Plot summary
In the future of 1967, Wallace V. Whipple, owner of a vast Midwestern manufacturing corporation, decides to upgrade his plant to increase profits by installing a machine named the "X109B14 modified transistorized totally automatic assembly machine", which leads to tens of thousands of layoffs. Some former employees try to convince him that the value of a man outweighs that of a machine, but their protests fall on deaf ears. His plant manager, Mr. Hanley, reminds him that Whipple's father, who ran the factory for 40 years, while profit-driven, had a sense of responsibility to his factory workers, and their pride in their work.
Whipple coldly responds that while his father only "doubled" his factory production, his competitors quadrupled theirs. Dickerson, an angry veteran foreman, tries to smash the machine but is shot and injured by Whipple. While Hanley visits Dickerson in the hospital, Whipple is only concerned about his equipment. Hanley confronts Whipple about it and is summarily fired after being shown the machine replacing him. Whipple proceeds to replace secretaries with automated dictation machines, thinking that powder room breaks and maternity leave are inconveniences.
Whipple eventually fires all his human employees after replacing them with machines, which then turn on him (perhaps only in his mind) by spitting out the harsh demeaning recorded parting words of his former employees back at him over and over, driving Whipple to insanity.
Eventually, the board of directors find him neurotically obsessed with machines and retire him. Whipple joins Hanley at the bar opposite his factory and expresses deep sorrow at his misfortune as he rambles about how it is not fair that machines are replacing men, his poetic justice for caring more about machines in the first place. He also admits that he is lonely because he is not married and has no family and that he feels cast aside like a used part.
The last scene reveals Whipple's replacement to be a robot (Robby the Robot), which swings Whipple's key on a chain the same way he used to.
Credits
Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, The Brain Center at Whipple's. Paragraphs and formatting adjusted; illustrations, reference markers, block quotations and non-story material omitted.