https://www.ft.com/content/c33322a7-eba7-4299-8172-4ce1d4e88908
She said she “counted smiles”. It was more complex than that of course: she didn’t do it, it wasn’t counting, and it wasn’t just smiles, but she liked the simplicity of the phrase and it made her feel good about her work. Most of it was automated but her clients wanted to talk to a human about the data. Her company paid the police a lot for the access (a cost it spun as ‘investing in the community’) and her job was to sell its value. She looked at the latest feed from the high street and counted the smiles.