Working for The Asthmatic.
I have worked for large companies before. It’s not something I particularly like but it’s usually something I can handle. It’s the statistics that make me cringe. The unilateral condensing of all communications into an indiscernible and totally unnecessary melange of numbers.
I have never thought of myself as a very moral man. My time on this spinning ball of mud is my own and I have been too enthralled to really take notice of the plight of others. A nasty and hard estimation but the truth. Yet here I am, working for a large conglomerate and finding myself fighting for “the little guy”, be that a hick from the outback or a struggling artist on the North Shore. And I think I know what it is. Somewhere and somewhen I was either on the phones or watching a programme and someone said to the programme's protagonist (or me) “I’m sorry sir, it’s just the system.” and the person on the show or the person I was speaking to said “ But don’t you realise, you are the system.”
So here I am, working for a large communications company answering the phones. Whenever I have come across a situation that shows the immense and inhumane ramifications of our company's “system” I have jokingly hummed the theme tune to Star Wars “Enter Lord Vader” to show my contempt for the rotting vine of imperialism of which I happily suck the teat. But it got me wondering. It would take quite a few people to run a Death Star. No doubt somewhere in that immense moon of metal struts and model glue was a call centre. Taking the calls of many billions of inhabitants over thousands of worlds asking “What is this new dictatorial oligarchy doing for me?” The office would be decorated in bright colours in a vain attempt to cheer up the workers. The workers, who are not volunteers, not slaves, but paid employees, just doing a job because they could find no other. And there they sit, unaware of the battle outside, telling the people under the rule of the emperor “No Madam, your credits will remain the same.. Well, yes of course they will deduct for a service not rendered… I’m sorry sir, did you read the contract?”
And then Luke Skywalker gets his end in. And the world blows up.
Statistics are evil. I don’t care in what circumstances they are offered. Average height of the eastern population, obesity in the western countries, shoe size of the average New Guinean, eighteen children will die by the time I finish this sentence, calls should be completed within seven minutes, six out of ten people will die from lawn motor accidents in a room full of lawn mowers. I DON'T CARE! SHUT UP!
We live. We die. Do we really need to be annoyed in-between?
I have never thought of myself as a very moral man. My time on this spinning ball of mud is my own and I have been too enthralled to really take notice of the plight of others. A nasty and hard estimation but the truth. Yet here I am, working for a large conglomerate and finding myself fighting for “the little guy”, be that a hick from the outback or a struggling artist on the North Shore. And I think I know what it is. Somewhere and somewhen I was either on the phones or watching a programme and someone said to the programme's protagonist (or me) “I’m sorry sir, it’s just the system.” and the person on the show or the person I was speaking to said “ But don’t you realise, you are the system.”
So here I am, working for a large communications company answering the phones. Whenever I have come across a situation that shows the immense and inhumane ramifications of our company's “system” I have jokingly hummed the theme tune to Star Wars “Enter Lord Vader” to show my contempt for the rotting vine of imperialism of which I happily suck the teat. But it got me wondering. It would take quite a few people to run a Death Star. No doubt somewhere in that immense moon of metal struts and model glue was a call centre. Taking the calls of many billions of inhabitants over thousands of worlds asking “What is this new dictatorial oligarchy doing for me?” The office would be decorated in bright colours in a vain attempt to cheer up the workers. The workers, who are not volunteers, not slaves, but paid employees, just doing a job because they could find no other. And there they sit, unaware of the battle outside, telling the people under the rule of the emperor “No Madam, your credits will remain the same.. Well, yes of course they will deduct for a service not rendered… I’m sorry sir, did you read the contract?”
And then Luke Skywalker gets his end in. And the world blows up.
Statistics are evil. I don’t care in what circumstances they are offered. Average height of the eastern population, obesity in the western countries, shoe size of the average New Guinean, eighteen children will die by the time I finish this sentence, calls should be completed within seven minutes, six out of ten people will die from lawn motor accidents in a room full of lawn mowers. I DON'T CARE! SHUT UP!
We live. We die. Do we really need to be annoyed in-between?
posted by Tobbë | 6:53 PM
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