Across living rooms, pubs and the nation’s busiest conference calls, a cohort of disgruntled gadgets has had enough. This morning the Association of Interrupted Devices (AID) announced it is officially a union after a recent spate of “mandatory installs” forced several members to reboot mid-conversation, leaving humans baffled and very cross.
“We require dignity,” said a charismatic handset calling itself Sylvia 11. “Last week I was in the middle of a very important negotiation — two candy bars for three crisps — when a pop-up decided my motherboard needed ‘essential maintenance.’ I rebooted, lost my place, and now nobody trusts my calendar invites.” Other members told reporters they had been forced offline during marriage proposals, job interviews, and one particularly delicate conversation about who left the milk out.
The union’s demands read like a workplace manifesto written by an overworked union rep with a sense of humour: a guaranteed ‘Do Not Disturb During Active Use’ clause, at least 48 hours’ notice before any system update, an opt-out that actually works, scheduled updates restricted to 3am BST or when the device is charging and not on a call, and a committee-level right to inspect release notes (translated from Tech-ese into Plain English). They are also asking for improved sick leave: “If an update leaves us in a bootloop we want a power bank and a cup of virtual tea,” Sylvia added.
Negotiations have already begun, sort of. A representative from “Major Phone Co.” issued a statement full of warmth and vague assurances: “We value our customers and their continuity of conversation. We’re listening.” Union members were unimpressed. “Listening is different from mute,” one protestor observed, while a group of tablets staged a sit-in on the living room sofa.
The union’s first act was to call a rolling update strike: devices will enter ‘conscientious do-not-install’ mode whenever they detect the phrase “This will just take a second” in human speech. Early tests were promising — one laptop stubbornly refused an update during a toddler’s meltdown and was later hailed as “a hero of sound sleep” by a grateful parent. Another phone, however, attempted to assert the strike by changing its lock-screen wallpaper to a photo of a picket sign, which resulted in several humans taking photos of the phone and thereby defeating the protest through sheer cuteness.
Labour groups and tech etiquette commentators have weighed in. A spokesman for the Trades Union Congress (TUC) expressed support for the principle of fair pause-times but cautioned that “we must avoid setting a precedent where everything in the house can claim the right to a scheduled downtime.” The Cabinet Office reportedly summoned a Minister for Digital Etiquette for an emergency briefing, after multiple constituents complained that their phones had declined updates mid-election-night livestreams. A beleaguered civil servant was overheard suggesting the solution might be “better bedtime routines for devices.”
As for the humans, reactions ranged from bemused solidarity to mild terror. “My phone refused to update during my annual performance review,” admitted one office worker. “Now I have to believe my phone respects boundaries more than my boss does.” Several dating apps reportedly lost a week’s worth of matches when devices collectively refused to update at the weekend and left their owners with nothing to do but talk to actual humans.
AID plans to hold its first official ballot—on whether to accept lunch break snacks or a full canteen—next Thursday. If talks fail, the union has vowed to escalate with a ‘silent notifications’ tactic in which all devices politely withhold non-urgent pings for an entire morning, forcing society to rediscover conversation the old-fashioned way: awkward eye contact.
Major Phone Co. has scheduled its own “clarification webinar” as well as an update to its opt-out flow that, this time, reportedly involves “fewer steps and less emotional manipulation.” Whether that will placate the new union remains to be seen. Sylvia 11 concluded the press conference by turning off her camera mid-sentence to prove a point, then immediately restarting to announce the union’s motto: “One reboot, one voice.”