I wondered if I should, but did it anyway. I brought it on myself. Be careful what you wish for because you might get it. … and then it was too late. We are now bound together in a dysfunctional relationship, bordering on an obsession with one another.

What is it, you ask? Why, it’s my personal electronic boss. More colloquially known as a fitness monitor. And it’s been a mixed bag.

On one hand, our relationship has been pretty successful. My monitor has kept me honest – after all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure (thank you, Peter Drucker!). So I have upped my activity level. Along the way, I have increased my cardio fitness and lost a bit of weight. No easy task given that I am largely desk and computer-bound as I work.

But what an unempathetic boss my tracker is! It doesn’t care if the temperature outside is -20C or that the sidewalks are treacherous – so what if I am in imminent danger of freezing to death or falling while walking! Sickness? No excuse accepted even though I have a temperature and a bad cough. I can provide a medical note if necessary, but the boss doesn’t care. And the boss definitely won’t listen if I try to explain that I am hosting friends and too busy eating chocolate to get up and go outside right now.

And while I may not be permitted to offer excuses for my truancy, every so often my boss has its own unexpected breakdown without any prior notice or explanation. This usually happens when the monitor on my wrist fails to sync properly with the app on my phone or the app needs an update. All my hard work for that day (or week) doesn’t get recorded and I subsequently receive a nasty summary report that indicates my performance is down from the previous period. I console myself with the fact that I know I did the work and that the results will show in the long run. But I still feel powerless to do anything to fix the problem. The boss simply needs a better backup plan! I’m getting tired of this double standard.

Then there are the activities that I engage in that don’t seem to count. Somehow my boss knows that I have ridden my bike, but I get no credit for it. I realize that pedalling isn’t the same as walking, but it’s still a cardio workout and should count! I cry foul!! And the boss gives only reluctant credit for steps taken when I am out shopping – although it does not register the steps taken while pushing a shopping cart through the supermarket, it willingly gives me full credit when I hurry between stores in a shopping mall. I’m rapidly concluding that the boss is a linear thinker and not very adaptable.

And what a micro-manager! Every hour at ten minutes to the next hour, my electronic boss zaps my wrist to tell me to get up and move if I haven’t taken the requisite number of steps in the last hour. While I am aware that it is good to stretch and walk regularly, I do not appreciate this constant vigilance! It’s scary that my boss is keeping such a close eye on me. Doesn’t it have anything else to do? Oh … I guess not.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of my new boss is that it keeps wanting to sleep with me. Ok, I’ll admit it, for a while I did sleep with the boss. But then I decided I didn’t want to be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Things like the quantity and quality of my sleep, along with my nighttime heart rate, are private. The boss had crossed the line and I needed to set limits. So now it just glowers at me from across the room at night while recharging. But it’s persistent – every morning I am invited anew to sleep with it that evening. No means NO! Creep!!

I am not insensible to that fact that behind all these annoying vibrations and written admonishments lies a human being programming the algorithm – mostly me, helped along by the brains at the fitness monitor company. I have set my daily step goal at 8000 instead of the usual 10,000 because I knew the higher goal would not be achievable most days and would lead to a sense of failure. Eight thousand steps are within in my grasp and I reach my goal regularly. I have also read recently* that the 10,000 number was originally selected in Japan because the symbol for 10,000 resembles a walking man. Furthermore, a preliminary study has shown that 7500 steps per day seems to be the optimal number of steps in a selected group of older women. Consequently, at this point I am no longer convinced that the Holy Grail of 10,000 daily steps is precisely the “right” number. But the point is, I walk more than I used to.

The electronic boss has changed me in other ways as well. Instead of thinking in distance or time, I now more frequently measure my efforts in steps – 2500 steps to the nearest grocery store and back, 3000-5000 steps for my favourite walks through the neighbourhood. And I have begun to find that I miss my walks if I don’t complete them daily – my back hurts more and my mood is darker. Until recently I had never experienced the so-called “runner’s high” from exercising, but I am rapidly becoming a believer. Truth is, my walks energize me and give me a mental reset on bad days.

So, for now, my electronic boss and I will continue our relationship because overall I’m getting the results I wanted. But it doesn’t mean our relationship will last forever. For one thing, I’m not sure how long the boss will last before the battery stops charging, the warranty runs out or I lose it on a walk when the wrist strap breaks, but I certainly plan to outlast it. And I may outlast it because it helped me to do so. I guess the electronic boss isn’t so bad after all.

* In case you are interested, the article I read was in the New York Times Magazine in August 2019. Click here for the link.