It's not about the human being in front of you

".. In view that the freelance jobs were on a part-time basis, it will be a little bit difficult to count them against your work obligation in a quantifiable way."

What?
Ten years ago, I received a scholarship for my undergraduate education. They nearly didn’t give it to me: they were concerned that I was going to take the money and run. So they put me on the waiting list, but as their preferred candidate accepted another scholarship (that gave him more money), they decided to give it to me, with the provision that I work for full time in Hong Kong for three years after graduation.

It has been one rocky relationship ever since.
It’s not like I mean to cause trouble, but it’s just that I don’t fit neatly in box.

I asked to take a semester off my junior year to go to Dharasalam, India; they were concerned because it wasn’t an official study abroad program. I pointed out that I had enough credits to graduate. I even went to one of their dinners to schmooze with the Board members, where a very friendly lawyer patted me on the shoulder and said, “It’s not about you, it’s about setting a precedent…”

That is the problem about bureaucracy. It’s never about the human being in front of you.

Anyway, I tried. I really tried. I even stuffed myself in a cubicle when I graduated for 11 months before it became stark raving clear that I was unsuited for this work. And so I ran away to Paris to study theatre. (There was a clause that said I could do that… education under an institution is acceptable activity)

When I came back, I dug in my heels. Yes, I would very much like a full time job, but the fact is very few theatre artists have the luxury of a full time job. And I was not going to take a full time job for the sake of taking a full time job. I was going to teach, part-time; and immerse myself in the theatre.

Okay, they said. But we want documentation of everything. So I painstakingly started to collect all my rehearsal schedules, etc, etc.

Last Friday, I suddenly got the above e-mail, telling me that my theatre work was difficult to quantify.. and therefore didn’t count. What? This is the core of the work I am doing!

It makes me want to tear out my hair!

In fact, every time I think about it, I get tense all over. The frustration/tension/anger permeated my whole weekend of teaching. At its best, it remained as an undercurrent of irritation. I called the office. The Secretariat was really super-friendly: “We want to help you… it’s just that we don't know how to count it...”

“I appreciate that it’s difficult, “ I said, taking big, deep breaths of air.

As I was doing tai chi this morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about why this small thing should cause such disproportionate amount of irritation in me. I think that on some level, I’m scared. I want to be judged and valued for the things which are important to me, and when I’m pitted against a value system that prefers paperwork over human beings, I feel immensely frustrated.





The truth is, most of the time I actually ride the system pretty well. I do enough of the right things, get the right pieces of paper. That's how I got the scholarship in the first place. But then, you find out, this thing also bites.

In search for the image this week, I remembered an image from the movie Baraka where they sort out the chicks. What I didn't know - and only found out while browsing the web for an image- is that they were actually sorting out the male chicks, who then (because they are of no use to the egg industry) are gassed or ground up! Not funny at all.

(For busy people who don't even have 10 minutes to spare, start from 5:25 mins.)