Those Who Really Understand and Respect Machines in a Tech School
So I’m currently workin’ on finishin’ me last fookin’ degree (I swear it!) at a library and information science school. Maybe getting one more certificate to try and make something like an honest living when I’m out, but that’s it.
After that I learn what I want when I want. No more of this coerced labour bullshit and internalized fookin’ tyranny.
At it makes me fookin’ sick to the bottom of my Scouser heart to see how people ignore the maintenance and janitorial staff here.
Library and information science as a discipline is supposed to be either about public service and social work (libraries) or technical knowledge and excellence (information science) and really they don’t teach ya shit ‘bout any of those things!
They don’t know how to support folks and they don’t know ‘nutin bout machines.
They’re just a neoliberal incubator for the managerial classes and a way of filtering out the servant classes and puttin’ us in our place masquerading as ahn education.
I’ve been camping out here more than ususal because I need time away from my abusive living situation, and it’s getting harder to contain my anger on behalf of the most marginalized folks here.
I noticed that there was a buddy here in one of the elevator shafts on top of the lift workin’ on the machine. No one else was paying him any mind, but when the rich folk seemed to be gone I went and asked him, in my posh mask of a voice:
“It can be quite scary in there, can’t it?”
“Yeh... that’s why ya gotta respect it.” He replied.
I wished him the best of luck and then realized something. Fookin’ eh, my father’s a technician, been spending his life workin on board ships and at dockyards, then when he was badly injured in a workplace accident ended up having to fix photocopiers for a livin’
And that’s exactly how me father talks about machines and tools. Always in terms of respect, possibilities, and dangers.
A technician understands and respects their tools far better than any manager or silicon valley wannabe. Just like a survivor understands and respects their tools and methods more than any doctor, nurse, or “public health professional.”
We have to.
In many cases our lives and bodies depend on it.
