That's actually a reference to "And the war dragged on", by Donovan, of all people. It's a poignant anti-Vietnam War ballad, bearing no resemblance to "Mellow Yellow". Check it out.

Do the math

Thirty Year Old Secretary has interesting workplace stories. I have none. My workplace is a model of dreariness. They put me in charge of the budget. My math teachers were right after all: math is important.

In high school, the math room had a poster entitled "Aw, when are we gonna use that?" with a last of careers on one side, a list of skills along the top, and dots where the two overlapped. The skills 'arithmetic' and 'quick calculations' dotted every job. But the other skills - quadratic equations, calculus, etc. - paired up with exotic careers like "marine biologist" and "architect". I found this disengenuous: I had no interest in either. It was just as well, because I squeaked by with 51% in Grade 11 math.

Now, to be confronted with equations & numbers in working life, I feel affronted. The poster didn't mention 'secretary', and I wouldn't have paid attention if it had - after all, administration wasn't going to be the sine qua non of my career. This was before the costs of independent living (rent, an ibook and decent espresso) took its toll.

So I relied heavily on the Financial Officer to do the budget. She's a bright-eyed woman who sees columns & charts where I only see a fuzzy, grey mass.

As I sat by her desk watching her work, I thought how understanding numbers is a both an expression of power and futility in capitalist society. Power, because few people understand finances (theirs or anyone else's). That becomes another skill held above our heads by economists and accountants to convince us we can't comprehend society, let alone run it.

Futility, because money is an abstraction. It represents the real social relations that undergird our society: people creating things in relation to one another, with their labour. The more there is to count & manage, the further away we are from real life.