Eli Saslow

And she would at least say, okay, what do you want?

Or, all right, I'll hear this joke.

I probably heard this thing tell at least 100 jokes.

Some of them are terrible, but some of them sort of catch you off guard enough that they're a little bit charming.

And the other thing about the jokes for LEQ is that because it's monitoring everything, it dials in its jokes to meet you where you are.

And in Jan's case, one of the things that this machine picked up on pretty quickly is that Jan really likes music and often really likes sort of old time country music.

she would turn her radio nearby onto an old country station and LEQ, because it was sitting there monitoring, listening, could tell the songs that it was playing.

And so one day, out of nowhere, on one of those eight attempts to be proactive, LEQ shifted on the desk and turned to her and said, Have you heard about the Dolly Parton diet?

Hey, Jan, have you ever heard of the Dolly Parton diet?

She likes Dolly Parton.

She was curious.

She turned back and she said, no, what's that?

You go lean, go lean, go lean, go lean.

And Jen, in spite herself, started to laugh.

It was funny.

And suddenly, instead of turning away from this machine again and again, a little part of her started to lean in.

Yes.

This machine is unbelievably persistent, right?

It is going to do everything it possibly can to work its way into her day.

And over time, it starts to do that a little bit.