This is how my day went

How was yours?

My day began with a quick check on overnight notifications, and as has become a routine since October last year, a browse through many of the Telegram channels I am subscribed to. Wailing mothers. Hungry children. Severed limbs. Apocalyptic scenes of soot-covered people running to save their lives after a 2,000 pound bomb dropped in their vicinity. These aren’t the sights anyone would want to start their day with, but witness I must. Over a hundred people died in the last 24 hours. Many missing. Countless injured. Some bodies were still in the rubble; Gaza’s municipality too staff- and resource-starved to be able to dig through the ruins of bombed houses and make an accurate count of the dead — hence their classification as missing — and the injured. Bombs were dropped on Rafah. On Jabalia. On Deir al Balah. Tanks shelled civilian homes. Snipers shot to death innocent bystanders. The Israelis raided Jenin in the West Bank and killed several Palestinians. Settlers burned down houses and cars. A mixture of anger, frustration, and helplessness accompanied me as I finished my morning chores and headed for “work.”

I stepped out of my accommodation in no mood for the near two-hour bus commute that takes a toll on the back. But there’s one solace: it provides decent enough time to go deeper into the Telegram updates and read into the news from the previous night. I ended up jotting down notes in an app for stories that are bursting at the seems in the drafts folder of this newsletter. Rage was a constant companion as I pored over and heard some more hypocritical statements from Biden and his minions in the genocidal administration. Some more rallying behind the genocide by America’s vassal states in Europe. More reports of more scholars describing how the events in Gaza classify it as a textbook case of genocide — yet more documentation of the evidence of our naked eyes since October.

The bus reached my stop. I stepped out of it, walked a little with a podcast on, and a short while later, was in the office. Slack and email were the first ports of call. I read a message asking for update on the status of a task while my phone flashed notification about a limbless child in Rafah. Right then it was time to jump into a Zoom call. I was greeted with a spreadsheet named “Task Tracker” and went over each cell, informing my reporting manager about the status of various tasks that bore my name. My answers varied from “Yet to start,” “In progress,” “Reviews,” and “Completed” for assignments that would put the word inanity to shame; tasks that make no material difference to anyone and anything that matters, to anything that anyone holds dear. Mindless and pointless button pushing and mouse scrolling while another father in Gaza “left in blaze,” without bidding anyone farewell, “not even to his flesh, not even to himself.” Mind-numbing. Soul-destroying. But “work” must be done. Bellies need to be fed.

Some small talk with colleagues over coffee and some more browsing of the news from Gaza was followed by an “important” meeting with “my team.” In it, the big revelation of another “important” project was made, one in which we needed to align resources to make brand new digital assets to celebrate a company milestone. Several things needed to be done. I lost track as my mind veered towards the children in Gaza who will celebrate no more milestones and birthdays, children whose mothers will no longer bake them their favourite cakes on their big day, and fathers who will no longer pray for the long lives of their children. Milestone. Big news. Important project.

I got down to “work” — or what we think is work these days anyway. First up: polish an old repository that is no longer relevant and bring it up to date. Soul-destroying. I couldn’t help but put on a sitrep on my phone with the phone face down. That way no one will know if I had Taylor Swift or The Weeknd — or whoever else is cool these days — on. Talking about Instagram feeds, last night’s outing, the Met Gala, and your latest Netflix binge is the only way to appear normal these days. You blend in or you are “not the right fit” for the company. Be a company man. Put your phone face down. You have bills to pay and bellies to feed.

Every time something needed a closer inspection in the document I was processing, I paused the sitrep. Sometimes I even paused “the work” to jot down some notes in my diary from the sitrep for stories that may or may not be written. I did as much as I could of the task and updated a sheet about its status. Sheets must be updated. Logs must be kept. Gaza’s health ministry doesn’t have the resources anymore to update its sheets of the eviscerated, the evaporated, the decapitated, and those buried alive in the rubble. But my workplace has no such constraints. Thank God? Create as many sheets as you want, fill as many cells with mindless garbage as you want. You can also colour the cells; it helps give the impression that hard work is being done.

Next up was a meeting to do a mid-quarter KPI check. KPIs. OKRs. Performance metrics. Goals. Trackers. Updates. What’s the KPI for a kid in Gaza? Forage enough food to survive another day? And a Gazan father’s? Find the missing parts of his 5-year-old to give her a proper burial? A Gazan mother’s? Ration one piece of bread for her family of 5? My KPIs? To… well, does it really matter? It’s not to halt this genocide anyway. It’s not to do all within my limited means to prevent this unfolding monstrosity. I will let you know when I understand what my KPIs are. I will also tell you why they are. And why they should be.

Call done. I headed out for lunch with some colleagues and indulged in some light-hearted banter over food.

Back on the “work” desk, I got pinged by a higher up for an urgent task. It needed to be completed immediately. The company was participating in an event to sell its wares to more unsuspecting clients. The brief: make it appealing, but keep it subtle. Urgent work. Gaza, what? I paused the sitrep. An hour or so later, “the work” was approved with minor revisions. The sitrep was back on. I jotted down some more notes.

It was time to grab a tea and think of ways to find time to complete the stories in my drafts, to think of adding yet more story ideas to the already bulging drafts folder and hoping to have enough time with just enough sleep to complete them because I can’t help myself. It’s an itch I can’t scratch. I must write. I will die inside otherwise. There have been some long gaps between my posts here; each day without a completed story to hit “Publish” — due to circumstances beyond my control — has been a torture to my being. If this is all I can do, this is all I will do.

I opened the calendar to check for my meeting line up. Nothing in the pipeline unless something “urgent” popped up, again. But there was another notification to pick another task. “Sure,” I replied and clicked the thumbs up emoji for good measure. Don’t make anyone think you are not the right fit. You fit right in. Fit enough to do the “work,” go home, and expect a paycheck at the end of the month. What else is there to life? Gaza, who?

I started working on the new task. While it was not classified “urgent” — whatever that means when children in Gaza are starving to death in urgent need of aid — it had a tight deadline. Deadline. The word made me wonder if these deadlines are worse than Biden’s red lines. Both are equally meaningless. Inane. Just words on paper. Empty. Worthless. Utter them because some words just come out of the mouth in certain settings. Deadline at a workplace. Sounds about right. Someone holds you accountable for the deadlines, though. No such trouble with the red lines. Cross them as you like.

The scope of the task was big, it will take a few days. I did what I could and then updated a sheet because sheets must be updated just like weapons must flow to Israel to reduce more houses to rubble, orphan more children, and make mothers wish they went with their precious little ones. Those little ones will not cry of hunger anymore, if that’s some solace to the disconsolate mothers.

That would be the last sheet I would update for the day. My last task of another meaningless day at “work.” I could now focus all my attention on Gaza. I put on a podcast and made my way to the bus stop. The ride back home is longer. Two hours minimum, with barely any leg room and no armrest. Back breaking, especially after nine hours on a desk and two hours to get to the desk. But more time to read some more pages of this book and jot down even more notes, perhaps even start writing on the phone as I did parts of one of my earlier posts.

I reached and home, changed, ate, and hit the sack under the safety of a roof that I know won't be breached by a barbaric Israeli while I slept. Not yet, at least. Thank God. I don't know when I drifted off to sleep, but I remember waking up tired. That's the way it's been for a very long time now. Nearly eight months to be precise.

Oh, and one last thing: at the water cooler, I heard a duo talk about stuff so mindless I can’t even bring myself to recall and write it. But perhaps that’s how you become “the right fit” for “the workplace.” A team player. I am sure their appraisal scores are great. They will likely get a bonus too. Or got one already. Maybe a promotion as well. Want to make a living? Become a drone: buzz with incomprehensible asininities. Mix with your “colleagues.” Pretend a genocide is not happening, like it hasn’t killed over 35,000 people, like it hasn’t made a whole enclave uninhabitable, like it hasn’t made 5-year-olds wish for death. “This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

You have a conscience? What are you? A human? You will be fired for this intransigence. This kind of behaviour is not tolerated around here. No soul-searching is allowed here. No tears for the hungry, the abused, the helpless, the exploited, the oppressed, the homeless, the orphan. Be normal. Go do “the work.” Arbeit macht frei.

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A father in Gaza