Another brick in the wall... a geologist's tale
I always wanted be a geologist… always, like, for as long as I can remember…
Dad bought me my first pick, and a little set of prospecting tools, right back when I was only five, and knee-high to a grasshopper.
I was overjoyed when she hired me… nice place to work, good, regular meals, and a friendly camaraderie with the rest of the geologists who work for her – OK, they’re not as fast as me… she hired them in the tavern, after all… but we got on, we had fun…
So when she offered us the chance to get a bit of education, well, I jumped at the chance. A bit of studying, some qualifications – most of all, better pay! Of course I volunteered.
Hmm….
Every morning she throws a book at me, and before I’ve barely had a chance to skim through it, much less study it properly, she sends me out.
“Find copper!”
“Call that a decent vein? Find a deeper one!”
“No, no… a deep one that we can mine faster – I’m not in this for the fun of it, you know”
“Oh, and bring back any mined ore you find along the way”
And do my erstwhile colleagues help? Not a bit of it! “Oh, you’re so much better at it than us… if we try to help, she’ll only shout at us, and send you anyway”
What used to be a 5 minute job – 10 tops – is now taking me three or four times as long, doing it all on my own and having her reject half my findings…
Then there’s gold… don’t get me started on gold… "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"… oh no, that’s something else, isn’t it? But you get the picture! It’s like the good ones – the ones I’ve learned about, that should be a bonus - are now the requirement… this is NOT the way it’s supposed to be.
Meanwhile, back at the tavern, my former workmates are sitting on their backsides, eating sausage and quaffing brew. If I’m really, really pushed, they might agree to go out looking for stone or marble… grumbling all the time that I could find bigger ones than them. Do I look as if I care?
And… and get this, this tops the lot… if I absolutely have nothing to do – all the copper found to her satisfaction, all gold mines up and running and not about to run out… if all that’s done, and you’d think I could finally sit down to a pint and a sausage of my own, maybe a game of cards with those lazy freeloaders? Is that so unreasonable? Oh no…
She – get this – she sends me out looking for iron!
She doesn’t mine iron – she doesn’t use iron… if I find a deposit for her, she carefully rubs it off the map I give her and pretends she doesn’t know about it! So why, why, why? Because… maybe, just maybe, I might find some mined ore while I’m out! Can you believe that? Honestly?
Education? Bah, you can keep it!
