all work is the same as other work

it's not that what i am doing now is the best thing in the world that i could be doing, but i have done worse. or, having done worse, i have recieved promotions to things i thought would be better. knowing the way things go, you do not need to be told that they were not better or even good.

i once worked in an office above the smog-line in osaka. the smog blocked out the hills entirely, leaving the suggestion that the post-apocalyptic jumble of gray, sooty buildings against a gray sooty sky continued indefinitely. i was working for a giant, many-tentacled company with a controlling interest in the english teaching/conversation whoring industry. the workers were divided, star-bellied-sneech style into blue-tags and yellow-tags. those with blue lanyards on their security passes were the permanent employees, those with the yellow lanyards were contractee scum. alternatively, a yellow tag meant they didn't own you, they were only renting.

the purpose of blue-tags was to attend meetings. the purpose of yellow-tags was to process the blue-tags meeting-produce into activities to be taught to all children in a certain age-group throughout japan in the same week. at one meeting the blue-tags decided that all 3-5 year-olds in japan would be taught the following conversational snippet in the third week of march:

Instructor: "A pig has one head. How many heads does a pig have?"

Students (all): "A pig has one head."


there was also a song (sung to the tune of oh my darling clementine):

Instructor and Students (all): "A pig has one head. A pig has one head. How many heads does a pig have? A pig has one head. A pig has one head. How many heads does a pig have?"

i like to think that the last line leaves the matter open to question.