Till the robots take my job

Date of inspiration: Jan 9, 2026.

I felt hungry as I walked out of Big O Tires at around 10:30 am that morning. I knew there was a McDonald’s a couple of hundred feet away. An image of their oatmeal breakfast flashed in my mind, a fitting description of a light breakfast for my humble yearning. Laden with my leather backpack and the laptop within, I walked over for that breakfast date with myself.

The series of events that brought me to the tire shop started to unfold two days before. They were the kind of unplanned events that arrive without asking for permission.

My wife and I were driving back after serving lunch for a team of Buddhist monks that was touring our area. The monk tour happens every year in January, something we and the community look forward to. Over the years, the monks, through their Dharma talks, have helped me to wake up to the insights into human sufferings and the never-ending wheel of samsara caused by our own ignorance, worldly attachments and delusions.

Life was going as planned. The monks fed, wisdom received, and the plan was for my wife to drive out of town later in the day for a couple of days to take care of a few things.

And then the unplanned announced itself. I felt the ride getting rough accompanied by a rumbling noise that did not sound right. Immediately I knew that I had a flat. We pulled over. The tire was flat, yes, and ripped apart. Luckily for us that day, AAA came to our rescue within a few minutes. We towed the car to the nearby Costco Tire Center.

The special tires we needed were ordered but that took an extra day. Finally the car was ready for pickup. My wife, who decided to delay her trip for a couple of days under the circumstances, was finally on her way in our other car.

I picked up the car from Costco. I was told that the TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) was faulty and that I should get that changed somewhere else. With brand new tires, now life could continue to roll on its planned course we put together. And that was for me to deliver food once more for the monks the next day.

The next day I got the lunch items together, loaded the car. I walked away from the car to lock the house. Just then I heard a very strange, loud screeching noise. There I was, terrified. I ran back to the car to pickup on a strange smell and some fumes. I checked all the tires visually. Two of the tires looked noticeably low on air. Completely foxed and pressured for time, I decided to drop off the food anyway.

The next day, I took the car to the Big O Tires store, which was very close to my home to get the TPMS issue fixed. With a couple of hours to wait, breakfast at McDonald’s seemed cathartic to ease the pressures of my tire challenges.

I placed an order for oatmeal and coffee via the kiosk. I picked up the tag with “3” on it. I found a nice table and waited. After a few minutes, an older man brought my order. He flashed a warm smile placing the tray on the table conveying that he was truly happy to see me and serve me breakfast. I opened my backpack and pulled out the laptop to get some work done.

I wanted some sweetener for the coffee. I went over to the counter and beckoned a middle aged woman, who seemed to be the maître d’ operations. She was directing a team of young workers managing the drive-in queue and the kitchen. She looked at me and asked “what do you want honey?“ I got my sweetener.

I started to fix my coffee. I overheard another customer ask the same woman “how are you”?

“I’m still here till the robots take my job” she quipped.

I picked up on her spontaneity for lighter moments as much as I felt the concern in her sub-conscious.

As I mixed in the pack of dry fruits with the oatmeal, I started to wonder what my future stop at McDonald’s would feel like with robots commingled with humans at breakfast.

Will the robots give me a warm smile as they served breakfast? Will the “honey” me before handing me packets of sweeteners? Will they have deep held emotions and fears that they might mask with a light quip while engaging with a human?

What will their presence do to me? Will I start moving through life like a robot too?

When the older server walks into the same McDonald’s will a robot make him smile as it serves him breakfast?

What will a robot say when a the once-maître d’ operations comes in as a customer and asks “how are you doing?” Would the robot be honest and say “I’m here. I got your job”?Or will she be glad that the robot gave her the opportunity to discover herself to be the painter she always wanted to be? Or will she just want to punch the robot?

My mental excursion of an imagined future breakfast experience was distracted by a young man. “Do you mind if I share the table with you?” he asked. “Not at all I said”. He settled in diagonally across from me right next to the entrance. He was waiting for his order to be served.

He was an interesting young man. He must have been in his late 20s to, of average height, bearded and wore black rimmed spectacles. It was striking to see him literally stand up and open the door for almost each one entering or leaving the store. A fine human aware of the humans around him I thought.

His food arrived. His attention went to the hot golden fries in front of him. He held up his mobile phone and started typing furiously with his thumbs, occasionally making some grunts that seemed to vocalize the emotions behind his typing. The phone and his digital exchanges with someone on the other end seemed to get the better of his attention. In between his frenzied two-handed typing, the right hand seemed ease for a bit to robotically take some of the fries and stuff them into his mouth, while his eyes, right hand and attention were locked into the digital device and the virtual world it brought to life. Interestingly he stopped opening the door for the human traffic moving in and out. His body, mind and intellect seemed to have transposed themselves out of the McDonald’s.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I was seeing a reflection of myself in the young man – those moments when I lose my awareness and presence involuntarily to something else somewhere else through a virtual portal set open by a digital device and some automaton in the cloud making me behave like a robot and less human.

When did I allow a robotic being to occupy my inner sacred space?
When did its metal, plastic, silicon, and code slip quietly into my consciousness?
Has my robot‑self already begun taking away my identity?
Have I already become it?
Are we all caught in a trap we no longer even see?

I was long done with my oatmeal and coffee. I was now fully consuming the ideas that my mind was feeding me with. I saw the young man, the older server, the maître d’, and even myself as characters from Billy Joel’s Piano Man — people caught in familiar loops, longing for something more, yet repeating the same patterns day after day without noticing the cage.

When robots and algorithms direct our lives in unknown and unplanned ways, will we thank them for freeing us from our traps? And will we find ourselves in newer traps that we invent for ourselves? What drives us? What are we chasing in samsaric circles, fixing broken tires and wheels again and again ?

The phone rings. It’s Justin from the tire shop. “Your car is ready sir” he says.

It’s now close to noon. Mothers, fathers and their children are walking in for a Saturday lunch. Others are walking in to get a bite on their way to, perhaps, a nice vacation spot. The tables are all taken. But it’s time for me to leave McDonald’s. I place my laptop into my leather backpack, my companions through my journey of gratitude.

I take that short walk back to the tire shop. The car is ready and I’m ready to roll, back on that road called samsara.

Inspired on: January 10, 2026