Foreword: Rantings of the “wrongfully” employed

One of the very first newspaper articles I read about the blogging phenomenon concerned a blogger who was fired for posting office matters online. Obviously he had no idea that the office was sacred. I too hold no such notions... After all, This Is Not The Office.

This is a place where nothing is sacred and everything is scary. This is SLAVE Inc. Of course that isn’t its real name but all the attributes of the nickname fit the situation. My Boss, whom you’ll meet later in this post by the way, is the Chief Slave Driver while I’m the Major Slave.

Half the time when I am not authoring the Media Nemesis blog, I spend the better part of my life stuck in an office where I am tied to a job that entails frenzies of hard work and equal amounts of laziness. I work as a Trainee Biomedical Engineer in our small-time Engineering Company.

Biomedics was not my natural calling (Elect / Elect Engineering which I got a degree in wasn’t either) but as a Trainee I’m still learning the details of this job. But Mister Heem (that’s my Boss) won’t even allow me the dignity of a proper job title. He insists on calling me a “Pupil” Engineer and it even says so on my cardboard (yes, cardboard!) company ID card - which I detest by the way. Most people take a look at the miserable thing and burst out laughing. The more sensible ones keep their guffaws for after I leave.

It is a very small time business – literally a one-man show – though there once were better days. Unfortunately, I did not meet those days. My pay package leans very far away from being called huge and tilts very close, much too close to being very small. It is barely just enough to get on by. But just barely.

A typical day in the Office or out of it sees the Technician, Big Boss and I jumping into his car and zooming off to any hospital near or far that may require our services. We either fix their machines or we try to sell them newer machines or buy off the old ones which we sell to other hospitals which will later call us when those ones break down. It’s a tough cycle. For those machines...and for us.

Life might have been arduous but ordinary if that was all we did but the mix is made richer by the quirks of the Office and the temperaments of its staff, I inclusive and the gossip of the other offices around us. And this is where I get to tell the gritty details...

Let me share with you the goings-on in my Office where life can be as tough as writing a degree exam.

Where, according to the Boss’ sentiments, all the employees are complete idiots some - if not most - of the time.

Where I get to shed weight daily as I acquire an ulcer and an admixture of elation and unhappiness are my daily companions.

Where I say everyday that I’ll leave and I still come back again the next morning...

That is my Office... Where sometimes I lose my initiative and gain stupidity...

As I gather experience...