Your Government at work

The clock strikes 1100.  Approximately ten hairless heads rise up above their cubicle partitions like a pack of prairie dogs emerging from their colony.  Timid at first, but ever emboldened, they cast furtive glances around the rest of the office.  Faces cast upward, they scent the air and comment on what was being consumed by their coworkers.  Finally satisfied by the relative quiet, a wizened old man in a flannel shirt solemnly nods and a younger male leaves the safety of his cubicle.  He reaches the light switch, looks twice down each corridor, and flips the switch.  Half the office goes dark as ten hairless heads retreat into their respective cubicles.  Each dons a ball cap placed strategically over his face, and proceeds to sleep.  All phone ringers are silenced.  Aside from the occasional self-indulgent snore, there will be no sound.  No disturbances.  No interruptions.  The clock strikes 1101, and the Hour of Darkness is upon us.

If you ever deign to listen to a government executive talk about the civilian workforce, you are bound to be told many, many times that our workforce is "experienced."  This, of course, means that everyone is old.  A corollary to this is that we aren't hiring young people, who just aren't attracted to life in the civil service.  Most would rather live out of their parent's garage and take a job at the local video store, which you know is going out of business soon, what with the Netflix and Redbox and all, but you don't care because hell, you get to watch whatever movie you want to and at least you are not sitting in some grey cubicle surrounded by octogenarians who you know will die the second after they retire because this is their life, and while that is depressing enough you continue to get emotionally attached to these people even though you know there is a very high probability that they will be dead in a year, just like that goldfish you loved for a week before you flushed it down the toilet.

I think most of our elderly workers hate their jobs as much as those twenty-something video rental specialists think they would hate those jobs.  Unfortunately, the old people are now committed to working for the government.  Once a government employee hits 15 years of service, it doesn't make financial sense to get out and give up the chance for retirement at 30 years.  They hate their jobs, but they cope.  They work less.  They work slower.  They darken half the office at lunch so they can sleep.  And now I'm typing in the dark.  Touché, old people.  Touché.

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