Dusty files

This is a blog that I was wanting to write about a week and a half ago and never got around to it. But I think it’s something that needs to talked about in one context or another. I was working an archiving job in story city for a company that shall not be named.  But it was basically shoving crap into boxes, preferably in alphabetical order.  But there was this sections of lose papers, doctor’s notes and termination files. It seemed like an impossible task but even more so, an impossible task not to look. These pieces of seemingly discarded papers were reminisces of the lives of others so coldly shoved an area not to be seen by the light of day ever again. I was just a hired hand but still I felt some remorse and pity about these lives I held in my hands. 

In some cases I saw their faces, their accomplishments and eventually their downfalls.  In some sense maybe I shouldn’t have looked but when it’s on the front of the file and I’m combing through things with a fine tooth comb it was hard not to memorize the details. These essentially were people being people and trying to live normal lives. In some cases I could even see the paper trail of people attempting to sabotage their co workers and so on. 

Then there was the dreaded “Temp” file. I felt my stomach sink the second I had to file those termination files. There was some that were there for a very short time and those I can understand for the simple fact that some people just don’t work out and are let go as a result or they quit. Shit happens. However there were ones that had been there for over a year and maybe a few more. But they never got further than that. Just a temp and then a simple “assignment ended” to sum up the precious time in their lives that they may have staked on having a job there. Or maybe being offered a job there. 

That’s when a sickening realization came over me, I too was/am a file.  My assignment was ended because I was sabotaged by several people and a part of great conspiracy as a whole. In theory I should have seen it coming as my gut for told but I decided to allow paperwork and clerks verify the information rather than just doing it myself. I’m supposed to be smarter than that or at least I assumed I was savvy and could deal with it. But I assume that is the price for throwing a few rocks while sitting a glass tower. 

What was the most shattering was the fact that these archives seemed so discarded, so lost and without purpose.  Was I the same? Right now sitting in some dusty drawer sits a forgotten file of my exploits in every place I have ever worked. Some I would be proud of such as my time at Hy-Vee. Or others such as 3m, not so much. So much fighting others in the workplace and all I want is that chunk of Zen in my brain, work an honest day’s work and go about my life as normal. Or as normal as it gets. But much like these people who I’d file away safely never to be looked upon again, I just want a chance to thrive but fate and I have somewhat differing ideas on “thriving.” Let’s just say I’m coasting on surviving. 

I can’t but to wonder about all those people. Each and every one of them gone their separate ways. Although some left under good circumstances and others not so much but if one things keeps me up at night it’s the ideas that everyone I have known, knew or will know is just some insignificant set of papers floating among a dusty file. An identity without a face or their story just a rendition of an HR bible of their lives doomed to exist in the in between world.  Or maybe that is where we are all stuck, in HR in between world where faces, facts and truths about a person’s life are nothing but dust and crumpled specs of ink.