Blame The Paper

I'm tired. I'm hungry. Nothing works. Someone's going to pay!

These were the words running through my head last night as I struggled to maintain sanity after working for 11 hours straight. On a normal week, I set aside one week night after my regular 8-5 job, and go to my second job, where I am in charge of mailing all kinds of marketing brochures. I work until I've finished the tasks set to me, which usually takes anywhere from 2 to 5 hours. Overall, this makes for a long day, but with all of the other activities and obligations I have going on, one night is all I can spare, and that just barely.

Last night was incredibly frustrating, because when I got to job #2 (not having had time to get dinner), I found that the printer I use to print my brochures on is gone, and a new one is sitting in its place. This would have been a good thing since I sometimes have problems with the old printer, except that my computer had not been set up to use the new printer. I tried several different computer functions to try and get my machine to recognize the new device, but as my computer knowledge is fairly limited, I ran out of ideas, having accomplished nothing.

After giving up on the idea of printing new brochures, I figured I could at least get down to business on the ones that had been pre-printed. I worked steadily for an hour or so, loading stacks of paper into the folding machine, combining the various flyer's, cramming them in envelopes and setting them aside. Everything was going okay until for seemingly no reason, when I put a stack of papers into the folding machine, the stupid thing tried to pull about six pieces of paper through at the same time, causing it to jam. Unscrewing this and pulling on that has always fixed paper jams in the past, but this time I was unsuccessful. I prodded and poked at this thing for a while before giving up in frustration, cuts, broken fingernails, and despair.

By this point, the combination of my hunger, tiredness, and anger were becoming an issue. I wanted to leave, but since I didn't know when I would have another free night to work, I figured I should barrel through and get as much done as I possibly could. So I put my head down and began trifolding everything by hand. If you've never folded paper in mass, you may not understand what I'm saying when I tell you it HURT! If someone tells you they got hurt at their office job, you probably assume they mean a paper cut, and you laugh. Paper cuts are a somewhat humorous job risk when you consider someone in the field of construction or some other hard labor profession who has to worry about smashing their thumb with a hammer, or having a brick fall on their head. It's true that I wasn't in danger, sitting in my cushy, hydraulic chair, but that doesn't mean my job wasn't causing me pain. Folding large stacks of paper cuts your fingers in 10 different places each time you make a crease. As you pull your fists along the thick stack of folded sheets to bend them into the proper shape, you get long, carpet type burns . It actually wears the skin off your hand after you do it enough times. This type of folding also requires quite a lot of pressure, so it doesn't take long for your entire hand and wrist to cramp up and become worn out and inflexible.

You're probably thinking that I'm being ridiculous in making such a big deal over something so minute, and probably your right. It's just paper after all. But when you add these afflictions on top of my previously mentioned bodily shortcomings and technological frustrations, maybe you can sympathize as least a little with my building anger. In my head, with every cut and burn I received, I assigned blame. This was my boss' fault for not maintaining the folding machine properly. That was the tech. guys fault for forgetting to hook up the new printer to my computer. The more I folded, the madder I got, and the more irrational I was in my placing of blame. This was my teacher's fault for giving me such a big assignment over the weekend and causing me to lose sleep. That was my friend's fault for talking me into going out to dinner a few nights ago, leaving me with no money to eat out when I'm hungry. This was my friend's boyfriend's mother's dog's fault for...

The thing about placing blame is that once you get started, it's almost impossible to stop.

This morning, after getting a good night's sleep and some Fruit Loops in my tummy, I sat down to read the news. I came across an article about a government subsidized Mexican daycare that burned down, killing over 40 young children. This tragedy has become a large scale political drama, the heartbroken parents and other members of the community claiming that this horrific event (sparked by faulty wiring in an old air conditioning unit) is the fault of ambivalent politicians. Obviously I don't know all the details surrounding this situation, but it seems to me that the deaths of these innocent children are not specifically anyone's fault. Perhaps there is an aspect of neglect in this case, but no one meant for such a terrible thing to happen.

When we consider the past and present, there are certainly instances in which we can place authentic blame on definite parties. However, more often than not, bad and hurtful things just happen, because we live in a flawed world. Attributing blame to one specific person or thing is not incredibly productive, but I suppose it's just human nature.

This is what I know: I am now truly grateful for my usually working folding machine, because I have felt the pain and frustration of folding by hand.