Do you ever have those weeks where you just can’t shake the feeling you’re the butt of a giant bureaucratic joke? Where, with the bewilderment of poor Truman before you, you are trapped in an administrative farce of Shakespearean proportions?You know – the kind of week where you get called aside because Jill from call centre has, in earnest, filed a complaint with your manager that you spilled a small blob of yoghurt in the office sink (true story). Or you take your computer in for repairs and the technician tells you, with a straight face, that he’s lost all your data but you owe him R3000 for the installation of hardware you didn’t ask for (also a true story).
It’s been that kind of week for me. The kind of week where you know, in some temporarily inaccessible part of yourself, that actually it is the rest of the world that has gone bananas. But it still smarts.
Never do I feel the sting of this brazen, batshit-craziness quite as strongly as when I’m reading street signs. My capacity for reasoning peeks out to investigate, registers an unrecognisable entity, and shuts right back down with a resounding COMPUTER SAYS NO. I know, in the deepest part of myself, that the municipality cannot be serious. That when they paint this:
…they do not actually expect me to understand what to do in a life-or-death situation when I’m operating a three-ton killing machine at 120 km/h.(For the record, this sign does not mean “portly alien with chastity belt ahead”. It means “vehicles with dangerous loads only”.)
The devilish power of the bureaucratic bullshit generator is that it actually can make you feel like a simpleton, even though you know they must be having you on. I’m telling you: go into any signwriting office and you’ll find cubicles full of snarky designers laughing their heads off and cashing in on everyone else’s terror of inadequacy. I can hear it: “Hey Bob! Bob! This one looks just like YOUR MOMMA, Bob! Ha ha ha ha ha! I’m gonna use it as a tunnel warning!”
I get the same feeling when I’m doing IQ tests. That there must be some chuckle factor I’m missing; it simply is not possible that everybody in the world gets it except me. Last year, I took over 12 online tests in one day when every single test bar one told me I was clinically retarded. (I’m serious.) One even said kindly: “Subject should not be given tasks outside of his/her skill range, as this can be demoralising. With guidance and encouragement, confidence may be developed and subject may eventually be groomed for a position of moderate responsibility, such as a janitor or Wal-Mart cashier.”
Well.
Maybe there is something wrong with me. I have the same problem with the instructions on childproof caps and basic kitchen appliances. I can never get the damn lid off the Panado and it took me a year to set up my oven when – seriously – all I had to do was stick in the tray and burn the gas off by turning the oven on for 20 minutes. But to be fair, wouldn’t you be confused if you were confronted with the following instructions?
1. Do not use appliance for other than intended use.
2. Turn the heater switch dial on the position.
3. Turn the Time Control to desired darkness. Bell will ring.
Is it just me, or does that last line in particular sound a little… apocalyptic?
Of course, just in case you really are the moron you think you are by this time, the writer kindly includes a few basic life-saving instructions that are unambiguous enough for even those of dubious intelligence to understand:
1. Do not immerse appliance in water or wash it under waterspout.
(Seriously – it’s an oven. Who do they think I am, He-Man?)
2. Never leave the appliance unattended under any circumstances.
(Whoops, better get a sitter for those times when I’m not home, baking.)
3. Do not store any materials in the oven. (Well, there goes the cat’s bed.)
I hate feeling that my survival depends on joining this discourse of insanity. That whether I’m trying to get my breakfast from the office kitchen, navigating through the city or trying to open a fire extinguisher when my car goes up in flames, I’ll have to learn the language of bureacracy first. It’s like being trapped in a never-ending episode of Survivor: Urban Edition. And knowing that, although there's no escape for me, the tribe has spoken.
