Meet the timesheet

After meeting all the deadlines, the omen of unnecessary bureaucracy still haunts you.

24/9/25 I'm standing next to the lockers, my hands and eyes in the shared mail basket checking for daily envelopes. First some driving infractions, each to be paid by the employee responsible. Then a square envelope from Vodafone, hard and soft shelled, I know it contains a CD. I'll give it to G. Even though this is a task any intern could do, my manager G wants to do it themselves every time.

Once every month, G takes the external compact disk reader, plugs it into the laptop and patiently updates the server traffic data from the past month. I can see how much G loves this task, even if it's an outdated procedure. This task gives them peace and confidence, forcing them to slow down, waiting for the reader to get the information, hearing the buzzing and scratching sound of the disk spinning, tasting the dust-burning smell of the small engine in the reader. It's a ritual; a sacred meditation about the importance of patience and constancy in work over rush and shortcuts. Everything needs time; Rome wasn't built in a day, and you took nine months to be born.

Below those ones, there is also an unexpected envelope, kraft paper outside and plastic bubbles inside. No name on it, so there is only one way to know who it is meant for: open it.

It contains a booklet and a floppy disk. I go down to the second floor, where the IT help-desk is. In storage room 2, behind several modern monitors, and over some cardboard boxes full of old landline phones, they also have a vintage computer - probably from the 80s - the kind with a green-screen monitor built in. It takes time, unscrewing and removing a fistful of dust from each component, then screwing it back together.

The system starts to buzz and beep, and the green-screen lightens up to a brighter green. Anyway, this old machine doesn't do much more, the light flickers on the screen but nothing happens. Of course it doesn't work, this is a restoration way above any of my competences. While I was glooming looking at the screen, the floppy in my hand, G said, handling an external floppy reader: "isn't it easier with that one?".

Yes, it's much easier. So, this is for you; I'm sharing the game I found on the floppy disk, and a scan of the handwritten pages in the envelope.