Government Work

This is a throwback Thursday piece about a job I had once. 

Every morning, when you get up, go into the bathroom and smack yourself roundly about the head.  Don’t hold back.  There should be a significant amount of pain, otherwise you are missing the point of the exercise, which is to prepare yourself for the day ahead.  Additionally, ask members of your immediate family and close friends to randomly strike you at unexpected intervals.  Request in particular that they attack you when you are doing something they requested or something you have done for their benefit.  This will also prepare you for your work day.

The purpose of your work is supposedly to complete a number of tasks for which you were hired based on your expertise in the area.  However, any time you try to use your expertise in the completion of your task, you will be criticized and questioned, generally by those who do not have the expertise for which you were hired. Primarily, this will happen any time you question anything and any time you want to move off a prescribed path, no matter who prescribed it, but especially if it was prescribed by someone who does not have your expertise.  So, in reality, your work is to defend the areas of your expertise to those who don’t have your expertise.  This will take up the better portion of your work day.

Do not expect to be autonomous in anything that you do.  Do not expect to accomplish your tasks, but fear the results if you do not.  Most importantly, do not dream.  Do not imagine.  Do not get creative. Do not have a vision. Especially, do not use your expertise.  When you use your expertise, you are establishing yourself as an authority over others who want to be the authority, despite the fact that they do not have your expertise.  If you really want to get ahead, try to get into an area where you have no expertise.  Then question and criticize those who do.  This will ensure that you remain in a position of power.

The purpose of the self inflicted beatings is to remind yourself you actually chose this path over your previous path where you actually used your expertise with positive results. Beatings inflicted by others will help you stay alert and remind you that you never know from whence the next attack will come.  The beatings also serve to anesthetize you to the beatings inflicted by those for whom you work.

Those who have gone before you will tell you that soon you will just not care anymore.  You look forward to the numbness.