I'm your secretary

So. For the past week I've been working in a branch of the provincial government. I won't name it for fear of this coming up in a random google search, but I can say that this is the most I've ever been paid for doing so little. Yes, I have even less responsibilities there than I did at That Which Shall Not be Named. For the curious, here's my intinerary for a normal day:

8:30 A.M: Get in to work. Turn on all the lights, unlock all the meeting rooms and turn on the computer. Say "Hi" to people as they come in. For an extra challenge, try to remember their names.

10:30: Mail comes in. Chat with mail guy about how his day's going. Usually bad. He's tired. Answer a phone call or two. Answer each question, no matter how complex or long winded with: "Okay, I'll just transfer you to one of our intake people who can help you with that". Sort Mail.

10:45: Have my subtly passive-aggressive sub come over to the desk to take over while I make the round of the offices to distribute the mail. Listen to her thinly veiled criticisms and complaints about my heterodox approach to sorting the mail. Feel inexplicably wounded.

10:48: Purolator lady comes in. Try to chat with her, but am answered brusquely, if at all. Attribute this lack of social graces to the fact that I am a man, and not the cute girl I replaced that she would chat volublely with when I was here on my training day. Feel inexplicably wounded.

10:50: Distribute mail. Wander around offices, get lost half on purpose. Gotta make this last as long as possible, because I'm in no hurry to get back to my desk. Joke around with some of the nicer middle aged ladies. Self-esteem restored.

11:05: Return to desk. Sub is on phone with a friend, talking about going somewhere Friday with friend on other line. Other topics: Getting a new car, and why HE shoudn't have done that. Wonder vaguely who "HE" is. Feel like I'm eavesdropping, so go to washroom.

11:07: Return from washroom. Sub is off phone and looking up information about cars. Draw attention to the fact that I'm back. Make polite chit-chat about cars, about which I know nothing. Talk about lunch, and when I would like to go. I say "One o'clock". She says "Fine" and leaves.

11:07 A.M-1:05 P.M: Stare at walls. Illegally check e-mails several times. One about a back steet boy being gay, and another about what friends might do on the weekend. Stare at walls. Say "Hi" and smile to people passing by. Try to remember their names. Indulge in my new taste for excel art. Make two drawings, "Evil Rabbit and "Bored Space Invader" respectively. Surreptitiously read Titus Groan. Enjoy it. Try to remember the character's names. Hide said book whenever someone walks by.

1:06-2:06: Got to a secluded spot on the Metro Toronto library where there's a semi-garden and read Titus Groan. Eat lunch. Wait fifteen minutes in line at Tim Hortons for a coffee.

2:07: Return to desk. Sub is on phone, but has already sorted mail that has come in. Draw attention the fact that I've returned, and go to distribute mail. Get lost, half on purpose.

2:20: Return to desk. Sub gets up and leaves. We say our good byes. Office girl with name like a fancy drink brings me out a heavy package and tells me that because the Purolator people don't like carrying heavy boxes downstairs, I have to call security and get them to bring it down. Process order, then call security to bring it down to the front desk. They do.

2:40 Continue reading book. Occasionally say "Hi" to people as they walk by, but original enthusiasm has waned.

2:50: Purolator girl walks in. Asks if there's anything for her. Absent-mindedly say "There's nothing". She leaves. Wonder if I should've mentioned package at Front-Desk on first floor. For no reason, assume she'll check and put worries from mind. Return to reading book and occasionally answering phone calls. Probably should've told her.

3:30: Still reading. Sometime check e-mails.

4:30: Still reading. Answer miscellaneous phonecalls and transfer them all to the Intake people.

4:45: Notice people are leaving for day. Say "So that's you for the day, then?" and make mindless small talk.

5:00: Start locking up. Turn off all the lights, and shut all the meeting rooms. Unplug phone. Turn off computer and put back all the keys.

5:05: Neurotically double check all doors. Check two or three times to make sure all keys are where they should be.

5:10: Check all doors again as a way to ensure that I will avoid riding elevator with nominal co-workers and be forced to make small talk on the ride down.

5:15: Ride Elevator. Make no eye-contact with fellow elevator riders.

5:15.50: Get off on bottom floor. Leave building. Put on Ipod. Feel blissfully disconnected from bustle on street.

So endeth the day. Despite the fact that I don't do anything, I always come home feeling bone weary.

Real Slavery, Book Slavery and Retail Slavery

I realize I've been little remiss in posting, but I've been occupied with the trifling matter of the end of slavery and deciding how best to put my useless carcass to work. Perhaps a sign of my morbid disposition, reading about how a motley combination of Quakers and Evangelical Anglicans helped end slavery has been the more interesting of the two subjects.

The book in question is Bury the Chains, by Adam Hochschild. He also wrote King Leopold's Ghost, which is a history of the Belgian colonization and enslavement of the African Congo. He is my favorite historian, and with good reason. I find these topics fascinating, and he has a clear, concise style that Dave Eggers and his ilk will never be able to improve upon or destroy. "Bury the chains" is interesting, because as the book explains, the abolitionist movement was unprecedented in human history. These twelve men essentially got together under the common conviction that slavery was wrong, and didn't stop agitating for its end until the British parliament outlawed it in the early 19th century. Granted they were favored by historical circumstance, such as the French Revolution and the bloody slave revolts of St. Domingo, but these events only encouraged them, and were not their original impetus. While the two most dedicated abolitionists were Tom Clarkson and Granville Sharp, my favorite one out of the twelve has to be William Wilberforce, who was so tender hearted he couldn't bear to fire any of his servants. At one point he had seven or eight octogenarian maids and butlers wandering around his house, not doing much in particular.

The heroic selflessness of these men is sharply contrasted by the vulgar self-serving of the people who were anti-abolition. I know Susannah has been rightly irritated by some of the Labour party's ridiculous Newspeak, but take a look at what at least one pro-slavery writer was considering doing about the "slave-problem":

Instead of SLAVES, let the Negroes be called ASSISTANT-PLANTERS; and we shall not hear such violent outcries against the slave trade by pious divines, tender hearted poetesses, and short sighted politicians.

Gross. I know it's naive of me, because slavery was an age-old practice that even the Bible took for granted, but what the hell were the anti-abolitionists thinking? While I don't think I would've been as heroic as the original twelve, I'd like to think that if they talked to me about it my reaction would've been somewhere along the line of "Hey, you're right. Gimme one of them there anti-slavery buttons". The description of what the conditions were like on the slave ships should've been enough to upset people of even the most basic sensibility. This is a really fascinating book and I'd encourage any one to pick it up and read it. It's real Good vs. Evil stuff. Next on the chopping block for me is Titus Groan, which I've been meaning to read for ages, and Constantine's Sword. The latter is a history of how the Catholic Church has treated the Jewish people over the centuries. I'm going to guess "Not Well".

As to what I've decided to do with myself, after much hemming and hawing I've decided to enroll in Seneca College's Library and Information Technology program in the fall. It's a two-year program, and at the end of it I should be able to get a real job and not return to hated retail, something which I have to do now as a temporary stop-gap measure. What the program will be training me to do is operate and manage the different type of information retrieval systems and programs that most libraries, public and private, now use. I wouldn't be a librarian, but a "library technician". Basically, I'd be capable of running a library on a day to day basis, while the librarians would make policy decisions in their ivory towers, while simultaneously drinking mint juleps and doing cocaine off strippers. Of course, I wouldn't be limited to working in a public library. I just like to imagine librarians having decadent, coke-fueled orgies. I'm not sure why. That's for my therapist to decide.

Having been lacking direction for say, I don't know, two and a half years now, I'm relieved that I've managed to find something that sounds interesting and challenging. Although I've been assured that by a friend that I can always drop out if I find I don't like it, I hope that that won't be the case. I'd like to stick with this.

Arrowed!

Quick update: The japan thing is a bust, and for the curious, so is the librarian option.
On the positive side, my chess game has never been better.