I’ve just finished one of the worst weeks I’ve ever experienced while working for my current employer. I’ll call this employer Idiots Inc. We do hardware, software, middleware, silverware and God-knows-what else. We do it all, and we do it poorly. Actually, most of our products are quite excellent, but through a great deal of hard work and ingenuity, we avoid profiting from them.

Idiots Inc. has all sorts of charming, bad habits. Every year, for example, we rotate all our executives to different divisions. We call this “cross-pollenation” and it’s supposed to unify the organization as a whole. All it really does is ensure that none of the divisions ever get their act together. Executives can’t resist leaving their mark - and I do mean that in the canine sense - on their new organizations, and so the whole company is perpetually f__ked up.

My own sub-division is perpetually managed by overachievers, and so we’re reorganized in some fashion every six months. This year our budget was slashed, and so our VP canned a bunch of people. But then, apparently thinking this wasn’t an epic enough change, he randomly redistributed all the remaining employees to new jobs and departments, largely ignoring such trivialities as “appropriate skill sets” and “experience”. This technique is very similar to the way in which data is completely erased from a disk drive, and the effect on our organization has been similar - nobody has the slightest clue how to get anything done.

I wish I could tell you who I worked for, so that you would know which stock symbol to avoid. But then, it doesn’t really matter, since our stock price is actually an “imaginary number”, like the square root of negative one, or the odds of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes raising a normal, healthy child.

Ok, ok. Given the underwhelming response to Ulf - my Barbarian alter-ego - I’m “back”. If “he” feels so inclined, Ulf may still post. I was hoping that he would be an interesting excercise in creativity, but readership is dropping precipitously.

I should tell you a little bit about myself. I’ve been a Barbarian for close to ten years, now. I originally wanted to study Medieval
Literature, but I was told the Middle Ages hadn’t really gotten rolling yet, it being only 596 AD and all.

There really weren’t that many vocational choices at the turn of the Seventh Century. My father and mother were both dung-shoveling peasants, as were their parents and grandparents.

Toward the end of school I went to see the guidance counselor. She brought me into her office and had me sit down.

“So what can I do for you?” she asked.

“I don’t know what to do when I finish school,” I said.

She smiled, and reached into her file cabinet. “I have just the thing,” she said, and handed me this test.

I spent a couple of hours answering hundreds of questions about what I do and don’t like, and then I brought the test back to the guidance counselor. She told me to wait a second while she processed my results, then immediately crumpled up the test, threw it into the trash, and handed me a piece of paper. It said:

DUNG-SHOVELLING PEASANT

“What?,” I exclaimed, shocked. “You didn’t even look at my answers.”

“There’s only one career, dear,” she replied, still smiling, and showed me out.

I figured it was probably time to leave town, so I packed my bags and said goodbye to my brothers, sisters and parents. I can still see them, crying and waving goodbye, little bits of dung flying everywhere.

Hello there. I am called Ulf.

SpoonFighter has asked me if I would be interested in taking over responsibility for this blog, for a while.

I said Ok, and then burned down his house and carried off all his money and Mrs. SpoonFighter. I’m just kidding of course. He didn’t have any money.

I have always wanted a blog. Not many people have them here in 606 AD. Not many computers, either: I can only post an entry if we sack a village and Alaric doesn’t set the library on fire.

Soon we will become good friends, I hope. Perhaps you will post many nice comments, or even send me email. Or your address. And I will come to your house to drink mead with you. And then I will burn it down. And carry off your wife.

Not quite gone, yet. Someone sent me this in my email and I thought I should post it. If I had time, I’d turn it into a webform. But I don’t.

God’s Total Quality Management Questionnaire

God would like to thank you for your belief and patronage. In order to better serve your needs, He asks that you take a few moments to answer the following questions.

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Dear Fans Of The Spoon,

I’m a little tired of blogging. My life just isn’t that interesting, and writing about “issues” seems to put me in a bad mood, not to mention making me deeply insecure that I’ve offended some group who’ll show up at my house to burn me in effigy. (Although, at this point in life, any attention is good attention.)

I will be handing over the heavy responsibility that is SpoonFighter to someone I know, for a month at least. He tells me that he will write his first post in the next several days. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy his unique perspective on life, so please do give him a chance. He is very sensitive, though, so please do be nice to him, post lots of affirming comments, send him loving e-cards and so forth.

Yours,

SF

When we see a conflict or difficult situation, why do we feel compelled to draw boxes and apply labels in order to make one group out to be good guys and another group out to be bad guys? Why, once we’ve picked our sides, do we assume that everything the good guys do is right, and everything the bad guys do is wrong? Why do we assign nobility to one, and villany to the other? Why do we make complicated, messy realities into fairy tales?

I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. I’ve allowed myself to enjoy a little “righteous” indignation toward “Muslims” because of the current Danish cartoon fiasco. I realize that I’m starting to view this diverse, complicated group as a single, conspiratorial and rather unpleasant entity. Both unfair and foolish.

You will almost certainly be dead in 100 years, along with everyone else you know.

By now you have hopefully heard of the rapidly-escalating feud over some cartoons originally published in a Danish newspaper.

Basically, the cartoons included caricatures of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Islam prohibits any depiction of Mohammed, much less mockery, and LOT of Muslims around the world are very upset, protesting and boycotting everything Danish. Muslim leaders have demanded that the Danish government both beg forgiveness and punish the newspaper and its editors.

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