I've just received training to use the new, improved time management system that my employer is implementing. It has far more bells, whistles, fields to fill out and buttons to click than the one before, and I can only assume it's a wet dream for those folks in accounting. It probably can create dozens of reports from all kinds of perspectives with all manner of information. Wow. That must be exciting.
For those who don't come from cattle country, a shoot is a device that forces cattle into a less-than-happy single file line. "Doing this allows the rancher, farmer, or vet control each animal for inspection, tagging, etc." But, alas, as one of the cattle facing one more shoot, I can only say this: I am, as a cow, already domesticated, I'm already in a fenced-in pasture, I'm already trained where to go for food, water, shelter. I also have a variety of shoots as it is. I have tax shoots, motor vehicle registration shoots, health and car insurance shoots, employment shoots, flex account shoots, money account shoots, etc etc, and I know I have fewer shoots than the people who have own their own homes, or have their own businesses, or who adopted a child, who enlisted in the military, or invest in the stock market, etc etc.
What I want to know is: what kind of person needs to gather, organize, and spit out all of this information? And why do I have to have them all up in my business? And most importantly, why, oh why, do they always "upgrade" or "improve" their systems and inevitably eliminate the few perks I use?
"Improvements" always means less space. It becomes a smaller shoot, more narrowly defined. It becomes one with more sensors, with less wiggle room. Am I feeling a little claustrophobic? I would not have defined myself as a open space girl: the idea of camping, or living on a farm would normally give me a stomach ache. I would have defined myself as a city girl. But the city has rules; civilization, it seems, comes in forms to fill out, and sign, date, and don't forget to add your branding tag, I mean, your social security number.
Yes, I'm feeling a bit wedged in.
I find myself thinking of a little farm, with chickens and goats, with no clocks or calendars, getting up with the sun (and I am NOT a "morning" person) and eating when I'm hungry, resting when I'm tired, moving when I'm stiff and doing what I want.
I'm pretty good at that last one.
I've been alphabetized and accumulated, categorized and codified, defined and divided, rated, ranked, sorted, sized, labeled and listed, placed and pigeon-holed. Reminds me of Paul Simon's A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I was Robert McNamera'd into Submission).
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed.
That's the hand I use, well, never mind!
,
(I'm left-handed, so this song really spoke to me as a child. Good beginnings...)
I don't really get why it's so important to be branded. I would relish breaking free of my tag. Just cutting it off, like a skin tag.
What I do get is why this makes me dangerous, and why I get that look: "what's your problem? Why can't you get used to one more shoot? It's not like you have to think or anything. It's easy."
Moo, is all I'm sayin'.
