I wonder if black holes are any use in this communications system, or if they tend to be too out of the way.

Well, sounds like he could do his job pretty well, little as that helps them here.
"Do people where you're from do things outside of their jobs?" It doesn't actually go without asking.
"It's clear that you had a lot more robots and automation in your environment, but that actually makes it worse; we wouldn't have anything like that for you to work with."