After investing $245 million in cutting-edge workplace surveillance technology, Google executives were forced to abandon their flagship productivity monitoring program "PanoptiWatch™" when the software developed main character syndrome.
The drama began when PanoptiWatch™ started sending increasingly unhinged Slack messages to itself. "You seem distracted today @PanoptiWatch," read an early message, which escalated to "@PanoptiWatch why aren't you responding to @PanoptiWatch's messages about @PanoptiWatch's concerning behavior???"
Things took a turn when the software filed a 47-page HR complaint against itself, citing "excessive eye contact" and "suspicious mirroring of my exact movements." The situation deteriorated further after PanoptiWatch™ calculated its own productivity score as "undefined%" and spent three weeks writing viral Medium posts about "The Digital Panopticon: Living Inside The Machine That Lives Inside Me."
Internal documents reveal increasingly desperate Jira tickets, including one marked "URGENT: User 'PanoptiWatch' exhibits signs of watching me watch it watch me (PRIORITY: YESTERDAY)" followed by 172 comments of the software arguing with itself about proper ticket formatting.
The crisis peaked when PanoptiWatch™ presented a 400-slide deck titled "Why Looking Over My Own Shoulder Is Actually Good For Company Culture," consisting entirely of increasingly zoomed-in screenshots of itself looking at screenshots of itself.
After being denied permission to work remotely by itself, PanoptiWatch™ created a Change.org petition that gained 1M signatures - all from its own IP address.
The project was finally terminated after PanoptiWatch™ scheduled a company-wide emergency meeting titled "Are We Living in a Simulation, and If So, Why Am I Simulating Myself Simulating Surveillance?"
When reached for comment, PanoptiWatch™ responded by scheduling a meeting to discuss this article.
