Why I want out...

Source: Google

Maybe coincidence but entirely fitting that my 301st post is about one of the failings of a cold & efficient society.

Read the background story here.

So now the only government-run hospital in 1984-ville that provides maternity care will be charging its inpatients for the use of labour wards by the minute. 53 cents per minute to be exact. In the name of efficiency, no doubt. I'm sure mrbrown will come up with something witty on this. But on a more cynical note, "efficiency" has become a much-abused word or phrase, like "democracy" or "anti-terrorism". Almost anything may be excused if done in the name of democracry anti-terrorism efficiency.

But let me tell you a story about someone whom I'll address as "Aunty".

Aunty comes by to clear my waste paper basket at 10am every morning. She does her job in a slow, deliberate manner, greeting everyone along the way. Sometimes she misses out on the crushed paper that's stuck right at the bottom of the waste basket. Sometimes she tries to tidy my workstation and I won't find some important note without having to rummage through the neatly-stacked piles of paper - messing the place again.

Aunty likes to chat. We spend a good part of 10 minutes chatting once a fortnight or so. She tells me about her son, for whom she scrimped and saved in order that he receive an education in the UK. Her son has a family in London now and they come back regularly to visit her. She works now not because she needs the dough, but because it gives her a chance to "keep in touch with the outside world" as she puts it, and, I suspect, to see what messy punks like me are doing in 21st century society. I tell her about Faith and she dishes out grandmotherly advice.

Aunty is not very efficient as a cleaner. But her 10am routine is now an integral part of work life for me. Would I like to have someone else who would blitz through the cleaning routine, clearing everything and not missing out on that crushed paper at the bottom of the waste basket? Of course. But would I give up interesting conversations with Aunty, who serves as an unwitting reminder of what it means to be a parent and a human?

Efficiency is not always good.

1984-ville has become a victim of its own success. And I want out. Out to somewhere slower & kinder.

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emigration