Bad Maps

In an astral confluence of life quirks, my work place got donated some glossy maps and I was tasked with distributing them. Cutting across geography, well intentioned supply chain, and my anxious tick to keep junk away from my spaces.

"These will be great. People will love them," said my boss shaking the in-kind donor's hand.

At my old job a mountain of a man thought me that when you make space in the warehouse junk will follow it. "We don't need more space. We need to be smarter with what we have." And I could see the Brownian motion of crap and ideas to any cleared area. A few boxes would plant a flag and then someone dragged a table and chairs over there and we got ourselves a new break space. A new place to count widgets.

And it happens in my current job. Get rid of maps with yellowed paper that still have the USSR on them and get National Geographic prints from 1998. Missing South Sudan. Missing East Timor. Missing Montenegro. "They do have Hong Kong as a Chinese possession so not too bad," I said after scanning.

"What a nerd," everyone must think. "Who gives a fuck?"

And they are right. Tiny, miserable countries, these must be, yes? We do not have a massive South Sudanese, East Timorese, or Montenegroian diaspora.

"Just turn them over and use this like land map with no borders."

Fair enough.