Some civil servants are just like my loved ones…

They work so hard and they try to be strong.

Certainly they do. Where would we be without our friendly neighbourhood babus, the pillars of a democratic government? Our paper industry would die out, for starters, if we didn’t have civil servants. Same goes for chai and samosa vendors, and the manufacturers of knitting needles.

Anyhow, hard-working and strong they may be, but someone really ought to remind them that we’re in the year 2008, and NOT 1988, and if they must insist on using 3.5” floppy disks, the least they can do is ensure that the damn things work!

Exhibit-A

Yes, that’s right. It’s your basic Sony 3.5-incher, sitting rather innocently on my desk. Look closely now. Yes, that’s it, come closer….Uncle Crowley won’t bite.

Do you, perhaps, see a small shard of metal running across the disk’s corner? Know what that is?

It’s the metal end of a string tag; the sort we run through punched documents to keep them together. I’m not kidding here folks. This is a for-real file, with a for-real floppy disk attached to it. Skewered would be a better word, I reckon.

The Government, obviously, doesn’t believe in floppy cases.

Or thumb drives. Or writeable CDs. Or Email.

And, yes, the disk didn’t run either, which meant that I had to re-type the 8 page document that was on it. This sort of incompetence (nay, stupidity) pisses me off, especially since I ought to be running around and getting my stuff together for my road trip (which is already plagued with enough tension and uncertainty to make me feel that I should’ve put my money where my mouth is, and spent the weekend at home eating microwave takeout, watching 'The Stand' and reading 'Maus').

C’est la vie. Merde.