Institutions and their Idiosyncrasies

Institutions are intimidating. I always fear them initially. They have their own rules and codes of conduct and they expect you to know them before you engage with them. I wonder if it would be different in case we knew the conceptual operation of any institution we want to interact with. Nevertheless, the lack of knowledge that you are made to feel when you enter institutions is what makes you feel miniscule. Each institute has its own language - own terms and its own grammar. They always take advantage of this language and operate within the loopholes sometimes for their advantage.

People working in any institutions have mastered their own languages and operate in idiosyncratic ways. Sometimes they surprise you, sometimes they amuse you - but most of the times, they make you angry. This anger is towards institutionalized ways in which they behave and expect you to behave.


I have been running around banks these days to get some papers arranged for my financial records. And the more they ask me to wait for simple things, the more I get irritated. So I started recording idiosyncratic behaviours of people in bank. The following is very judgmental, sarcastic and has to be read in the frame of my mind in the bank, waiting for a simple letter stating my account balance in another currency:


"Most women in banks work like housewives. The way they handle paper, the way they write on official documents and the way they interact with machines (printers, computers, scanners, etc) is absolutely like they are cooking food. Basically they mishandle everything. The last thing they would think of is a misreading that could occur due to their bad handwriting, erasure or damage that may be caused due to their improper handling or trouble that customers may land with due to non functionality of machines. But this is not only true of women, most men too behave so. I don't know if this critique comes from my institutionalized aesthetic towards paper or because of the values instilled in me during my upbringing. But one thing that I am certain of is that the above errors I pointed out are purely functional and have no aesthetic implications. Each act at the bank involves figures which relate to money. And one may not disagree that all matters relating to money have to be handled with utmost care and discretion. 


This woman poked multiple pins in the document that she was supposed to finally hand me over. Not only that, in order to poke the pin, she folded, almost pinched and crumpled the paper spoiling its entire crease. Forget the crease, the way she put the bank's rubber stamp on the paper was so hard, that the ink blurred and the stamp print appeared like an impressionist painting. No one in their lives could ever understand which bank I hold an account with. The whole purpose of getting a bank stamp, I feel is lost. Now, it just remains as a blue stain on the paper, completely disregarding its own content and all information that lay below its ink. Inspite of sufficient white space on the paper, this woman official chooses to bang the stamp on the most irrelevant space. Banging the stamp to get an impression on a document is like a ritual - it has to be accompanied by the loud sound. Somehow I think, these officially relate a 'good' print to the loud noise that is produced while the perform the act of printing. And a compulsory part in the sequence of all this conundrum is the ritualistic mess up with the prefixes 'Mr.' & 'Mrs.' with the names. Quite obediently, this person committed this mistake too.

The handwritings of bank officials are prophecies by the pen they use. It feels as if some divine intervention occurs through the ball point of the pen. The words they write are least legible and can only be understood by who wrote it. Handwriting specialists may make theories out of such coded writing. For others, they are squiggles on the paper. Although they must be considered very valuable. It matters what transcends from the ball pen to the paper through their hand. For the bankers on the other side of the table, it's almost an ordinary job done. The value of the work is only to be understood by the client, not the worker. 


In such ways, institutions hone their staff. They perhaps employ staff who are ready to take endless pressure and perhaps express all the frustration on the tools they use or work they do. The work is an artifact - a signifier of their frustrated lives. One can curate a potential art exhibition of it! I am afraid I am not an expert. But it would involve an elaborate team of specialists, psychiatrists and artists to give more profound meaning to the otherwise quotidian work that the institution employees produce.