I'll give a few updates about my life before I get to the real meat of this post. Oops-I shouldn't have said meat. I have been made aware that I've been a little bit of a food tease on this blog. Firstly, I resubmitted Dysfuncto and Gigantor to The Sequence and this time I was published! Yay Gigantor! Anyway, I'm on fall break right now-rocking A-town. Last week was midsems (apparently known a midterms to those above the age of 40). I thought my midsems week would be easy. Yeah, I had reading to do, but I only had one Politics of Russia take home final. Until I found out that I had a Methods midsem too. However, I handled myself with grace and managed to survive. I was so dedicated to getting my work done that I didn't even realize I didn't watch one of my usual TV shows that week. CrAZy.
Tuesday of midsems week a guest speaker came to talk to my NGO sociology seminar and answer our questions. Her name is Delphia Shanks and she's a former Grinnell student, who currently works for a community action agency in Louisiana. When someone asked her about the bureaucratic requirements for her NGO (weighing the benefits and disadvantages of bureaucracy has been a big topic in our class), Delphia went into a little bit of a rant on how annoying the requirements from the Recovery Act were. She described her frustration at having to put ugly logos on all of her fliers, although she sees the advantages of letting people know where their tax money goes. Her complaints reminded me of my mother's own problems working with Recovery Act money at the Department of Transportation. She too had to deal with ugly logos, that Obama himself delivered to DOT, and ridiculous reporting requirements. This, in turn, reminded me of the day this past summer I went with my mother to her work. I thought I'd share some of my notes from that day (I literally took notes, though don't expect anything serious-like you would!).
1) What they say (in meetings) sounds like English, but I don't understand a word. They use more letters than words (and they're not even speaking German!); 'Yes we should report the 677D to the FCP, after we get approval from the SCC, or do we use the 538X for the HDD requirements?' (all similarity to actual acronyms is purely coincidental).
2) I started to believe in magic today. Right before my mom and I went down to the cafeteria for lunch, my mom sent an email to a guy. Three to five minutes later, in the cafeteria, the same guy asked mom about some of the details of the email. And I thought I checked my email religiously.
3) (My final thoughts/rant from that day-word for word sans original cussing). The government is insane! My mom spent the whole day working on putting an ugly logo on buses, just so the public can "see" where their tax dollars are going. Well your tax dollars are going to putting ugly logos on buses!
I don't know if the whole experience made me want to work for the government, or run away screaming in the other direction. While I'm mentioning DC I might as well mention I went to eat lunch with my Dad in the district today. I had a delicious, though quite greasy tuna melt. Darn! I did it again, what can I say? Food is my life.
On the metro ride back, I saw a mother with two young boys. One boy, in a stroller, kept standing up and yelling for no reason. The other boy, sitting on one of the handicap/old people seats, well actually he was on his back rolling around on the seat. This poor woman was telling one kid to sit down and the other one to sit up. The boys wouldn't listen until the mother said six words that immediately made them stop- "I am not playing wit you". I really want to know what happens if they don't listen to her after she says those words. Watching this woman I thought to myself, that is the kind of mother I want to be someday. A mother who rules by strength and inspires fear. Who knows, maybe if my kids behave themselves I might even take them to whatever insane job I land in.
No comments:
Post a Comment