a) In that case, in the story it did get off the ground so it must have been tolerable.
b) Criticizing the frequency of instructions is a pretty weak argument against the story plot since it's not critical to the plot. If 1 minute instructions bothers you a lot, imagine the story says they are 2 or 5 minute instructions, or a wristwatch screen with your next instruction on it.
I thought that was the implication. Initially, Manna was actually an improvement on a human.
Oldie but goodie. A piece of fiction describing how a computer system can do the job of human managers at fast food restaurants (scarily plausible), how this leads to a dystopia (slowly getting implausible), and how to avoid this scenario and reach utopia (give me a break).