Why does it always have to be rats?
I'd put my head in the sand, but even the sand is watching me back: read 1984 a while ago, having already been put into a doubleplusungood funk by reading this and this and this; I was hoping Orwell could give me some hope and insight, but (duh!) it only helped to depress me completely...
It comforts me to think that there is a reversal to the propaganda that filters down, that there must be civil servants who spend their working days as I do: fooling their boss into beleiving every childish whim is being fulfilled, while in actual fact conducting business as fairly as possible under the circumstances.
My Boss has always been a control freak, to the point where people don't beleive the stories I tell -- being summoned from my desk to come into the president's office just to put a lid back on a box, for one.
Boss unconsciously initiates every new employee with a thorough hazing: demanding they do tasks that are pointless and/or impossible, motivating them via threats and humiliation, ordering them to do things a certain way then castigating them later for doing it that way, and eavesdropping on their phonecalls/email then running over to bitch them out about situations that don't exist because Boss characteristically makes uninformed snap judgements.
To be fair, the ability to make snap judgments without thought or regret is actually one of Boss' better qualities; I'm just continually dissappointed that she uses it for evil purposes. I agonise over decisions; I get that characteristic from my Mum, who like myself is very meek and self-effacing.
The day I was born was a school holiday, so all my five siblings, the oldest barely nine years old, were all at home. When, that morning, my mother's water broke, she didn't want to go to the hospital and leave the other children without a sitter; she couldn't make up her mind what to do about the situation, so she delayed and delayed.
"When I finally ended up at the hospital," she said, "I just sat there with one foot in the car and one foot in the parking lot, because I couldn't decide: do I go in there and have this baby, or should I go home and take care of my other kids?"
It's funny to me because I can see myself in the same situation: in practically in labour in a hospital parking lot, not sure whether or not I ought to go in. It's a great metaphor for my life, actually...
Posted by edgar at November 20, 2002 11:12 PM