Back in the office, and AGAIN confronted by a manager about the outlaw on reading papers at your desk. Well, I kindly informed her that management has done their job, I've been informed that I'm not allowed to read newspapers at my desk, and I'm going to do it anyway. Their communication came across fine, and I'm taking my own responsibility as an adult and individual in completely ignoring that rule. If they have a problem with it, they can put it on my performance review, and if they do, I'm going to escalate this so god damn high up that this dumb, ignorant, and in fact fascist rule is quickly scrapped. Fuck you when you say I can't read a friggin' newspaper when you give me jack shit to do. I'll decide that for myself, thank you, and I certainly won't bow to some rule that seems to intend to keep 'us employees' dumb. You get my labour during work hours, and as far as I'm concerned, that's where your control over me stops. That's what I signed up for. Not this crap. YOU'LL NEVER GET ME ALIVE !
So. That whole rant was already more energy than I intended to put into acknowledging the rule at all. I'm now simply going to continue with the first candidates for Word of the Day for this week. Let's see what we've got, shall we ?
- 'kerosinetax' (no need for a translation methinks). I'm nominating this word because it's in fact the 'solidariteitstax'-plan the French came up with weeks ago (I don't feel like looking back in my blog archives for it, but it's in there.) The plan from the French to raise taxes on kerosine and use the proceeds to solve some of the huge debt the Third World countries are in. The way the article of today was written, it looks like Zalm came up with this plan all by himself yesterday. Rrrrrrrrright. Nominated.
- 'gatekeepers' (no need for a translation methinks). This is a term used for secretaries. Secretaries. Now, don't get me wrong, I've known a lot of hard-working secretaries and I respect what they do, but come on: they're called secretaries. Not gatekeepers. They're not bearded warriors with heavy weapons holding enemies out of the city walls. They're secretaries ! Nominated.
- 'koopjeswalhalla's' (sales walhallas). This refers to online auction sites, specifically the ones where there's a lot of interesting stuff offered. Has capitalism grown so sad that we have to use this word now ? Nominated.
- 'zondagopenstelling' (sunday opening). This refers to shopping sundays (the Netherlands are a catholic country where saturday afternoon is the last time each weekend you can go into the shops - after five, there's a day and a half where nothing is open except the pub - but some sundays the stores *are* open, and this is treated as a very special kind of treat... after the previous nomination, I'm sure you can guess where I stand on this) and the way churches could join the trend by opening the church all day as a refuge from hectic modern times. I really don't think we need this word, it's a media label and an unclear one at that. I mean, would you, out of context, guess that this relates to churches ?
- 'buscatastrofe' (no translation needed). Which clearly is a wholly different kind of catastrofe from any other ones which don't have their own word.
- but, my colleague found this one before I did: 'probleemberen' (trouble bears). That's right: there are bears hanging out near busy roads, in the streets, up to no good, hanging out in gangs, shoplifting, riding their motorcycles, stealing cars, blowing up things.. well, sorta. These are former circus and carnival bears who are in very bad shape and which eventually end up with animal organisation Alertis. This organisation is trying to get them a section of wood where they can recover in relative freedom. But.. trouble bears ? I get a TV cartoon association here...
So the Word of the Day is 'probleemberen'. And just like the troublesome bear this made me think of, I'm going straight against stupid authority today. Especially since some stupid train conductor woke me up during the ride to check my ticket. While normally that wouldn't bother me, he had the nerve to tell me I should wake up because I have to work soon. FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE - I'll bloody sleep when I want to. And I'll bloody read a newspaper when I want to. Good grief, what is WRONG with people ??
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