The demise of our dear Humph shook us up considerably and we’re only now just beginning to handle it. You may think it ridiculous to get so upset over such a small, green, animal, but you can’t measure the love you have for someone by their size, colour, or even species, only by how they affected you; she affected us wholly and she was as important to us as any family member. We made a short tribute montage but I certainly can’t watch it without getting very upset. Miss you Humph.
Having a full-time office job was a surprisingly useful tool in dealing with the loss – gave me a chance to get my head occupied with other stuff. What you probably don’t know is that the small, friendly, clever company I was employed by has now been bought out. Yep – I’m back at MegaCorp. They didn’t tell me who had bought them until I signed the form, the bastards. The borg have already fingerprinted us all (really!) and we’ve got to get another piss test. They’ve already bollocksed up our network infrastructure, caused a sysadmin to leave, and brought a bunch of staff closer to suicide by inflicting their impotent conference-call-culture on them.
As one of the inhuman citi droids was telling us all about the, ironically named, “benefits packages” it suddenly dawned on me that corpofascism was no longer a theory but in place and thriving, and worse, I was walking right into it with open arms. If instead of fingerprinting us, FINRA had insisted we were chipped, would I have complied so easily ? Probably, yes.
You see, when fascism comes, it’s comes slowly and deviously. You don’t realise it’s got you until it’s got you. BTW – smug bastards from the UK should take a look around; I genuinely believe the situation there is as bad, if not worse as the US. There’s one exception: the NHS. When you see what Americans have to deal with here, and what Americans consider to be normal, you just want to violently shake them and point across the Atlantic saying “but it’s so simple! Do it like we did!” There aren’t many British institutions you can say that about. “So how does it work in Britain ?” they ask me.
“When you’re ill, you go to hospital and they treat you” I respond, and they look at me like I’m describing the gold at the end of the rainbow.
It just goes to show that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone – the NHS is a spectacularly beautiful thing and if you (we) let it go, you (we) are doomed. If there’s nothing more you care about, or can be bothered to fight for, please fight to keep the NHS from continuing down the barren, bandit-filled, desert road it’s currently following. Stop whinging about waiting lists and casualty speed and get campaigning.
On the good side, the people I work with seem to be sound, fun, and knowledgeable about many things including the local drinkscape. We laugh a lot.
I’m really missing London, my family and friends. The outrageously straight working practices of the U.S. have ensured that I won’t be able to come back for a while – 1.7 leave days a month…and one single day of leave for Christmas. Come back Goldsmiths, all is forgiven. On second thoughts, no it’s not.
