Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Serenity Now!

Annals of the surreal: I just had a protracted, multi-email exchange with one of our more useless office denizens. Imagine, if you will, technophobic administrative support in an era of the personal computer, and the hijinks that might result from that scenario. Said denizen is also a awe-inspiring master of that skill of window-dressing busywork to cloak the absolute stillness that comprises a normal day.

Window dressing requirements have led this person to pretend to create a bunch of useful forms in a central location, notwithstanding the existence of most forms in said location for many years. I myself have done many, if not most, because I refuse to write when I can type. Ergo Acrobat has long been my friend.

First, we discussed me teaching the creation of these things called "fill-in pdfs," because all the kids are doing it (again, as before, for years). Having better and more important things to do, I declined to provide the much-belated tutorial on handy office-support functions, and somehow some other poor soul got enlisted for this thankless task.

Anyhow, the technophobe office support denizen and I just had a protracted conversation revolving around the naming of my long-existent form and her attempts to "rename" (the illuminating clarity of "new office form" over "office form new" I presume you'll find self evident) when all she was doing was copying. Thus following this exchange were officious office-wide announcements, as though she were creating all of these things and providing valuable work flow.

In my grownup world, I think: how sad is it when your demonstrations of accomplishment involve taking credit for other people's whisked-off admin tasks, done 3 years ago?

No comments: