"Ok, um, after you push the down switch...then what?"

Yesterday's post about "information management" was a satire upon people who have a hysterically anal need to control the flow of information and access in a work environment. I made that post to set the stage for today's post.

I found out yesterday, after the fact as is usually the case in most work environments, I had broken a rule. It seems that my efforts to be helpful and be a good team member don't amount to diddley, because I broke a rule I knew nothing about.

I've been in retail since I was fifteen, and I know how to operate most equipment found in any retail establishment large or small. I have operated cardboard balers millions of times, and when they were full I have created and ejected large bales scores of times safely and soundly. Yet when I mentioned to a co-worker that I had made a bale three or four times with the baler (here a "Big Red" where I currently work,) the back room got so silent you could have heard a pin drop.

Sacre Bleu.

"Don't let (super-toolbelt-flannel-shirt-mustache-dyke) hear you say that!" I was promptly informed that to be permitted to operate the baler and make a bale, I was supposed to have passed a "certification." Yes folks, that's right. In order for me to push the "up" button and the "down" button, I have to be "certified." Doing what I had done risked the retributive wrath of "super-dyke." (She's the "logistics" manager I told you about in an earlier post.) I kid you not -- they actually spoke as if she would tear down the building like godzilla, and for all I know she probably could.

I complained about the absolute lunacy of the whole thing to another manager. He treated me as if I were questioning the very existence of God, and almost lost his patience with me. I shook my head. I had just been bitch-slapped by a queen master of the power game, who taught me just how well you can use information, access, and processes to intimidate others and maintain control.

As much as I despise "super dyke logistics manager," I thank her for teaching me a valuable lesson. "My enemy is my teacher," said Sun Tzu in "The Art of War," and he was right.