September 14, 2010

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Today I worked at the library as a substitute, meaning I only go there for one day. I was shelving some books on CD and was having a hard time moving things around because there were these little metal shelves sticking up every 1 foot. What it looks like, is, instead of one long shelf it was a long shelf divided into 8 or so little cubby shelves. It was not good for moving things or sorting things easily.

I asked Anna how she felt about it and she said,"awful." Tony chimed in with, "Me and Chris took them off as soon as we opened up, and then we were told we had to put them back up."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Someone got paid to put them into the shelves so we have to leave them up."

And I said, "But that doesn't make any sense."

And he said, "I talked to Mary and she said we can't move them."

And I said, "So you can't move them because someone was paid money to put them in?."

And he said, "Yep. I hate them. And you have to go through four people in order to make a decision."

"BUT THAT DOESN"T MAKE ANY SENSE!" I said.

So what this translates to me is: There are people working at a place. And when they are working there, they interact with the things. They start to come to realizations about functioning ways to interact with the things. They find that when they interact with the things, some things are easy to do, and align with body and environmental needs, and some things are just confusing. And then there is this outside thing, usually a group of people who ally themselves with the identity of DoGooder that is saying, "well we made this decision, so we will go with it. Despite all the real life evidence that it is no good, and that it does not serve a purpose that is a real purpose, we will stick with it." And then the people working at the place exist in crises mode for days and weeks and even years, because they aren't meant to function in the environments they are forced to function, in but they can find no alternative that meets their needs.

Once again, the day was ruined by beauracracy, capitalism, and its fantastically heavy hand.

It's the end of the world as we know it.