How I stopped my boss from replacing our team with ChatGPT for now

I work in customer support for a small parts supplier out of Dayton. Last month my boss started feeding our trouble tickets into ChatGPT to see if it could respond faster than us. At first I freaked out, but then I noticed the AI kept mixing up part numbers like 3050 and 3051 - those are totally different pieces. So I built a simple lookup table in Excel that checks the part number before any answer goes out, and attached it to our ticketing system. Now the AI still drafts replies but a human has to verify the part number match. Boss saw error rates drop from 15% to under 3% and backed off the full automation plan for now. Has anyone else found a simple data validation trick to keep your job safe?

3 comments

3 Comments

valc911d ago

My buddy down at the parts counter tried something similar with our inventory system last year. He was tired of the new guy grabbing the wrong gasket kit for the Ford 300 inline six versus the 302 V8, which look almost the same but aren't. So he taped a ruler to the counter with a mark at 9/16ths of an inch, and made everyone measure the bolt hole spacing before they handed anything out. Cut the screw-ups way down, but the boss still brought in some RFID scanner anyway a few months later.

baker.holly1d ago

Don't you find that happens all the time though? Someone comes up with a cheap, clever fix that actually works, and the higher-ups just have to bring in some expensive system that does the same thing but fancier. It's like stores that still let customers bag their own stuff with those old plastic bags, then suddenly they buy a hundred thousand dollar self-checkout machine that breaks down twice a week. Your buddy's ruler trick probably saved more money than that RFID scanner ever will, but nobody wants to admit that the simple solution was just fine. I guess it's all about looking like you're doing something modern, even when you're just making things more complicated for no reason.

jamesf291d ago

I see it a little differently though. Sometimes the cheap fix works great for one person, but it doesn't scale when you've got multiple locations and new hires coming through every week. @valc91's ruler trick was clever, but the boss probably needed a system that didn't rely on people remembering to measure bolt holes during a rush.