August 20, 2009

• Stricken

  I guess one can’t argue that one has been stricken unless one’s really been stricken with one of those terminal diseases. God, I hope I’ve not just done myself in.

  
  Photo: Flickr Commons: Powerhouse Museum Collection

  And yet, stricken is how I’ve felt this week. Stricken, to be exact, with what we call in Cantonese (phonetically) “mmm-jee-joy.” Loosely translated, a sense of unease, foreboding: an unsettled-ness that has me peering around every corner, wondering when the next “left hook” or “upper cut” is coming from.

  To be clear, all of this refers to the environs of my work, and nothing else. That’s what happens when one can count on only the following axiom: “there is the logical, sensible, efficient, economical way and then there is [our] way.”

  Tragically, in such situations, it leaves exceptional employees both under-utilized AND inundated with minutiae as well as disheartened in their efforts and the never-ending nature of bureaucracy and lack of advancement (for the good of the company as well as their own careers—should the two not go hand in hand after all?). And disastrously, at the same time it permits the mediocre ones to continue to fester in their minimal roles, oblivious and not caring about the advancement or benefit of anything, the company or their careers.

  • 6:12 pm
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