I have no ideas. I am currently listening to some rambling in the background which happens to be a conference call. I sometimes wonder why people get paid to attend meetings that accomplish nothing. At this moment I think there are 10 people on this conference call, all talking about dates and when this dumb project is supposed to get done. Who cares?!
I think most jobs and careers are man-made obstacles to create more problems which require more meetings and more people with college educations to feel good about hearing themselves talk. Kind of like blogging, only you get paid for it. I get very tired of hearing how smart people are because they know how to make problems get bigger. Why not create more meetings?
Since you probably don't know, I work in Information Technology... which you would think would be full of people finding ways to do things more efficiently... but no. IT is nothing more than a field where people add as many obstacles as possible to make life even MORE difficult. To me, the addition of all the servers and operating systems and software out there that is designed to make life easier has in fact made life harder. I'm on call one week a month for 24 hours a day, and technically I'm on call every day. For some reason, the servers that I work on must be as important as a human life, because only doctors and dentists work these same hours.
This can all be summed up in a theory I learned in my Women's Studies course I took in college (yes I learned all about The History of Women in Science and Technology, which is why I landed my beautiful wife).
I call it The Washing Machine theory.
Here's the deal. Washing machines were invented with the premise of giving women more time in their lives to spend with their kids, etc. (this was back in the day when women usually stayed home with the kids). Advertisements from the washing machine companies centered around this showing moms with all sorts of time on their hands. So what happened?
Well, the men of the time would usually only wear one shirt, one pair of pants, etc. per day. So, the wives only had to clean that one shirt, one pair of pants, etc. per day. It took some time to do the hand washing no doubt, but once the washer and dryer became a fixture in the American household another phenomenon took place. Because you could clean clothes faster, you could buy more clothes! So now, men were buying multiple outfits to look spiffy and the loads of laundry were once again building up. Hence, laundry was taking just about the same amount of time as it was taking previously.
So... now that we live in an age of networks, PDA's, pagers, and cell phones, we can fix things at a moments notice AND because things are running 24X7 companies and people expect things to get fixed 24X7.
What have we done? (sobbing on my keyboard as I get back to work)
1 comment:
Ha! I agree. Technology is backfiring on us. I love the washing machine and dryer, but next to the refrigerator, the dryer is the next biggest energy suck in our house. In some other countries, like Italy, it's perfectly acceptable to own only one or two fine suits, air them out and rewear. We are a bit over the top here.
I have a Dolphin Theory. You know how they say it benefits dolphins to be trained because it enhances their intelligence? It works their brain or something like that. That's how humans are with work, too. We need to be kept busy, even if it's only busywork we're given. I think there's a Wizard of Oz out there planning absurd circumstances for us every day.
P.S. You are brilliant. Keep going.
Post a Comment