Monkey see, monkey do

There’s good news for people who, like myself, have long been concerned with the issue of monkey productivity in the United States.

According to Reuters news service, scientists have discovered a form of gene therapy that turns lazy, procrastinating monkeys into workaholics.

All they have to do is prevent brain cells from receiving a chemical messenger called dopamine and monkeys not only stay on task, they make fewer mistakes.

And they work without expecting rewards!

(Indeed, this experiment has been so successful that scientists have turned over much of the research to gene-altered monkeys while they head to the beach.)

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this gene-therapy might also apply to humans.

In fact, this research has led to what I call: The Don Flood Let’s Outsource All Our Work to Monkeys Plan.

(Note: Both presidential campaigns are trying to pretend this is their idea. It’s all mine.)

Take this column. You may have read it and thought: Hey, monkeys could write this stuff. Well, they can’t.

And neither can cats, dogs or even squirrels. One species may be lacking in originality (cats); another seems unable to grasp the concept of irony (dogs); and still others are unable to resist turning every column into a long-winded rant (squirrels).

Monkeys seemed the best bet — fairly original, fairly creative — but try sitting one at a computer and keeping it on task. Good luck!

But let’s look at a gene-altered monkey:

ME: Hey, I need you to crank out a couple of humor columns. Pronto.

GENE-ALTERED MONKEY: I’m on it, boss.

ME: And try to make them a little funnier this time. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.

MONKEY: No problem, boss, I’ve got some real knee-slappers on the way. Anything else? You know me, I like to keep busy with no hope of reward.

See how great that would be?

Instead of outsourcing jobs to other countries, where workers — you know how humans are — would expect a paycheck, we would outsource work to other species, and we would keep the paycheck.

It’s what I call a win-win-win situation.

I don’t know why, it just sounds good, and since I feel some dopamine kicking in it’s extremely unlikely that I’m going to take the time to figure out what I meant.

Theoretically, I suppose, I could undergo gene therapy myself, but I’ve been hooked on this dopamine too long to give it up. (Why do you think they call it dope, kid?)

In fact, the world of work is just the beginning. We live in a democracy, but who has time to pay attention and vote?

It’s gotten to the point that journalists such as myself are the only ones really paying attention to the race between John So-and-So and President what’s-his-face.

And sometimes it seems even journalists are nodding off.

(Dopamine too strong … must … stay … on … task … must … finish … column.)

You wouldn’t have that problem with gene-altered monkeys. Heck, they’d be able to pay attention to Al Gore.