Back in the day when I worked for evil blood-sucking whores (sorry thinking outloud) I wrote a blog wondering what had happened to the good ol’ days where passive aggression ruled the cube. I sat in amazement as this touchy-feely kumbya fest unraveled around me all because I hurt someone’s feelings. Back then I was under pressure to perform, to produce. Ten hour days were a norm and I didn’t bat an eye… I relished them. I was the 15%. Winds blow a different way and I’ve found that passive aggressive wall, er cube wall in my current office of governmental slacker mentality. Produce the minimum, give your average so at seven hours and fifty-nine minutes the flood gates open and you can file out with the rest of the sheep to your barc-o-lounger in front of your plasma with your bud fucking lite. If you walk through the cube farm at ten past five all that’s heard is the hum of the tax dollar flowing through the electrical current into the computer equipment that almost no one is in front of.
Kumbya-fest has been replaced with grievance meetings and administrative leave, union reps and early retirement. I will never again be called into a room, sat in the preverbal small chair and surrounded by a gaggle of women who will proceed to berate me with angry sob stories of how I’ve changed. How I just don’t speak to them as kindly as I used to. Of course, back then, I had a title and cool little business cards. Sometimes when I was handed down a directive I could delegate the shit work to people that made less and did the shit work. I was not at the bottom of the chain. There were assistants that actually assisted. They took whatever task they were given and did it. They didn’t always like it… (or how they were shown or how their questions got answered) and who likes filing??? (If you raised your hand, call me I have some work for you! And some questions.) No one, but they did it because that was their job and saying “no, I don’t feel like it” was not an option. Saying no meant looking for somewhere else to say no. These days I am part of a bigger machine, one that is oiled with bureaucracy and runs on red tape. No one gets fired without umpteen chances to screw things up worse. If no one takes the time to take care of the bureaucratic bull shit they will remain firmly seated in their happy slacker world until they retire making more money for doing nothing than the guy who busts his ass everyday of his life doing manual labor. They will sit complaining about how someone wasn’t kind when they asked them to do something they refused to do anyway, because it would cut into their online shopping or solitaire time. 85%
Do I think we should walk around being passive aggressive… not really. Do I think we need touchy-feely love-ins… no. But I think the middle ground of write it up and down until your fingers cramp and never solve anything sucks too. All the while the 15% of us that do 85% of the work continue to work. More often than not we’re the recipient of a tirade or some form of passive aggression, from someone in that 85% who’s pissy because for once they had to pick up some slack and missed their e-bay auction cut off. Boo-hoo. Find a form and write me up for speaking un-kindly. Make a note that I laughed at something on the other side of your cube wall that you weren’t privy to and you don’t like it. Damn me for enjoying myself in spite of leaving my e-bay at home. At the end of my day pulling 85% of the workload I discover its still there for tomorrow and the day after that. I will never be without work. Whether or not I feel productive today I can work on it tomorrow. When five thirty comes around and I finally roll out the door I know I worked hard and stayed in that 15%. At the end of the day I get to hang out with my friends, share a good beer and a laugh while watching the sheep go by knowing I deserve to bitch a little about the slacker, but only a little… sheep, they will still be there tomorrow too. and the day after that.
