Personal Journal

People Abrasion

Shit, it’s been a busy day at work.
Ages ago we had this cool man named Grant who every month produced a company “Classifieds” document where people could sell their unwanted stuff. Grant got a brain tumor and isn’t at work anymore, and the project was missed. One day at a staff meeting the No. 1 of the office said he needed to find a volunteer to do it, and, not having learned my lesson in the Army, I volunteered to take over.
I’ve been working on that most of the day, infuriating as it is. I do a good job of it, organized, edited, efficient. Now people… no, more like 1 person… wants to use me as her own personal e-bay, throwing everything at me she can, useless crap for 2,000 that no one is going to buy – crystal, jewelry, blah blah blah. And people are now trying to get their neighbor’s car sold in here (which HR has said is taboo; company people’s stuff only).
I’m just kind of pissed off, because I put out this FAQ on the company intranet on how to do it, how to help me get these things done quickly, when the deadline is. I’m always getting e-mails asking for stuff that’s answered already.
I’m not a people person, you know?
I’m sitting here listening again to Sarah McLachlan, drifting away in music that to me is very spiritual and liberating of my soul, thinking, you know, if things somehow go awry between Jean and I, next time, next time I really want to live alone. Me, cats, headphones, and a computer. That’s all I need in life, truthfully. I could be a recluse so easily (indeed, perhaps I already am).
Maybe this is an optimist/pessimist thing.
I’ve been doing some reading, studying, and thinking about the species and the problems with Libertarianism. As a friend of mine and I discussed (actually this was Damon, Jean’s friend from a couple weeks ago whom I find so trying of my patience) – the problem with Democracy is that it will perpetually gravitate toward socialism, and socialism imposes unfairness in the name of fairness. To this, Damon replied “I can’t disagree with you on that in this society, at least” Score one for me. One of the few points where he yielded to my logic. On most, we disagreed, albeit respectfully.
Anyhow – in any code of conduct that you construct to help govern means and norms of behavior, a few people will exploit it. It’s a given. The vast majority of people will yield to the Golden Rule, but in some given situation, some people will use other people’s trust (of others, or in the code of conduct, it only relates to scale) for their own advantage. Some will justify it rationally, some are just exploiters.
Maybe what I’m seeing, in this woman who is trying to make me her own private e-bay, is evidence that I’m too pessimistic in my outlook of human beings. You know, eventually, one of them is going to screw you. You know it! It’s inarguable.
The thing that is so inescapably beautiful to me about Christianity is this:
Sin is not in your actions.
It is in your heart when you act.
You can kill a man and be completely innocent of sin.
You can conduct a business transaction completely legal, and be guilty of sin.
See, that’s the essence of Christ. The jews were proscribing sins and salvations to acts, not intentions. In doing so, they lost their special covenant with god, and in order to open it to everyone, god himself came down and asked only to be listened to, considered, and hopefully, believed (I believe understanding of the whole message is an afterthought).
Yeah, I know, I’m no christian per se. But that has to do with more sins of the church, proscribing human sin to acts, not intentions.
There is the spirit of the law and the letter of the law, and where the two are in conflict, the spirit must prevail…

I digress. 600 employees use this classified system benevolently. One makes it a problem. I’m irritated beyond proportion because of the one.
Now, I’m not as smart as I wish I were. I register three chief criticisms of myself. I’m not sure what priority I would assign them, it depends on my mood, I suppose.
First, I’m lazy.
Second, I’m a linear thinker.
Third, I don’t listen to people because I pre-occupy myself with my own thoughts to the point of it being rude.

Part of my problem with this woman is that I’m lazy. She makes work for me to do that irritates me. And where there is some truth that she is clearly exceeding some standard of normal conduct, I find I’m also guilty of linear thinking. I tend to think I have to accommodate her, or provoke an argument that gets one of us to cease dealing with the other. When I decided to take this to HR and ask for some help, they had great advice. They said to just tell her that I have a network size limit to work within, and if the classifieds are too big, they can’t go out, so people will just have to limit their ads to a certain few, and post new ones only after they remove earlier ones.
Bingo! That was my answer, and it was a great one. Me and the woman have an understanding. Still, whenever I get an e-mail from her, I find myself irritated beyone acceptable proportion.

I’m working on a piece to add to my auto-biographical piece.
There’s a lot going on in the world, especially in the Middle East, which is someplace I pay particular attention to in the world.
It worries me, the atrophy of resolve in the western world, to stand against governments that are tyrannical, that support murder to the point that they use subterfuge and guise their soldiers as criminals to commit murder of innocents. It’s too complicated to get into here.
I’ve seen too much, I’ve had two encounters with history that make me essentially Churchillian in my politics. Hopefully itll be up in the next couple days. I need to finish those damn classifieds…



It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn