Organizations are like zoos

We were talking about work while we were getting ready to go there...

We need a new computer. The one we have the Smithsonian wouldn't even take...and Sue can't get her personal email at work. They--the IT powers-that-be where she works--have blocked access. It's work, and their reasoning is you're not supposed to do personal business there.

But email has become such an important way we stay in touch in life, and personal life and professional life do overlap now. There's no denying it, there's not getting around it; life has gotten faster and more complicated and people will find a way to get around the system to do the things they have to do in life. A progressive organization might as well have a system in place that truly reflects the people who work in your organization. A happy employee makes for a successful organization.

Such a controlling attitude...such an old-fashioned attitude...treating mature, intelligent professional adults like children. As if they all will take advantage of the situation. And some will take advantage; of course they will. That's human nature. But we tend to dumb down, and instead of cracking down on the slackers and the people who abuse the system, we make everyone follow the least common denominator.

Anyway, this reminded me of the time I was hired as a writer for a pretty prestigious software company. And on my first day, like everywhere, I put in my order for the office supplies I'd need to perform my very important function for that company: pens, pads of paper, and pencils. That's really all I need to do my work. Anyway, I also put in an order for a pencil sharpener, since I tend to use pencils. I just like the old-fashioned way of putting words down. It forces you to really think about each word. (An aside: one time someone I worked with admonished me for using pencils and not pens, insinuating that I was afraid to make a statement. What an idiot.)

Anyway, at this particular software company that is still around but not doing that great, and once I finish this story you might understand why, when I asked for the pencil sharpener I was told by the department administrator, some crusty old bag, that I couldn't have one because she had one and only she could have one.

You mean, I said, if I want to sharpen my pencil I have get up from my desk, walk down the hall to your desk, which sat out in the hallway outside the director's office, by the way, and sharpen it there?

Yes, was the answer.

You're kidding. Do you know how many pencils I sharpen in a day?(I should have just asked for a bunch of mechanical pencils, but you know how these kinds of arguments kind of take on lives of their own.)

I still had to go to her desk.

So I went out to someplace like CVS and bought a little battery-operated pencil sharpener. The look on that crazy woman's face was priceless.

My point: human organizations are some of the most bizarre inventions, and they force humans to behave, or allow certain human to behave, in very bizarre ways. We don't act human. Instead a lot of people tend to behave like animals in a zoo, like those crazy baboons with the blue butts who sit around on monkey island, masturbating in the open and throwing their feces at each other. That, to my way of thinking, pretty much sums up just about everywhere I've ever worked.