Tired and grumpy

The tired part is entirely self-inflicted. MrPloppy managed to get a game running over the network, so of course we had to test it out properly, and ended up playing way past what should have been my bedtime…

The grumpy part is probably partly due to the tired part, but it’s also because I’ve just come from a very frustrating meeting. There’s a part of my job that I really don’t like doing, even though strictly I am doing it voluntarily. I won’t go into details, but it’s something that makes me extremely uncomfortable, because I believe that it’s being done in the wrong way, and is probably causing harm to some people. However, I also believe it is actually necessary, and for it not to be done would cause even more harm. I’m not in a position to make the major changes to the process that I strongly believe are needed, so every time I go to a meeting about it, I just get frustrated seeing everything that’s wrong with it. The catch is, if I wasn’t at those meetings, it would be done even worse – I’ve at least managed to help make sure that the system is followed correctly (which they weren’t doing before), so although the outcomes are still unfair, at least they’re a little less unfair than they were. It’s kind of analogous to a vegetarian working in a freezing works, who believes that the animals shouldn’t be being killed at all, but knows that they will be anyway, so chooses to continue to work there because at least s/he can make sure they’re killed as humanely as possible. That’s the kind of moral conflict I’ve been feeling about these meetings. I hate what I’m doing, but I’d hate myself more for not doing it.

Sorry, ignore this. I’m not looking for any advice or comment (I haven’t given you enough meaningful details to allow that, anyway) – just wanted to have a little rant and get it off my chest.