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I am so goddamn sick of words. Sure, that’s what I went to school for. Sure, that’s the basis of my employment. But consider me ridiculously sick of words.

Well, at least other people’s words.

Some days I wish I had majored in computer science rather than cognitive linguistics. That way, I could reprogram our useless search algorithms to red-flag useful posts, posts that deserve attention and scrutiny, rather than every third post in the bloody system. I’ve tried four times now to get a meeting between Linguistics and Programming, and been denied four. Some bureaucratic blather about maintaining distinct lines and missions between disciplines. I mean, I’m a pleasant guy. I can cooperate. I can compromise. But I just need Programming to fall the fuck in line and put out some good code. Is that too much to ask?

The kicker came this morning, this pain-in-the-ass morning, when the Director called me into her office for a proper reaming. Excuse me, Director dear, for having the fucking initiative to propose collaboration to institute a more efficient flagging system for suspicious journals. Excuse me for wanting to alleviate some of the stress on assembly-line Analysts and reduce the queue to a manageable size. I will, I promise, become a good worker drone and from here on out never think about improving the workplace again.

Went back to my desk in that dismal LED-screenlit dungeon to work some more on the queue when she was done. Analysis was rather droll. Spent my time reading the past work’s worth from some pissed-off schoolteacher who was red-flagged for Subject Inconsistency. I don’t know how someone could post so randomly, so many disconnected subjects, and not expect the algorithms to pick up on it. Given their semantic capabilities, it’s about as subtle as posting “Fuck you” one hundred and twenty five times. The only consistency in his entries seems to be an underlying anger, or perhaps disregard, for the process. The algorithms only picked up the concept randomness, but any analyst worth his salt can see the disrespect.

He bears watching, I suppose. And after today, I deserve a drink.