I am sitting in my office, looking at a stack of paperwork. 90% of this paperwork requires that I write enormous reports that nobody will ever actually read. There is no purpose to these reports...They've finally done it. They've created nihilistic bureaucracy.
Did Neitzche ever have days like this?
When did it all go wrong, Burns? What atavistic monkey gene makes us DO this horrible shit to ourselves? Whatever happened to doing and being and real, honest work? How did reporting potential work become more important than actually accomplishing anything?
Let's dig up Franz Kafka and desecrate his bones, Burns, you notorious pervert. After all, the bastard saw this shit coming, and all he did was write a few whiny novels about it. He could have screamed and gibbered and TOLD us, MADE US LOOK, but instead he just whimpered and farted and scribbled some drippy stories.
On the other hand, would we have listened? Papa Hemmingway and George Orwell made us look, and we just burped and invented the TV.
And that stack of papers is still there. And flamethrowers are still illegal.
There's no balance, Burns.
Or Kill Me.
Neitzche or Nietzsche?
I wonder how your bosses would respond if you burned a stack of those reports right after turing them in.
Quote from: Regret on October 14, 2009, 04:16:03 PM
Neitzche or Nietzsche?
Fuck. Rant rendered valueless by poor spelling.
Way to ruin it, Regret.
In triplicate, no less.
I'll tell you when it happened. It happened in 1886, on the day when a SOCIAL FICTION gained legal personhood.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PAC. R. COMPANY
and now these social fictions have grown so enormous they've taken over. We're just red blood cells to them.
Good news, TGRR. Flamethrowers are, in fact, legal in more than 40 states.
http://www.gunslot.com/pictures/flamethrowers-are-not-illegal-own-over-40-states (http://www.gunslot.com/pictures/flamethrowers-are-not-illegal-own-over-40-states)
And they're on sale!
http://www.1919a4.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12091 (http://www.1919a4.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12091)
(http://i16.tinypic.com/6k7q2ic.jpg)
Hi Roger,
I'll be happy to shoot you in the face, but first i must dislodge the bullet from my asshole. See, I was trying to light a fire under my ass but didn't have any matches. Unfortunately, it backfired and I just shat out any motivation I had left.
My boss calls that nihilistic bureaucracy 'defending the value of your job' but, believe it or not, he's on our side. He's a motivator. HE knows when it all went wrong. Apparently, it's right around the time when we've gone from numbers ON pages to numbers OF pages. It reminds them of cozy money stacks, their woobie.
They've figured out that imaginary dollars and cents disappear when they stop looking and now they need something to hold on to, something hug, something to nuzzle.
We're the woobie makers, we're bottom feeders of the bottom line.
Honest hard work has been forced to go underground. These days Pride and Work Ethic is sneaking a customer a free candy bar, voiding a charge card, excreting in the desk drawer.
I have two assholes now...that's all the motivation i need.
Balance will be restored with the invention and free distribution of the bowel disrupter.
Quote from: Sir Remington III on October 14, 2009, 05:00:58 PM
Good news, TGRR. Flamethrowers are, in fact, legal in more than 40 states.
Alas, I am defeated by company policy. No weapons allowed.
On the other hand, I could perhaps get some poor fool to sign a hot work permit, and go nuts with a cutting torch.
Quote from: Burns on October 14, 2009, 05:13:44 PM
My boss calls that nihilistic bureaucracy 'defending the value of your job' but, believe it or not, he's on our side. He's a motivator. HE knows when it all went wrong. Apparently, it's right around the time when we've gone from numbers ON pages to numbers OF pages.
The bastard. He's right.
Quote from: Burns on October 14, 2009, 05:13:44 PM
It reminds them of cozy money stacks, their woobie.
WAIT! My woobie kept me warm when I was in the infantry. Money isn't warm. Money is greasy and clammy and cold. How can it be a woobie?
Quote from: Burns on October 14, 2009, 05:13:44 PM
They've figured out that imaginary dollars and cents disappear when they stop looking and now they need something to hold on to, something hug, something to nuzzle.
Just a damn minute?
Quantum money? Holy shit, you're on to something there, but I need to think about it.
Quote from: Burns on October 14, 2009, 05:13:44 PM
We're the woobie makers, we're bottom feeders of the bottom line.
I am a woobie distribution specialist.
Quote from: Burns on October 14, 2009, 05:13:44 PM
Honest hard work has been forced to go underground. These days Pride and Work Ethic is sneaking a customer a free candy bar, voiding a charge card, excreting in the desk drawer.
But...I like to
fix things. Machines. Huge fucking motors and blowers and conveyors. I don't want a candy bar. I want axle grease and pneumatic tools.
Quote from: Burns on October 14, 2009, 05:13:44 PM
I have two assholes now...that's all the motivation i need.
I have three. The one I crap out of, and two that I crap on, who shall remain nameless.
Quote from: Burns on October 14, 2009, 05:13:44 PM
Balance will be restored with the invention and free distribution of the bowel disrupter.
Fuck yes.
Sitting here, in front of the glowing screen that isn't TV, the symbols of imaginary wealth float by my eyes. A few zeros get tacked on over here, a piece of paper gets scanned in over there, and suddenly Mike Jones is $67,000 richer. Sort of. He can't see it, he can't touch it. Hell, he can't even withdraw it.
But what he can do is take a printout of the numbers flashing on the screen in front of me, and someone will see that he has a lot of supposed money, and they'll offer him credit. It's just like real money, except you have to pay us more for it! But the rates are low, only 19.75%. And that imaginary money isn't going to do anything by itself, is it?
And so one day, Mike wakes up to a knock on his door. Followed by a black hobnail boot, and a forest of nightsticks. "Didn't pay your bill. Come with us."
As they throw him to the ground and start beating him, the sound of the truncheons on his head sound familiar. They're growing fainter, and have aquired a clicking, ticking sound.
Not terribly unlike the sounds my keyboard makes as I try to wrangle the next set of numbers into column AF, row 196, trying to appease my electronic Mannon.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 14, 2009, 05:13:59 PM
Quote from: Sir Remington III on October 14, 2009, 05:00:58 PM
Good news, TGRR. Flamethrowers are, in fact, legal in more than 40 states.
Alas, I am defeated by company policy. No weapons allowed.
On the other hand, I could perhaps get some poor fool to sign a hot work permit, and go nuts with a cutting torch.
1. Anonymously post a declaration of war on the accounting department.
2. Slowly build paranoia in the workplace.
3. Buy a flamethrower + army disguise
4. Burn Accounting to the motherfucking ground.
5. ????
6. Profit.
Protip: Step 5 is "Blame it on the Russians".
Quote from: Sir Remington III on October 14, 2009, 07:15:09 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 14, 2009, 05:13:59 PM
Quote from: Sir Remington III on October 14, 2009, 05:00:58 PM
Good news, TGRR. Flamethrowers are, in fact, legal in more than 40 states.
Alas, I am defeated by company policy. No weapons allowed.
On the other hand, I could perhaps get some poor fool to sign a hot work permit, and go nuts with a cutting torch.
1. Anonymously post a declaration of war on the accounting department.
2. Slowly build paranoia in the workplace.
3. Buy a flamethrower + army disguise
4. Burn Accounting to the motherfucking ground.
5. ????
6. Profit.
Protip: Step 5 is "Blame it on the Russians".
1. It's not accounting. They are reasonable people, if you can call them people. This is all OSHA and EPA shit.
2. Step 5 is "Blame it on the Warehouse Manager".
LMNO, it's like even the digital money is greasy...like some horrible sludge comes up between the keys when you push them, and the cells on the spreadsheet have a horrible glisten to them.
It's all fiction, but it's all horribly real, too. It's how guns and drugs get into all the wrong hands, it's how they buy and sell people and other commodities, it's how they caught you, and it's how they'll keep you.
And what's really funny is that you can't even turn it off, because the same networks that support it, support hospitals and schools and emergency services.
It's a digital spiderweb of our own design, we built it and got stuck in it, and They provided the spider to keep us company...I mean, after they got rid of the wrongbad company we used to have, like Curly and the memoirs of Jefferson, and all that ranting and raving Patrick Henry used to do. He was a dangerous homegrown radical, that Henry guy, and we're safer without his bad thinking.
And Mike? Mike was fuel. That's all you know, and all you NEED know.
Sometimes I feel like I'm scurrying across an enormous building, tightening bolts, adjusting wires, adding a bit of oil when needed ... why is that oil so red? ... it's a never-ending job, I'm telling you. I'm usually up outside the higher levels, polishing, adjusting. Maybe a bit of paint, or scraping off something that was flying too fast, too high.
I can feel the rubmles inside through my feet, and the warmth, too. These days, those minor pleasures are all I can look forward to. I try to tell myself that it's enough. But yesterday, I did something I wasn't supposed to; I looked down.
You're not supposed to, when you're given permission to go up this high. But one of my handholds slipped, and the next thing you know, I'm staring straight below me. Man, it's a long way down. That's when I saw it. We were moving. You couldn't tell from up here, not easily, but we were moving through a huge plain filled with wheat, or maize. It was quite beautiful. We were slowly making our way through this plain, and as I stared below me, I could see that the lower sections of the building had scoops, and they were gathering up whatever it was, like a harvest, or something.
I knew I shouldn't have kept looking.
I knew I shouldn't have kept looking.
One of the pieces of wheat waved to me. She was beautiful. And terrified. And I just watched as she disappeared into the maw of the building. And I knew I was only fooling myself, this wasn't a building. It was The Machine™.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 14, 2009, 07:43:51 PM
And what's really funny is that you can't even turn it off, because the same networks that support it, support hospitals and schools and emergency services.
I disagree. Even these things are not as good as they were.
There's no compelling reason to try and keep them exactly as they are now. They might work better if the parts stuck to the spiderweb were torn off or burnt off with the web. Might need some fixing, but they've been needing that for a long time.
And the firefighters wouldn't be expected to report suspected discontent. (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=14489.0)
Service economy. That's what they call our disconnect with real work, our separation from basic needs. This desk isn't for your hands it's for your fingers and you can use them until the bones rub to dust, poking each key one at a time after the congealed blood in your digits stiffens them in an erection more perverse than the one you can't see on television. Our back problems aren't from manual labor they're from muscles atrophied after years in that nice comfy chair; one weekend-moving-into-your-nice-new-place away from throwing your spine into a question mark that'll drain your pocket and the health care coffers until you're bent so far forward that keeling over to die is no longer a euphemism.
We're all so arrogant, so sure that we're better off here than with our hands buried in soft, cool soil. We never thought to test that theory, it having been brain food from that big hand that reaches down to us in simultaneous pity and satisfaction, the one with the muscles that look too much like wires and the blood too dark and too viscous. Our hands won't be in soil until they're on the underside of it reaching up, even then protected by a smooth, shiny box. After all, we wouldn't want to get dirt under our fingernails.
We're all in services instead, doing our part to complete one leg of one project to keep one department afloat in one company keeping itself from flatlining in one economy. It's a diamond scheme with a maniacal codger dancing and laughing at the highest point, unaware of his own mortality and irrelevance only as long as the backs upon which he stands remain unaware of his existence. They're all looking down to keep their precarious position, the best of them a sudden breeze from plummeting. Follow their gazes to the end and you'll find a weary and abused body straining against the burden, braced by hands plunged deep into the earth. All they need to do is look up and see everyone else teetering the same way they are, but it's a glance they can't afford.
That was good, EOC.
I can't work up a proper rant on this one as I have not had to suffer it. I can however point out the horrormirth involved in OSHA requiring an activity that is likely to lead to repetitive stress injuries and the EPA requiring the generation of mountains of paper, thus necessitating the cutting down of even more trees.