Friday, July 2, 2010

Adventures in bureaucracy

I work with some odd people.  We got a 59-minute early release today, which several of my colleagues opted to ignore.  I don't get it -- why stay at work if you don't have to?

Of course, one of those colleagues is also notorious for working from home during the evening and on weekends even when there's absolutely no reason to do so, so it doesn't surprise me that much that he'd hang out at work for no reason other than to hope the managing editor notices his dog-like devotion and throws him some sort of verbal Milkbone.

Long, long ago I sort of majored in industrial sociology -- I did the STS track in social sciences at Michigan Tech with a concentration on technology and work -- with a vague plan of going into human resource management when I graduated.   Fortunately, sanity prevailed, I opted for grad school, and wound up focusing more on history of technology than on any practical applications.  I could never supervise people.  I have a hard time as it is just watching from the sidelines.  I should be a mute given how many times I've had to bite my tongue.  There are so many days when the phrase "Are you fucking nuts?!" is just a nanosecond away from being heard. 

Then again, maybe it's just something about the organizational culture at Large Nameless Agency.  I don't recall having quite so many *head*desk* moments at other jobs.

I really miss Omaha.

1 comment:

  1. I had a boss once who told me that I should not leave at the same time the secretaries and hourly employees left, that I should stay longer since I was salaried. I didn't quite get the point since I was getting my work done and in fact had free time many days. Some people are just into how things look, not the reality of the work.

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