The Efficiency of Inefficiency

We have become so efficient at doing inefficient things that this paradox deserves some elaboration.

As much as the rationale eludes us, we have been presented with a need to stencil our four-digit numbers onto every little piece of equipment we have. You ask, why not simply handwrite? Wish I knew.

Maybe it's because we want to give our aggressors the impression that we are really, really neat soldiers; it might actually scare them. Maybe it's because we want to use penmanship to boast of our robotic philosophy. Maybe it's because using stencils elicits within us a measure of kindergarten reminiscence that never deserves to be forsaken no matter how much innocence we may think we've lost ever since we stepped through these doors! Oh, my Wilfred Owen!

Nevertheless, we are not daunted. We must demonstrate our fighting spirit. We must be thinking soldiers. And so we divide the labour, and valiantly sacrifice our period of self-study for the noble and divine sake of nattiness. (Indeed, we found a way to do it quite quickly nonetheless, which is really the point of the title.)

And so it goes, another day to be laughed at in retrospect, another day that re-affirms the wise and practiced adage – Do or die, don't ask why.