Sam is looking for a job. They’ll do pretty much anything.
Sam’s CV looks pretty good, so you take them on a 3 month trial.
At first, things go well. Sam works 24/7, never gets sick, never needs to go to the bathroom. Never gets ill. Never takes a holiday.
Sam doesn’t have kids or elderly parents who need to be cared for. Doesn’t even seem to understand why that might be a thing.
You’re thinking, “Sam would be a great employee. Let’s make them permanent.”
Every time you ask Sam to do something, they just do it. They write a report, draft a document, summarise an article.
At first, it’s great. But after a while, you realise Sam’s work is …. well, inconsistent.
You notice “facts” that just aren’t, well, facts. Citation links that lead to 404 errors. Quotations that nobody ever said. Things that Sam just flat out made up. To please you.
You get to the the stage where you double-check everything Sam says, or does. Because it might be accurate 80% of the time, but you have no idea which 20% is bullshit.
You realise you’re actually doing more work, because you can’t trust Sam.
Do you hire Sam?
I'm a service designer in Scottish Enterprise's unsurprisingly-named service design team. I've been a content designer, editor, UX designer and giant haystacks developer on the web for (gulp) over 25 years.
