Monday Missions entry - Santa's Little Sweatshop

English is my second language, but I think I have stayed long enough to try to write a short fiction story.

Hopefully it is enjoyable.

October 2019, at the North Pole -

“...They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer game... Skittles, taste the rainbow...”

“Oh my Santa,” one of the Christmas elf complained, “Do we have to listen to commercials during our own song on Spotify?”

“Technically, it is not our song, it’s reindeer’s.” said the elf manager, Snowball Fizzystockings, “Come on, we need to finish this shipment in fifteen days.” She asked the complainer back to work politely.

“We need a union break.” The first elf complained again. Ever since the trade war, the Santa Company could not offshore their products. The elves have been working 16 hours a day.

“Union breaks are for humans...” Snowball sighed. He’s between a rock and a hard place. All of them had been working nonstop, but he knew billions of people depends on their little sweatshop.

“I wish I am an elf in World of Warcraft.” clearly the complainer’s gripe set backed others’ motivated minds, “They slay dragons, we build Nintendo Switches...”

“Well, I don’t envy these elves> The mother of the dragon and her dragons burned their town.” Once the conversation started, everybody jumped in.

“That’s a HBO’s TV show. Totally different...”

“Come on elves! Let’s get back to work. We just get for 15 per hour increase...” Snowball tried to get the production line back on track.

“I am done!” the complainer threw his tools on the table and walked out. A moment of shock, many elves followed.

In Santa’s Mansion -

“Really?” Santa had tried to calculate the situation. More than half of the elves were on strike. They demanded more compensation, and maybe a Starbucks.

His brain spun quickly for a solution, “I just raised the minimum wage. Everything costs more nowadays. Almost nobody made the naughty list this year. What can I do to fulfill the wish list...”

End of October 2019, at the North Pole -

“What happened?” Elves who did not participate the strike came to work and only to find out many machines took their places.

Snowball shook his head, “Saint Nicholas bought those machines with something called AI. They can understand the type of gifts children wanted without needing us. That machine can even sort the nice/naughty list. They made decisions on its own...”

“Wait what? Machines can do that?”

“Apparently can.”

“What do we do now?” fears had clouded their faces. Had they been replaced because of the strike?

Same night, at the Elves dormitory -

“What do we do?” The complainer did not expect this outcome. He just wanted the union break.

“I don’t know.” Snowball felt powerless, for thousands of years, they were the one making all the toys until labors, who were willing to work for less, much less. For a decade, the elves were enjoying their times. They received orders, they emailed them to East Asia, and they took profits. Now they lost their jobs because of machines and AI.

“It’s all your fault.” the crowd were furious toward the complainer.

Some cried.

Nobody knows the answer.

Anger consumed the elves, they tackled the complainer, they swung their fists at him. Situation quickly escalated.

“Everybody, calm down!” A shout loud and clear. Nobody recognized which elves this voice belonged to.

They turned their head.

It was Hazelnut Twinklewine. He was always quiet, sat at the corner, read his book. In fact, no one remembered he ever spoke, which was why none recognized his voice.

“Adapt, improvise, overcome!” Hazelnut said slowly and firmly.

“What do you mean?” Snowball puzzled.

“I read the machine’s manual. It’s machine learning. It uses decision trees to simulate our brain.” Hazelnut explained.

“What are the decision trees?” “I only know Christmas trees.” the crowd murmured. Snowball quickly shhhed. They kept the elves quiet.

“Decision trees is a machine learning algorithm. It splits data into parts by going into a deeper decision layer. At the deepest layer, it can make the determination via mathematical logics.”

That confused all elves.

Hazelnut continued, “If we can alter the source code, force the machine always make the opposite choices. The machine will swap the naughty list and nice list; write the wrong Santa’s letter; every child will get the wrong gift.”

“Wow! That was evil! Can we do it?” Elves saw the light at the end of tunnel.

“Of course.” Hazelnut said confidently, “Saint Nicolas will never know. He is the worst when it comes with technology. His password is ‘password’.”

Mid November, in Santa’s Manson -

“Ho, ho, ho!” Santa had his packaged his first order of Christmas gifts. He regretted to fight with the elves over this Christmas. He knew how hard they worked. But his pride had driven him apart from his feeling. He knew how difficult for him and himself to pack all the gifts. He did not want elves’ help even with his age and body shape, He’d rather do it himself.

Suddenly, the bag teared apart by the metal hinge of the sleigh. Letters, gifts scattered all over the place.

“Oh no! Cheap materials! Shoulda get the ones from Costco instead of Walmart...” Santa Claus bent over, struggled with his big belly. One of the Christmas letters had a damaged envelope. It needed to be fixed.

Santa took the letter out of the envelope. “Oh Jesus!” He saw the letter from the corner of his eyes. He started fetching other Santa’s letters. Geek Squad said the machine work out of the box. He did not check any of the gifts. They were mess. A little girl was receiving a hunting refile; some other boy was set to get barbie doll.

How did this happen? Santa baffled. He could lose this job. And with his working experience, and age. finding a new job non-technical job in this modern computerized world would be nearly impossible. His employment contract was signed back in the 3rd century, there were no 401K/403B back then.

Desperation.

Snowball and Hazelnut entered the Santa’s mansion, and immediately saw Santa sitting on the ground, stuff was everywhere.

“Are you okay? Saint Nicholas?” The elves manager rushed in front of Santa.

“I am done for…” Santa shook his head, “The machine has ruined children’s gifts.”

“Can I see it? I have read books about the machine learning.” Hazelnut asked.

“Really?” To Santa’s surprise, “Why have you read about the machine learning?”

“I just like to keep up with technology.” The elf replied.

It sounded strange, but Santa did not have time to think deeper than fixing this year’s order. “Please. My password is on a sticky note under the keyboard.”

Several hours later -

Hazelnut had re-trained the module with his updated source code.

Santa cheered with tears when the first product had come out from the new AI program. “How could I ever thank you?” Santa asked Hazelnut with joy.

“I want to train my friends so that they can also operate this machine. We can upgrade our sweatshop with more automated production line.”

“Of course!” Santa replied, “Then I will pay all elves as software developers once they are properly trained. I like the idea.”

“Thank you, Saint Nicholas. You are very kind.” Hazelnut smiled innocently.