The Bizarre World of Bureaucracy

It's Monday morning, the busiest time of the busiest day of the week.  Our new boss has decided to invite our tech person to come to our building to give staff training in -- wait for it -- smart phones and iPads.  Now, not only is it pretty irrelevant to what we do, although they try to justify this training by saying it will help us help patrons, this enforced training is insulting in that at my salary I will never in my wildest dreams be able to afford either of these gadgets.  But I decided to keep my mouth shut.


I really don't want to offend my new boss.


But when he asked afterwards if we thought we were going to go out and get a new smart phone, how could I not say that at my salary I was going to run right out to get one.  Meanwhile, I spent the morning worrying about the car trouble that was being investigated by the mechanic across the street.


Sometime on my day off last week, the wallpaper was scraped off the wall in the kitchen.  Even I was amazed at this project, as things are in such disrepair at the branch that rewallpapering the kitchen could not possibly have been on anybody's to-do list.  Turns out that health inspectors were in, and noticed some peeling wallpaper, and something that could possibly have been mold underneath it, which could possibly have created a health risk.


Unlike the large plastic floor tiles in our tiny workroom that we periodically trip over, and which are decidedly a health risk.


I believe our health inspectors have it out for myself and my fellow workers.  A couple of years ago, they ordered the stovetop in our kitchen removed, as it posed a fire risk.  Although, come to think of it, in the thirty-some years of the building's existence -- not one fire caused by our stove-top.


Maybe next time they're in, they'll trip over the loose tiles and order them removed.  Or maybe not.