Tyrants

Today I would like to talk about tyrants. 

They are everywhere. Disguised as teachers, relatives, bosses, or just about anyone who has some sort of power over me. The teacher who punished me for being Indian. The relative who gave sweets to my brother but not me. The boss who sat on some work for weeks and then passed it to me to get done by today because tomorrow is the deadline. The clerk who refused to accept my document because I used blue ink instead of black when both colours are acceptable. The police officer who refused to accept my police report because I didn’t give him the evidence of the crime (isn’t it his job to investigate and obtain the evidence?). The customs officer who checked only my bag out of all the passengers waiting to board the plane, for no apparent reason. The list goes on. 

I’m not saying I was deliberately targeted. I am saying that there are tyrants out there who bask in the glory that they have a certain power over people, and they abuse and misuse that power because I guess making other people feel miserable feeds their own need to feel powerful, like alcohol feeds the need of the bibulous. 

It’s all well and good sitting in my armchair and doing a psychological analysis on tyrants - how meaningless or empty their lives must be, or perhaps they forgot how it was to be on the receiving end, or perhaps they are also being mistreated so they are taking out their frustrations on me etc., but it does not detract from the fact that it is me who is undergoing the stress and misery at their hands.

I am being plagued by a tyrant right now. I need Mr. Tyrant’s approval in order to submit a Thing by Timeline. My Timeline was 3 months. I gave Mr. Tyrant the Thing within 2 weeks for his approval. After many reminders, he reverted 1 month later to say I have not addressed the issues properly. The Thing is 20 pages long with about 30 issues, so I don’t know which issues he was having problems with.

Nevertheless, I re-did the Thing as best I could and submitted it to him about a week later. Timeline is now about 3 weeks to go and no news from Mr. Tyrant. After his approval, I need about a week to finalise the Thing before submission. Which means I have approximately 2 weeks left. And no news. 

Why all this unnecessary stress? If you have a problem, tell me what it is exactly so that I can rectify it according to your wishes and the job is done. Good for you, good for me. But here you give me a general statement which leaves me groping in the dark, and you’re taking your own bloody sweet time and putting me under tremendous stress and pressure because Timeline is approaching nearer and nearer, but you obviously don’t care about all that. 

Because you are Mr. Tyrant and you need your power fix 🙄.