A Small Victory: curse of the civil servants

curse of the civil servants

I work with cretins. Maybe it's a requirement of government agencies that 90% of the workforce has to have IQs lower than that of a turtle. And of those 90%, at least half of them must have no common sense, no sense of decorum and no class.

There's the two mail people, one older than time itself and the other a portly, greasy slimeball who stands in my doorway and strikes a pose as he asks if I have any files going out. Together, they look like Ren and Stimpy and I giggle whenever they walk past the door. The woman is a crotchety, belligerent drunk who probably was a whore at some point in her life. She tells me graphic stories of sexual abuse in her family, even though I am wearing dictaphone headphones (I don't really do dictaphone, but I put the headphones on when she comes in as a defense).

Most of the women here are over 60 and do not dress for success. They wear the badges of civil service; brightly colored polyester slacks, sweaters embroidered with uplifting sayings or holiday emblems, beehive hairdos and garish lipstick that is mostly worn on their teeth.

Is this my future? At some point, do all civil servants become freaks of nature? Will I start wearing polyster and washing my hair only once a week? I'm afraid, very afraid. I try to envision myself here, at this desk, ten years from now. I don't like what I see. I have this vision of myself, sitting at the computer, reading glasses perched on nose (glasses hanging from a chain of course), saying something like "Damn this newfangled technology! I could be home watching my stories on the tv!" It's not what I want to become, but I think it's written in the by-laws of career choices somewhere that I have no choice.

Ian came up with a list of career options, but unfortunately, I am not qualified for my number one choice of rock star, and street performance is out. I believe I am chained to a job where some days the most challenging thing is getting the New York Law Journal to fold back into the shape it came in.

I like my job, I really do. It's the company I'm forced to keep here that I can't stand. They probably don't like me much either, but that's mainly because of the Bible Pamphlet incident.

So I guess I'm stuck here, but I sure would like to have some kind of guidance as to how to prevent myself from becoming the stereotypical government employee. As it is, I've spent this whole day printing out Boondocks strips and covering my whole bulletin board with them. I've already mastered the "evade real work at all costs" law of goverment work. There has to be an antidote to the civil servant curse. Garlic cloves, wooden stakes, holy water - someone give me a clue as to how to combat the evil that is getting ready to plague me.

A Small Victory

curse of the civil servants

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