Grandfather Rice
Musings from a bit character


Unease - Are we all so blind?
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Mood:
Slightly over-chewy

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So.

This is going to be a little rambly, but given how well I know my reader, I'm willing to bet that the casualties will be minimal

I'm at my parent's house again. EG is quite ill, and as with all great timings, this week is delivery week for the project that I've been poking at for the last month. So I'm here with my parents, and she's home with her brother, sleeping all day and barely being able to walk.

Maddening.

I was having a discussion with my mother when it occurred to me (again) that the United States people, taken by and large, have their heads up their collective anuses. This is not some sort of poltical commentary. I'm not going to slam the president or make references to the repeated indescretions of sports team or some other sort of upheavel-du-jour. This is not some ploy with which I can shake my head at a particularly reprehensible class, or race, or legal station. It almost universally appears to be, with little variation of depth, people wearing their butts as sweaterhats.

Let's think about this a second. The phrasology chosen suggests several things. Blindness. Deafness. A certain impenetrable coloncurtain between oneself and the world. It lends one to think about a lack of common sense. Creating a fantasy world rather then choosing to live in the real one. An aggressive thing to suggest about an entire heterogeneous culture, certainly. Some would say even an arrogant thing to suggest. I'm inclined to agree with both of those statements. Any expressed idea that differs from the cultural norm by definition is a mold filled with molton ego.

Think of this: Do you like your job? Do you feel like you made anyone's world better by your work today? Do you go to bed at night taking comfort from the fact that, by and large, more people were pleased with the results of your efforts today then were displeased?

No?

Do you know anyone who does?

This is not, of course, to suggest that such people don't exist. I certainly don't know any, but that doesn't preclude their existence. But why are such so rare? Is it that they are limited to a single, perfect career path? Perhaps. Perhaps they've just decided to vacate their intestines.

In the course of what I'll refer to as my "Working Career" (Because "Pitifully written satire of a badly written fanfic" is too wordy) I have worked for (roughly) 3 employers. They cover the gamut of Small Business, Large Business and Government Funded Shop (In reverse alphabetical order). The latter two, however, had some things in common, chief among them blatant stupidity.

In discussions with my mother (a nurse educator) and some of her experiences mixed with stories from elsewhere (And elsewho) I find that this blatant stupidity isn't limited to merely me (As much as admitting that cripples my opportunities as a defeatist), or even my field (Which most call "IT" (Information Technology - The phrase means crap-all to me too) which is about as specific as the concept of "Oriental"). Blatant stupidity seems to abound.

Think on this: Have you ever had some member of your "Management Structure" express to you grave concern about something that you either strongly suspected or outright knew wasn't important? Did you feel a little pang of despair if the words "Mission" or "Vision" were used?

An example seems called for:

At Government Funded Shop, one of the big pushes for a period of time was conservation of resources. Any person brighter then an old-style red Christmas light buried under a rock, upon hearing "Conservation of resources" hears "Save the company money". No one really believes that any corporate entity is really concerned about conservation of resources. Disagree? Fine. Hopefully we can at least reach a peaceful Detente over the fact that with the sole exception of paper products, the average office building isn't exactly a font of conservation opportunities.

They started with the paper in the Photocopy machines, switching to this grey crunchy recycled stuff. This waxed in and out of fashion based on how many reports needed to be delivered to big customers. But the hilarity came when they started to put policies in place to save electricity. You can imagine how this went. Signs designed by paid professionals, printed by expensive color printers on good cardstock and then laminated in liquified seal toenails (Fine. You tell me what laminate is made out of. :P) to politely suggest that people turn off the lights consuming around the electricity required to light 2 60 watt bulbs. Way to go guys.

Then came the "turn off your computer at night" policies. Daily reminder e-mails were sent to repeatedly ask a building full of (by and large) college graduates to turn off their computers at night. "We'll keep sending e-mails until electricity consumption drops!".

Then, after noticing that some machines were still left on at night, they took matters into their own hands. They walked along an entire building of cubicles, turning off machines that had been left on.

Like the servers. The computers that fed the needs of a 24-hour around-the-clock critical task approx 50 miles away. When no one is in to turn them back on or, heaven forbid, get them running the way they were before they were shut down.

This example has run long. More on this thought next time. And just remember: Just because it's invisible doesn't mean it can't hurt you.



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