Profound? Me?
I finished reading Bellatrix's journal, and I realized something... Well, something beyond that I forgot to tell her about the adjustments I made to her "list of good ideas" for the wedding. Oops.
Err, anyways, I realized that I never really use my Live Journal, except to post these things that really move me. I've thought about this before, of course, but it really struck home when she mentioned that I always seem to post profound things.
This is bad, I think. Being profound too often tends to set high expectations, and one thing I must always try to avoid, is people expecting too much of me. This is how I get by at work... most of the time, I'm just a presence.. nothing glaringly good or bad. Once in awhile, I impress somebody and get noticed, but not /too/ often, to where anyone might start to expect these things. It's a beautiful system.
So rather than being profound, I figure I'll just bitch a little bit.
I've worked at my current job for a year and.. almost four months. I work for the local government, which has been a true learning experience, to say the least. All those things you hear about nothing ever getting done due to excessive beauracracy? True. Things costing too much because the government has no concept of budgeting and wise spending? Also true.
Basically, the only way to get by working for the government is to essentially throw out common sense. Forget about it, because if you try to point out to people that what they are doing doesn't make sense, you become a pariah and might as well start looking for a new job. No, to succeed, you have to nod to the stupidest of ideas conceived by those who out-rank you, then find some way to implement a more reasonable solution, while also coming up with the best bullshit you can muster as to how your idea fits into their mad schemes. It's frustrating, at times, but ultimately quite an adventure, which I recommend to anyone.
Anyhow, to my bitching. The one real saving grace I had amongst all this mad beauracracy, was that I didn't work in the heart of the insane machine. Rather than working downtown, I had a job at a site a few miles away, where most of the blue collar people in the County were based from. These people also had computers (which is what I do, as an IT Professional), but since they didn't have so many, they didn't need more than one person out there to keep the network running... that was me. I had very little supervision, and since none of the chief beauracrats ever wanted to go near the site, I was away from all the politics. Plus, I made friends with those I worked with out there.
So of course, things being so good, they had to change.
Now, I've been moved downtown, and another guy put in my place, in the name of a few supervisors justifying their existance by creating a "disaster recovery" plan. See, this suddenly became important after 9/11 and the War in Iraq... just in case terrorists accidentally mistake Tucson for something important, we need to be able to go on. So since they reasoned that it was bad that I was the only one who knew my facility, someone else should be made to work out there, so we could know one another's jobs. So someone else gets my nice office, my free parking, and my quiet job, and I get his desk downtown, all the office politics, and to be right down the hall from all the scheming bosses. Yay me.
But, I shall overcome. I still like my job, and at the very least, everyone in my section is pretty cool, so it's not /so/ bad to be next to them. Now, of course, I must figure out where the free parking is. I've gotten some leads...
Err, anyways, I realized that I never really use my Live Journal, except to post these things that really move me. I've thought about this before, of course, but it really struck home when she mentioned that I always seem to post profound things.
This is bad, I think. Being profound too often tends to set high expectations, and one thing I must always try to avoid, is people expecting too much of me. This is how I get by at work... most of the time, I'm just a presence.. nothing glaringly good or bad. Once in awhile, I impress somebody and get noticed, but not /too/ often, to where anyone might start to expect these things. It's a beautiful system.
So rather than being profound, I figure I'll just bitch a little bit.
I've worked at my current job for a year and.. almost four months. I work for the local government, which has been a true learning experience, to say the least. All those things you hear about nothing ever getting done due to excessive beauracracy? True. Things costing too much because the government has no concept of budgeting and wise spending? Also true.
Basically, the only way to get by working for the government is to essentially throw out common sense. Forget about it, because if you try to point out to people that what they are doing doesn't make sense, you become a pariah and might as well start looking for a new job. No, to succeed, you have to nod to the stupidest of ideas conceived by those who out-rank you, then find some way to implement a more reasonable solution, while also coming up with the best bullshit you can muster as to how your idea fits into their mad schemes. It's frustrating, at times, but ultimately quite an adventure, which I recommend to anyone.
Anyhow, to my bitching. The one real saving grace I had amongst all this mad beauracracy, was that I didn't work in the heart of the insane machine. Rather than working downtown, I had a job at a site a few miles away, where most of the blue collar people in the County were based from. These people also had computers (which is what I do, as an IT Professional), but since they didn't have so many, they didn't need more than one person out there to keep the network running... that was me. I had very little supervision, and since none of the chief beauracrats ever wanted to go near the site, I was away from all the politics. Plus, I made friends with those I worked with out there.
So of course, things being so good, they had to change.
Now, I've been moved downtown, and another guy put in my place, in the name of a few supervisors justifying their existance by creating a "disaster recovery" plan. See, this suddenly became important after 9/11 and the War in Iraq... just in case terrorists accidentally mistake Tucson for something important, we need to be able to go on. So since they reasoned that it was bad that I was the only one who knew my facility, someone else should be made to work out there, so we could know one another's jobs. So someone else gets my nice office, my free parking, and my quiet job, and I get his desk downtown, all the office politics, and to be right down the hall from all the scheming bosses. Yay me.
But, I shall overcome. I still like my job, and at the very least, everyone in my section is pretty cool, so it's not /so/ bad to be next to them. Now, of course, I must figure out where the free parking is. I've gotten some leads...