I Give Up. Uncle.

Somewhen, and I can almost place the moment, the world as I knew it vanished and was replaced by a cartoon. I seem to be wandering around in this bizarre, absurd, and often dark dream, too awake for comfort. And it's not just the political scene. Oh no.

In my department at work, we recently had to instigate new procedures, because our public lab computers were hopelessly screwed up. We purchased some new ones and reformatted the remainder in a group of 40 computers. That is not fun. While for this part of the country it's not bad wages, our lab assistants don't get paid much. They aren't rocket scientists, but they are adults over the age of 35 with high school diplomas. Still, so as to keep the machinery working properly, we had to scale back the assistants' maintenance responsibilities. I made them slips of paper titled "Repair Request" and asked them to fill out these simple forms with the computer number, the date, and a brief description of the problem, whenever there is a problem with a computer, and turn the requests in to me. Two weeks later, I find that they have been filling them out and putting them away in a drawer. I'm trying to think what their reasoning might have been, and what purpose they thought those papers served.

As for that picture at the top of this post, that's a copy of a handout that was given to every staff member today for a coloring contest! When one of my lab assistants gave it to me, I was sure that, being a new employee and a non-native English speaker, she had misunderstood the situation. (I myself have been employed here for a little less than a year.) Surely, these were for the pint-size patrons we have in the children's computer lab. So I asked my boss, the IT director. "Oh, no," he said, "there are employees who have been anxiously awaiting the coloring contest," and he handed me a little basket with a pink bow on it and filled with crayons. "They'll put them up on a wall and choose a winner.

"You laugh," he said. "But this is just the beginning of our exciting little activities around here. Wait till Easter when they ask you to hide your eggs," he said, laughing as he headed out the door.

I know this is Texas, but, come ON.

On second thought, perhaps I should find out what the winner's prize is before I so casually toss my Rudolf in the waste can.

Update: Some of the contest entries:

After seeing this post, a friend asked me if we hire the handicapped where I work. I don't know how to answer that. Before the coloring contest, I would have said no.

You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it, should you desire to get a better look. And, by the way, the first of them won third prize (a box of shortbread).