I pay taxes, as do most of you. I grumble about it, but don't complain too hard given the relative comfort and safety in which I live. But, every once in a while, the government does something so ludicrous with my money that it demands reaction. Here is a big one, my nominee for knuckle-headed government idea of the century.

It's the personal assistance link (PAL) developed by some folks at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M. What does it do? Why folks, aided by tiny sensors and transmitters (the PAL), you can turn your computer into an anthroscope, "an investigator of your up-to-the-moment vital signs." And, what good is this, unless, of course, you have a medical condition that requires permanent monitoring?

Well, as the good folks at Sandia pointed out, it could keep you from making a complete horse's behind of yourself in any number of circumstances. For instance, say you were talking too much in that early morning spud meeting. Your computer could warn you to tone it down a bit. Or, if you have had too much coffee and not enough sleep your supervisor might opt (oh yeah, he could easily monitor your anthroscope readings also) to pull you off a critical job.

"The focus behind the [US] $200,000 effort, funded by Sandia's Laboratory-Directed Research and Development department program, is to map the characteristics that correlate to 'personal best' performances," according to Sandia. Like me, are you beginning to see something sinister here? First, do I want a computer to tell me what my personal best performance is? Second, do I want my boss to know when I am not capable of it? Third, which company is going to pay the cost of this?

For argument's sake, let's imagine this "personal monitor" deployed across a drilling crew. On change day, we hook all the incoming crew up - and discover they are all hung over and not up to their personal best performances. We send them to bed and hold the other crew over. That's not good.

On day two, we discover that Bobby the driller has a personal issue with Sid the derrickman over a waitress at the Dew Drop Inn and tension is close to the surface. Away they go to cool off, with the rest of the crew since none of the floor hands can work derricks much less run the brake.

Day three dawns with the computer notification that Bill "Skunky" Pool, the motorman, is not up to his personal best. Further investigation reveals he has been falsifying maintenance records for over a year. He's out of there. Duane, the cook, is hustled in and given a quick primer in monitoring gauges, which means the crew will have to eat beans and wieners for the rest of the hitch. That does not set well with the computer, which registers a new not-personal-best reading for the crew.

By day four a new acronym, WOPB (waiting on personal best) regularly appears on the morning report. The crew is not exactly making hole, which is, of course, not a personal best for any of them. And so on, and so on.

That's not, perhaps, an accurate depiction but, if read the material right, it may not be far off. I don't know that I ever spent a day on a rig or on a lease when every hand was at his personal best. And I don't see the logic in replacing knowledgeable people with less experienced people because someone is not at their personal best.

This system is being touted for jobs that require intense concentration. Ours is one such industry. I don't doubt we might be safer and more efficient if we all worked at our personal best. I just don't see how, in an industry scraping by with a decimated work force, we could risk using only people at the personal best. I'm not sure any industry could these days.




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