The 5:01 AM Intrusion

My phone vibrated against the nightstand at 5:01 AM, a sharp, buzzing intrusion that skidded across the wood until it hit a porcelain coaster. I fumbled for it, squinting at a number I didn’t recognize, only to hear a gravelly voice asking if ‘Bernie’ was there. I told the man he had the wrong number, and he hung up instantly. No apology. No ‘have a good morning.’ Just the sudden, blunt silence of a disconnected line.

It was annoying, sure, but twenty-one minutes later, as I sat at my desk with a lukewarm coffee, I found myself preferring that man’s rudeness to the notification that popped up on my screen. I had just moved a ticket to the ‘Done’ column in our project management software, and a cartoon unicorn streaked across the monitor, trailing a rainbow. A bot immediately posted in the team channel:

‘@User, you’re on fire! Thanks for the hard work! 🚀’

We are living in an era where managers have decided that empathy is a scalable resource, leading to what I can only describe as emotional offshoring. By delegating the act of recognition to an algorithm, the workplace hasn’t become more supportive; it has become more transactional, disguised in the neon colors of a digital playground.

The Sand Sculptor’s Rating

When a group of tourists walked by and tossed a ‘Good job, buddy!’ over their shoulders without even breaking stride, Dakota didn’t look up. Later, over a thermos of tea, he told me that the most insulting thing about modern ‘appreciation’ is how little it costs the person giving it.

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He told them to keep it. He didn’t want a badge; he wanted them to notice the way he had carved the 41 miniature windows to catch the light at sunset. He wanted the specific, messy, time-consuming labor of being understood by another human being.

The Cowardice of Automation

We have replaced the difficult, often awkward work of looking a colleague in the eye and saying, ‘I saw how you handled that difficult client, and I appreciate the patience you showed,’ with a ‘High Five’ emoji triggered by a workflow. It is a form of cowardice.

Automation allows a leader to remain completely ignorant of the effort while still checking the ’employee engagement’ box. When the bot thanks me, it isn’t thanking me; it is merely confirming that the database updated correctly. To be thanked by a bot is to be told that you are just another part of the machine, a gear that needs a little bit of digital grease to keep turning.

The Lawn vs. The Limbic System

This trend reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of human motivation. We are told by HR consultants that ‘frequent recognition’ leads to 51 percent higher retention rates, but they forget to mention that the recognition has to be real. You cannot trick the human limbic system with a programmed animation.

I want my grass watered by a timer because the grass doesn’t need to feel valued to grow. But I am not a lawn. I am a person with a 5:01 AM wake-up call and a set of anxieties that can’t be cured by a 🚀 emoji.

For instance, if I am looking to automate the maintenance of a physical space, I want a system that actually works, like how

Wilcox Brothers Lawn Sprinklers & Landscape Lighting

provides a mechanical solution to a mechanical problem.

The Loneliness of the Pull-String Doll

This is the danger of the ‘Good Job’ bot: it provides an excuse for the humans in the room to stop paying attention. Why bother noticing a subordinate’s late nights when the Slack integration will send them a celebratory GIF at midnight anyway? Why bother learning about the 71 hurdles a developer jumped over when the ‘Task Complete’ trigger handles the applause?

The Dignity of Silence

Dakota D. once showed me a sculpture that had been 91 percent destroyed by the tide. He wasn’t upset. He said the ocean was the only thing that gave his work a ‘rating’ he actually cared about, because the ocean was real. It didn’t pretend to be his friend. It didn’t send him a ‘Nice Sand!’ notification. It just existed in relation to his work. There is a strange dignity in that.

If a manager doesn’t have the time to see what I am doing, I would honestly prefer the silence. I would prefer the honest void to the scripted cheer. The silence of a machine is more respectful than its scripted joy.

The Authentic Burn

If we want to build cultures that actually matter, we have to reclaim the labor of appreciation. We have to be willing to do the un-automated work of noticing. It takes 11 seconds to type a real message, yet we spend thousands of dollars on software to avoid doing it. We hire 21 consultants to tell us how to improve morale, and they give us 41 more bots. It is a cycle of avoidance.

But the next time you see that unicorn fly across your screen, ask yourself who it’s really for. It isn’t for you. It’s for the person who didn’t want to take the time to tell you yourself. And in that moment, you have every right to feel patronized. You have every right to want something more than a rainbow and a rocket ship. We are not data points, and we deserve more than a ‘Good Job’ from a ghost.

In the end, I think about the 151 minutes I spent today just trying to feel connected to a team that communicates primarily through automated triggers. I think about Dakota D. on that beach, carving his 11th spire into the sand, knowing the tide will take it but happy because he saw it, and he knew it was good. He didn’t need a bot to validate the grit under his fingernails.