a significant impact. Hence why Faye wrongly thought it wouldn't be a problem.

Edited by Adannor on May 27th 2022 at 5:01:58 PM

That's what I figured. I was thinking perhaps that with initial imperceptible warpage, pressure from Melon using her jaw may have exacerbated the problem. But it does seem like if this is something Faye could see at all, she should have seen it a week ago. They did open Melon up at that time, having cleaned the bugs out of her.

She saw something happened, we can see it as the smudge on Melon's face in panel one. She thought it was not a meaningful problem.

I meant the warpage itself, of course. The discoloration, which Faye did see, is a sign that should have merited closer investigation, which is what Bubbles is upset about.

It could be that Faye is being genuinly slack with her work, but if so that's very out of character for her given that she's characterised as being genuinly competant with this stuff.

I agree with Spindriver, I think the main point of contention here is Faye's attitude about the mistake - although missing a genuinely serious issue certainly didn't help.

4796 Hannelore’s no fool.

A bad liar, but no fool.

#4797

Well, my worst fears go unrealized, in that Melon is getting fixed today after all (so what was the big deal?) and Bubbles has talked herself down—with Melon’s unique brand of help.

Is Melon keeping the heterochromia?

The big deal is that if they didn't catch it now and then later Melon would've come in with a janky mouth corner, they'd have to rip all of her skin off again and redo it back up after fixing the part.