My job consists of collecting a bunch of data from a bunch of offices, checking to make sure it's complete and accurate, and then sending it up the line to the federal government. Since the data are confidential, it all has to be encrypted. We're in the beta phase of a new electronic databasing system, and lately most of my job has consisted of entering data, and of checking to see that it's been properly encoded. Well, it's not. So, the data developers then return to the data and re-encode it, and then someone needs to check it again to see if the errors have been fixed, and if any more errors have been created. Apparently, I'm really good at doing this, because whereas I used to have company in the monotony, it's all me now. I translate English into numbers and back into English again, so that later we can translate it back into numbers and send it on to be translated back into English. (Of course, in the interim it all gets translated into ones and zeros, but since I neither understand nor participate in that process, I will leave it out of this rant.) I've been directed to make it my top priority: whenever anyone send me test data, I translate back and forth and back and forth and summarize all the fuck-ups. It's a horrible, eye-glazing, mind-numbing job. I try to be conscientious and particular about my work, to ensure that it represents the best of my abilities, but I'm so discouraged by the dead-endedness that it's really difficult to give a shit.
So, I'm thankful that this is a long weekend, and that all the boring spreadsheets will have to keep themselves company until Monday. I'm thankful that I can be with family over Thanksgiving now, since I married into one that doesn't live too far away to visit.
And to whomever left their front bumper in our yard: fuck you. Come pick it up, because the garbage collectors won't take it and I don't want to have to deal with your trash.
No comments:
Post a Comment