Work Is a Four Letter Word (1968)

David Waller: Mr. Price

Quotes 

• Valentine Brose : You can't come in here.

  Mr. Price : I beg your pardon?

  Valentine Brose : This is the managing director's office.

  Mr. Price : I am the managing director.

  Valentine Brose : Well, you won't hold that job down long if you let strange men come wandering in and out of your office. Excuse me.

  [leaves] 

• Mr. Price : Are you some kind of a nit?

  Valentine Brose : Uh, yes, I think so, but you've nothing to worry about.

• Mr. Price : This is the cylinder. This is where the real work gets done. When the piston is here, in this position, at one end of its stroke, the steam *forces* into him, and pushes the piston back to here, in this position, at the other end of its stroke.

  [to his dog] 

  Mr. Price : You see, Allister? Good boy. Got it in one.

• Mr. Price : Automation as we know it at present has replaced the human operator only in those fields where two basic functions are being performed: the production of energy in order to perform work, and the exercise of simple judgment and control. So far as the second of these is concerned, the replacement of the human agency by the mechanical agency is even now still only in its infancy. Historically speaking, the replacement of muscle came long before the replacement of mind. We are now, however, reaching a new and significant point in the development of instrument control technology, at which quite complex behavior patterns and therefore the ability to exercise judgment can be built into our automatic handling machinery. As a self-processing control instrument, even the human brain is by no means foolproof, and - and until recently even the most sophisticated control system would be subject to measurable error through imperfect instrumentation as well as *human* fallibility, that is to say through faulty programming or human interference and misuse.

• Mr. Price : Arkwright, do you ever get the sensation that, although you're in complete control of the events surrounding you, there is something happening just out of vision, which if only you could see it clearly, would make all your actions absolutely meaningless?

  Mr. Arkwright : No sir, I don't think so.

  Mr. Price : No, Arkwright, I don't believe you do.

• Mr. Price : Anthony, I'm sure your views on how to run this organization would make fascinating reading. I intend to give you the leisure in which to pursue your thesis by relieving you of your duties here. Now gentlemen, any other business?

• Mr. Price : That says "mushrooms" on those boxes.

  Valentine Brose : Yeah, doesn't it?

  Mr. Price : So they're mushrooms, are they?

  Valentine Brose : Um... no. That's the maker's name. Capital letters. Capital M, capital U, Shrooms. Mervin Ulrich Shrooms, sea merchant.

• Mr. Price : This is a fully automated power station, Brose. It doesn't need human beings. It doesn't want them. It only tolerates them so long as they confine themselves to harmless and unnecessary functions such as sweeping out restrooms that do not require sweeping out. Any other sort of activity and you know what will happen to you, Brose?

  Valentine Brose : I do not know what will happen to me, Brose.

  Mr. Price : It will chew you up and spit you out like a used plastic bag.

• Mr. Price : You seem to have been giving a bit of trouble, Brose.

  Valentine Brose : I wouldn't say that.

  Mr. Price : You wouldn't?

  Valentine Brose : It would be silly of me, wouldn't it?

  Mr. Price : What would?

  Valentine Brose : To say that. I mean if I said that...

  Mr. Price : Brose... I don't want any of your funny stuff, Brose. You've managed to reduce Mrs. Murray to a jelly but you're wasting your time trying that on with me.

  Valentine Brose : I am?

  Valentine Brose : You are. I want you to listen to me. She's not a game.

• Mr. Price : You invented the problem, Mrs. Murray, so you solve it!