Twenty Minutes into the Future

I got a look into the future last week while standing in the present as I slipped into the past.

Okay, let’s see if I can make some sense out of this.

I’ve been going to physical therapy for the last two weeks for my aching back, which—praise the Lord—is finally showing some signs of improvement.

The facility is a cozy little spot on 75th Street, about a 15‑minute walk from my house.

The reception area is very small, and the first thing I saw when I walked in was a widescreen TV displaying the image of a young man wearing headphones.

My doctor’s office has a TV in the waiting area that seems permanently stuck on NY1, so I thought nothing of the setup at the PT facility—until this fellow started speaking to me.

It turns out I had come face‑to‑widescreen‑face with a growing healthcare trend called a Virtual Front Desk (VFD), or video‑enabled virtual receptionist kiosk.

While remote telephone answering services have existed for decades, streaming a live, dedicated receptionist onto an interactive screen in a clinic lobby gained a lot of momentum following the Covid‑19 pandemic.

This was my first brush with the setup, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I work from home and I love it, as it spares me the nightmare of commuting in New York.

But I don’t deal with the public. I interview people for my stories, of course, but that’s either over the phone or through email, and I use Slack to communicate with my co‑workers. No slight against this young man, but the whole thing felt a little… weird.

The screen dude directed me to sign in on a keypad to my left—his right—insert my credit card into a slot in front of me and then take a seat. He did everything your average receptionist does, only he was nowhere near me.

Catching the Wave

I was having flashbacks to Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 classic Modern Times, which features a tyrannical factory president who oversees and monitors workers across the plant using a large wall‑mounted television screen and intercom system.

When Chaplin’s character takes a brief break and hides in the factory washroom to smoke a cigarette, the boss’s face suddenly pops up on a nearby screen and barks at his hapless employee to “stop stalling and get back to work!”

Bear in mind, this was years ahead of any practical or widespread application of closed‑circuit television and security cameras.

More recently, in 1985, Max Headroom—“the first computer‑generated TV presenter”—was introduced to the world.

The character, portrayed by actor Matt Frewer, debuted on Channel 4 in the British cyberpunk TV movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future.

Max Headroom eventually got his own TV show on ABC and wound up as the spokesman for New Coke (after the return of Coca‑Cola Classic), delivering the slogan “Catch the wave” in his staccato, stuttering playback as “C‑c‑catch the wave!”

Here’s a little tidbit I never knew: In 1987, someone wearing a Max Headroom mask and costume carried out a broadcast‑signal hijacking of two television stations in Chicago.

The second video ended with the hijacker apparently exposing his buttocks and being spanked with a flyswatter. The suspects were never found.

There were no flyswatter incidents during my PT session, I’m happy to say. The man on the screen appeared to be from the Philippines, which has been dubbed “the call center capital of the world.”

The country’s business process outsourcing industry employs over 1.8 million Filipinos.

Outsourcing to the Philippines allows companies to save 60% to 90% on labor and operational overhead, which makes me wonder if that’s why this young fellow got this job.

I have several more PT sessions, so I guess I’ll grow accustomed to the TV receptionist—but I don’t think I’m ever going to like it.