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For the next three hours, each of the interns worked feverishly and furiously in the best way they knew how in order to respond to the task at hand. The benefit of a winning idea would not only cement a successful posting to their next job, but it would also be instrumental in shaping administration policy on how things should be done.
At 11 am, the interns returned to their own personal seats in the glass box. No one brought a drink this time. At least two of the interns came prepared with visual aids. The manager arrived a few minutes late with an unopened can of diet soda which had just been purchased from a vending machine one floor down. Upon taking the seat which was obviously a manager’s seat based on its higher back and ergonomic design, the boss spoke up.
“Okay then.” There was a slight pause as the diet soda was opened and sipped. “Who wants to go first?”
The intern with the laptop spoke up before the first question could even be completed. Upon plugging the computer into a media projector on the table, the intern began a slideshow which bullet pointed the high points of the idea at hand. “The easiest way to get people to do this is to completely take the entire process of obtaining or reporting fecal weight out of the hands of the people.
As it is right now, more and more households are converting control of their environmental controls to units which put the power of heating or cooling a house in the hands of the utility companies. These same people are using smart phone applications to turn their lights on and off and start small appliances.
All of this is being done through the internet.
My suggestion is that we incentivize commode manufacturers to invent, produce and market high tech toilets which can tap into an internet connection via Wi-Fi.” The intern struck a key on the laptop which revealed a design of the suggested high tech toilet. “At the same time,” the intern continued, “we build in criteria for incentive which requires the manufacturer build in sensors which have the capability of analyzing anything which is put in the bowl. That goes for human waste, vomit, or whatever else goes in there. Once the high tech toilet analyzes the components of the bowl, its data is transmitted via the internet to a server where it’s retained for whatever use the government has for it.”
The manager interrupted the presentation. “…..and exactly how are you going to get the American people to buy and install these high tech toilets?”
The intern already considered this and was ready for it. “First of all, the project starts out as a quite incentive for the manufacturing sector. Once they are able to successfully build a toilet to specifications which transmits the data we’re looking for, we introduce legislation which requires all commodes built and sold after a certain year must be outfitted with this technology. We’re not blazing any trails with this method either. It’s been done with low flow plumbing fixtures, light bulbs, even the way a TV receives a signal. It should be no problem to extend these types of laws to toilets as well.”
“Ok,” the manager conceded. “What about the American people who don’t really want to share their bathroom habits with the government? How are you going to get past that part? People like their privacy, you know.”
“First of all,” responded the intern, “we already have an individual mandate which dictates Americans purchase health insurance. That’s enforced through the IRS. At the same time, we require physicians to keep electronic records on all of their patients which we can tap into anytime we want to. We have scanners in airports which have the ability to provide us with certain medical information about anyone who travels via air.
The American people have become sheep on issues of their privacy. Unless you’re telling them they can’t own or gun or have an abortion, they generally give in to what we want them to do.
There will be an outcry at first like there was with the TSA enhanced pat downs, but after the new wears off, the opposition won’t be that problematic. Of course there will be outspoken critics who cry out ‘government conspiracy’, but we can do the same thing that gets done on all of the other initiatives we have in place today.
Ignore it and move on.”
“Very insightful.” The manager responded and looked to the other two interns. “Do you two have any questions?” They both shook their heads; one of them didn’t manage to completely hide a roll of the eyes from the manager. “Great. Who’s next?”
