Log0023

This is (not) a sign

Each day when I arrive at my (big boy corporate America) job that we all (pretend to) take seriously, I park my car across the street. Walk over the crosswalk, climb the stairs to the 10th floor, and spend the best part of the next 8 hours staring into my computer screen. Splitting cells on spreadsheets, turning (people into headcount, benefits into expenses and) time into (billable hours, bills,) dollars.

The euphemisms here are (insane); we (wouldn’t fire,) only release (- another 200
people this week, the second round of a promised single round of layoffs).
But this is not about me. Let’s go back to crossing the street…

Between the parking lot and the corporate tower, the street below is in perpetual
construction – digging a tunnel that will take years (ok?). And so, at the crosswalk, there are more than just flashing lights and zebra stripes. For our safety (of course), a person stands there (solely) to press the button and hold out a stop sign.
Each morning, I would cross the street and say, “thank you”, “hey” or “good morning” (I never once got a word back). She was here to do a job(, not exchange niceties).

It’s hard for me to not think this screams of (in)efficiency, (but I like the irony.) I like that somehow, with all the automation, (all the redundancies,) we still find a way to pay someone to stand under their (digitized) successor. To press a button and hold out a red sign under the flashing lights(. Ironically), so(me) cars (still don’t) stop.

With all the automation we thought people would lose their jobs. Instead, people lost the(ir) jobs(, but it was not the automation; we had tools) to automate (this one a 100 years ago, yet here she is).