Project Gutenberg 2008-08-01 Public domain in the USA. 100 Slesar, Henry 1927 2002 Leslie, O. H. Mitchell, Clyde Jarvis, E. K. The Success Machine Reading ease score: 79.9 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net "The Success Machine" by Henry Slesar is a satirical science fiction novella written during the late 1950s. It presents a futuristic corporate environment centered around a machine called the Personnelovac, designed to evaluate employees and streamline the hiring and firing process. The main topic of the book explores the consequences of over-reliance on technology and the effects of mechanical decision-making on human resources. The story follows Ralph Colihan, a personnel manager at General Products, as he grapples with the unexpected and brutal efficiency of the Personnelovac, which often produces "pink cards" recommending employee dismissals based on its cold, analytical results. As the number of firings escalates, Colihan begins to question the machine's infallibility and the implications of its lack of human touch. The tension builds as he worries about becoming the machine's next victim. Ultimately, the story culminates in a poignant revelation about the dangers of relying solely on mechanistic evaluations that fail to account for human nuances, leading to Colihan's eventual dismissal as he becomes a casualty of the very system he has operated within. Through humor and irony, Slesar critiques the depersonalization of corporate culture and the inherent flaws of allowing machines to dictate human fates. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Science fiction, American PS Text Science Fiction Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction 51465 51470 2024-10-11T09:05:27.142845 2023-09-11T11:33:23.836119 text/html text/html 47979 2021-01-03T22:40:37 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 74296 2021-01-03T22:40:37 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 140644 2024-10-11T09:05:31.757858 application/epub+zip 139471 2024-10-11T09:05:29.034838 application/epub+zip 85007 2024-10-11T09:05:27.752841 application/epub+zip 306394 2024-10-11T09:05:33.651823 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 298384 2024-10-11T09:05:30.949979 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 151051 2022-09-12T08:21:38.624626 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 44501 44400 2024-10-11T09:05:26.809859 2023-09-11T11:33:23.609090 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 44375 2021-01-03T22:40:37 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 17203 2021-01-03T22:40:37 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 20046 2024-10-11T09:05:33.795794 application/rdf+xml 13682 2024-10-11T09:05:28.312838 image/jpeg 3629 2024-10-11T09:05:28.023867 image/jpeg 140134 2024-10-11T09:05:27.151859 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia