Sometimes, I look around my open-plan office at all my colleagues, and I wonder if they are really there.

I see them there, sitting at their desks, typing at their laptops, but are they really there?  Or are they just aliases of their real selves; a shadow employee, substituting for the real person?

On my computer, I have plenty of aliases.  Aliases are defined as a pointer to a file or folder on your hard drive.  The alias is a small file that takes very little space, because it only has information about the location of the original file.  It is not a copy.

Most bureaucratic jobs are like computer aliases.  They are not the real job, and they are not a copy, they are just a pointer towards the real job.

At my organisation, there are people who are employed in the Estates Department, but not one of them will change a light bulb; they are simply pointers to the person who will change the lightbulb.  Similarly, we have a Welfare Department, but no one in it performs any counselling, but they will point you in the direction of a counsellor.  I look around, and in all departments, I see only aliases, and not any real jobs.

And me?

I point at the people who point at the people who do the real job.

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree points towards his real job.