Clerk: (n) a person employed to take care of routine activities
I am not completely ignorant.
I do understand that rules are necessary. Without established guidelines, we have many people trying to dictate on the fly, ending up with restrictions which are much more nasty than if they had been thought of before the project began.
But I have just never wanted to be a clerk.
I’m talking about the kind of people who are thrilled there are rules so they can stand with a stony face, reciting them to you as you try to argue, and they sport a
slight smirk over the control they have achieved.
It happens every day.
Some people are destined to be clerks. They learn the routine and find satisfaction in their lives–sensations of importance–by using the regulations to dash the hopes of those who might walk just a little bit different path.
They quote.
It doesn’t matter if they’re using Shakespeare, the Bible or the company manual–they can give you the exact wording to reinforce their decision to treat you like shit.
Every function in life, every job and every position needs to be tempered by common sense and mercy.
Even the Good Book itself started off with Ten Commandments, shrank to four during the Sermon on the Mount, two later on, and finally ended up with one commandment: love your neighbor as yourself.
For after all, if you do that one, you’re doing the other ten.
When you remove common sense and mercy from your dealings with human beings, you become the catalyst for an unnecessary argument, which can lead to a war.
I don’t want to be a clerk. It’s probably why that position is never offered to me.
Some Big Boss Billy looks me in the eyes and thinks to himself, “I can’t trust that one to be an asshole.”
