Future projections

Big announcements about Windows 10 landed recently, which you probably noticed unless you browse from an ivory-clad Macbook, sanctified by Steve Jobs himself.

Big whoop you might think, and you’d think right. Operating systems are boring. But they also announced something pretty cool as well – holograms! Yes that’s right, the kind from Star Wars and that brought Tupac back to life. Oh, and they announced some fancy gear for video conferencing and writing insults to each other in stunning high resolution but the real focus here is the holograms.

We’ll ignore for the time being that you’ll look like a tool by stumbling around with a plastic band around your face, and also that you’ll probably end up falling down several flights of stairs while futilely shouting “Undo! Undo!”

Let’s instead look on the bright side: holograms could do wonders for changing the office environment and how HR interacts in the workplace.

For one, forget that drab little office. Your office will look like whatever you want it to. Beach in Malibu? Check. Tropical rainforest? Check. Sleazy Russian drug den? Check. (Hey, each to their own.)

Interviewees need never arrive in person. Interviews will be conducted with their avatars, thus avoiding most kinds of discrimination we’re familiar with, while also bringing up a whole new kind. Is it discrimination to be biased against the person who represents themselves as a twenty foot war elephant, even if they are ideally qualified for the role? Who does it say more about, the person who chooses to be represented as an elephant, or the person who discriminates against those who look like elephants?

Truly questions for finer minds. But one thing we know for certain is that now your interviewees won’t need to imagine you naked in order to relax.

And assume these goggles become ubiquitous accessories – the possibilities are endless. Oh sure he might look deep in thought. But he might just be watching TV on that wall. She keeps smiling and nodding in the meeting, but has she been curled up asleep beneath the table for the last half hour?

Once the line between reality and fiction is sufficiently blurred, that is an environment in which an experienced procrastinator can thrive. The future looks bright.

About the author

Jerome Langford

Jerome is a graduate in Philosophy from St Andrews, who alternately spends time writing about HR and staring wistfully out of windows, thinking about life’s bigger questions: Why are we here? How much lunch is too much lunch? What do you mean exactly by ‘final warning’?