John Oliver Demonstrates Why Customer Service Robots Will Never Work

The holiday shopping season is upon us, and with it, questionable business innovations. For instance! Hardware store Lowe’s is testing customer service robotsat one of its California outposts. What, because everybody just LOVED automated answering systems?

Well, John Oliver and friends—including Nick Offerman and H. Jon Benjamin, the voice of Archer—quickly found the biggest problem with this plan. Which is that home improvement store employees aren’t merely there to upsell you on high-end bathroom fixtures. They’re patrolling the aisles and busting up couples’ tiffs about cabinetry, which have an unfortunate tendency to escalate into marriage-jeopardizing blowouts about competing values. Home Depot, here’s your holiday marketing strategy.