Monday is Dumb Day

Dear Canadian People:

I’m surrounded by idiots.

The government employs the unemployable; this is both a noble and smart idea, to keep so many of the unmotivated and unskilled citizens off the streets. This labyrinth of bureaucracy also harbours the socially inept, the “clipping-toenails-in-the-office types”, the “chip-on-the-shoulder” types, the crusty old men and menopausal women, the “know-it-all” young people and the “silver-spoon-up-the-arse” students. Those workers with a light-bulb still glowing in the brain are eclipsed by a majority of public service zombies, whose prime source of satisfaction for the day is choosing the right colour of blue for the title of a certain spreadsheet, or having an argument over the font size of the latest memo, or discussing the pros and cons of embedding a formula and if so, to put brackets around it or not. Real power is relegating the university grads to “minute-taking” and fetching coffees … the last laugh will always go to unrecognized talent.

Ho and hum. While my neighbours hone their Tetris and Solitaire skills I spend my morning in a fruitless search for documentation to explain an inconsistency in a report. After lunch I reformat all of my very nice spreadsheets to match the changing preferences of on high, linking them to more documents that must also be reformatted. The inclusion of a decimal point mandates a complete re-work of all my projects. The rest of the afternoon I will be trying to find answers to an idle request made by a contact far across the country, part of which involves retrieving an email from 2002 and discovering a HISTORICAL BOX.

A treasure hunt beckons; this reads like a mystery novel. If the building had a root cellar, we may well find it there. Until then, my grey matter slowly rots. Whatever this HISTORICAL BOX is, I hope to find my sanity in it.

Ever Your Faithful Servant,

Jane Public