But like, you know, Sears creative.
Monday, November 18, 2024
In my state, we have little to no waste in state government. We are lean and six-sigma’d out the wazoo.
That’s why, apparently, we pay our state agency directors to make decisions like, “This PowerPoint that the training guy made has some emoji in it. Should it? Should it have emoji, Director? Please take the paid time to consider this question and issue a final decision.”
And then the state agency director (who reports directly to the governor) takes the paid time to consider the question and issue a final decision. That final decision is then communicated down to the training guy through the official chain of command. So that decision to re-do work touches multiple hands each getting paid multiple dollars.
Did I mention we’ve all been forced to take a training on how to identify and report waste in state government (which can’t be done anonymously so the training itself was entirely wasteful, which is ironic)?
Delegation, decision-making authority, and employee autonomy are …not really a priority in state government. Appearances are. Optics are. Crippling risk-aversion is. Disciplining failure is.
All clear signs of a high-trust and efficient work environment.
What’s funny to me is, for my entire state career, I’ve been told, “You’re so creative.”
Like it’s valued.
Like it’s a skill.
Like the way I connect dots and combine things in new ways is somehow important.
And it is!
Until it isn’t.
Until I do something like use an emoji in a PowerPoint presentation.
When something like that happens, when I do a terrible thing like that, the agency director/designee has to weigh in, and invariably the agency director/designee will say, “No, no, no. We want you to be this kind of creative. Not that kind of creative. Not emoji creative. Not purple hair creative. Not department store window Christmas display creative. Just sort of, you know, Sears creative. Shades of neutral beige creative. Off-the-spectrum creative.”
“Now, take what you’ve created with your creativity, and we’ll pay you with taxpayer dollars to creatively un-create what you created, and then re-create it in a way that is still creative, but not too creative.”
“Also make sure it looks like we’re all being responsible stewards of the afore mentioned taxpayer dollars even though the literal financial cost of this whole decision making process far outweighs the horrific outcome that would most certainly result in the use of an emoji in an internally-facing, non public-facing PowerPoint presentation to be used in an internal staff meeting. Which, by the way, is also the fun, jolly Christmas staff meeting where the fun, jolly, and WORK APPROPRIATE, PRE-APPROVED activities we asked the committee you’re on to create but when they did we denied each of them (which everyone on the committee knew the whole time would happen) and instead told you what will take place, will take place.”
PowerPoint emoji aren’t the hill to die on, and I know that.
What I don’t know is how I’ve been able to stomach this rinse-and-repeat scenario for almost 20 years.