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EVERYTHING DEFAULTS TO MAIN or THIS FUCKING THING IS BUSTED AGAIN.

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, August 06, 2012, 04:55:12 PM

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The Good Reverend Roger

August 06, 2012, 04:55:12 PM
Here at my job, we do fucking SCIENCE.  Material science, to be exact...And our material science is fucking AMAZING SHIT.  Our material handling, not so much.  Our science is The FutureTM, including making transparent aluminum, sapphires as big as your head, LEDs, and other cool shit.  Actualy, we just make the feedstocks for that shit, but that involves making aluminum rust (which it doesn't like to do), and doing so in a manner that leaves you 99.995% pure feedstock.

The problem is that our management style is late 20th century, and our equipment is "early industrial age".  Seriously, if there was a river near by, we could use a paddle wheel to run this fucker.  And the truth is, 98% of The Future™ is like that...Mostly the past, with spiky bits of futuristic shit which is mostly the past with added stress.

So I work in The Future™, and let me tell you that it is like a magic bucket of shit.  Dump in raw materials, and dump out COOL AMAZING STUFF.  But you have to ask yourself, "Do I really want to work in the bucket?"

The answer, of course, is "Yes, and I'd like some more, please!", because this future seems to be missing a few things.  Like jobs.  And a harvest (anyone paying attention to the drought?).  And humans.  We have loads of things that are technically human, but they aren't, really.  They're the food tubes maintained by The Spider, and while they get the job done, that's ALL they do.

They don't question.  They don't laugh.  They don't eat anything resembling real food.  They don't care...In fact, they are possessed with AGGRESSIVE apathy.  "Fuck you, I don't WANT to care."

It's like some horrible dystopian nightmare, one from which I cannot wake.  I want to grab people and shake them and yell "WAKE UP WAKE UP, FOR GOD'S SAKE WAKE UP!  WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS TRAP!"  But I don't.  I just seethe a little more, while I do the monthly financials.

Outside of my office, things are on fire.  Things are vibrating loose.  Things are falling over.  Bolts are snapping and beams are shearing and there's no end to it.  I cannot keep up with entropy.  We're all worn to a nub, tight as Goddamn banjo strings, and we all sort of make these low keening noises, the kind you might expect to hear from a dog that's in pain.

Or a structure that's about to collapse.

And it's not just us.  My friends down at the power station are in the same boat.  It's become a major strain just to keep the fucking lights on and to make sure the poop goes away when people flush the toilet.  We are all, in the trades, constantly on the razor's edge, with disaster just one fuck up away.

And I have faith - in the same manner that I know the sun will come up tomorrow - that someone will come along with a silly grin on his face and a date with the fuckup fairy.  Or someone will come along with a plan to fix everything.  His name in either case is Crazy Eddie, and he is the left hand of Finagle.

So when the lights go out and the great machine shudders to a stop...Remember that we tried, as you string us up from light poles, the failed wizards of modern society, who were unequal to the task of holding back the darkness.

Or Kill Me.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

#1
August 06, 2012, 05:03:04 PM
The Future™ bits have gotten out of hand.  They started feeding on themselves, but haven't really looped back to the foundations.  The only people who can understand The Future™ are the people who are already in it.  And most people don't even know how a 1970's calculator works, for fuck's sake!  And some of those people don't even know how to use a calculator!

How can we expect them to understand technology that feeds on itself, when they don't even know what information is?

The Good Reverend Roger

#2
August 06, 2012, 05:07:28 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 06, 2012, 05:03:04 PM
The Future™ bits have gotten out of hand.  They started feeding on themselves, but haven't really looped back to the foundations.  The only people who can understand The Future™ are the people who are already in it.  And most people don't even know how a 1970's calculator works, for fuck's sake!  And some of those people don't even know how to use a calculator!

How can we expect them to understand technology that feeds on itself, when they don't even know what information is?

If you look at a CNC lathe, it has this high-speed, low-drag, sexy-ass computer that makes all the adjustments to the cutting bits.  The computer is a state of the art, non-disposable piece of equipment that is futuristic as hell and never wears out.  The cutting bits break just as often as they did on the old-style lathes.  So do the operators. 

Fortunately, the futuristic-as-fuck machine doesn't need a skilled operator like the old ones did, so they just grab another person and throw him at the machine, just as they change bits when they break.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

#3
August 06, 2012, 05:24:39 PM
The Future™ is plug-and-play.  Easier to print a thousand procedure manuals that tells the worker how than having to teach a thousand workers why.

The Good Reverend Roger

#4
August 06, 2012, 05:29:00 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 06, 2012, 05:24:39 PM
The Future™ is plug-and-play.  Easier to print a thousand procedure manuals that tells the worker how than having to teach a thousand workers why.

They don't need to know, anyway.  It would just confuse them.

That's the excuse.

The real reason is, no one person can understand all of ANYTHING anymore.  We have become a species of specialists.  Like ants, for example.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Anna Mae Bollocks

#5
August 07, 2012, 12:43:49 AM
WE AIN'T PAID TO THINK. YOU GOT TIME TO LEAN, YOU GOT TIME TO CLEAN. GET A RAG AND LOOK BUSY.
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division

Salty

#6
August 07, 2012, 01:25:11 AM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on August 06, 2012, 05:29:00 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 06, 2012, 05:24:39 PM
The Future™ is plug-and-play.  Easier to print a thousand procedure manuals that tells the worker how than having to teach a thousand workers why.

They don't need to know, anyway.  It would just confuse them.

That's the excuse.

The real reason is, no one person can understand all of ANYTHING anymore.  We have become a species of specialists.  Like ants, for example.

So long as I get to be a sex-drone aunt for the queen I am hunky-dory.

As to the OP. Who's to say you should hold it back?
Why not just let it all hang out.
Or...perhaps...I shouldn't say any more.
The world is a car and you're the crash test dummy.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

#7
August 07, 2012, 06:42:37 AM
Someday, this will all be the Book of Revelations. All of it. All of the helpless screaming.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."

The Good Reverend Roger

#8
August 07, 2012, 01:58:34 PM
Quote from: Dear Departed Uncle Nigel on August 07, 2012, 06:42:37 AM
Someday, this will all be the Book of Revelations. All of it. All of the helpless screaming.

And our battle hymn shall be Love For Sale by The Talking Heads.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.
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