The Domino's pizza dance

Pizza for Sunday lunch is a ritual. First it is a why-not, then it becomes the rule. Everybody likes it. Once a week, Minh does not have to think about what to cook, his son does not have to do the washing up, and after all the healthy food during the week, it feels rebellious devouring the greasy pizza.

Minh used to get his pizza from Sainsbury’s while doing the shopping, saving time, but now the pizza counter has closed. Wrong decision, but anyway, so he had to get one from Domino’s. Domino’s is actually not far from his house, just not on the way.

The Domino’s has a glass window so that customers can watch the pizzarista (is that a word?) making it. Minh watched with amazement. The hands move gracefully but surely, the sequence optimised: taking the nicely risen dough from a box, spreading it out with the palms of the hands, semolina on the surface and the dough, then a few tosses to show off its elasticity, then tomato sauce, cheese, the topping, and into the oven. All the movements are optimised, yet they look like a dance, a performance.

Is this the future? Minh thought. All of us putting on a performance for each other. These tasks do not have to be performed by hand any more, or at least, do not have to be shown to customers. But showing to customers Domino’s does, and appreciating it, Minh does. Minh himself works as a consultant, doing experiments for his clients, but isn’t a lot of his time spent on writing up reports, presenting results, putting on a show, so to speak?

As machines, and now AIs, take over jobs, first agricultural, then industrial, then white-collar, all that is left could well be performances.