fine whine

I'm angry. I received an email in my work inbox today that really annoys me, mostly because I'm annoyed that it angered me so much.

They're 'restricting' our ability to change the desktop wallpaper. By 'restrict' they mean to say 'remove' since now anytime my coworkers or I minimize all windows we will be greeted with a cool blue background with the company's logo (which is itself just two words in different weights the same font mushed together).

I already know who I work for: a company that wants to suck every drop of individuality out of its workers, apparently.

I'm not sure why this bothers me so much. One theory that I have is that this is due to the other erosion of my 'freedom' lately, in that certain sites are blocked including Flickr and all web-based email (POP3 access too) as well as a host of sites designated as tasteless, games-related, insecure and more. They've told me that I am not to be installing my familiar free applications such as Irfanview and Firefox because they are not officially approved. They've demanded that we purge all emails older than three months, though my inbox quota frequently fills up in under three weeks if not three days.

I want to work and restricting what I do on my computer is restricting my work. But keeping me from changing my background doesn't really change what I can do.

That said, blocking me from the Control Panel does. That is another point on the email sent today, that the Settings portion of the Start Menu will be 'restricted' and by restricted again they mean 'removed' going so far to explain the point as to define icon ("picture") and to show a screenshot of the butchered Start Menu.

Damnit though, why can't I keep my personal backgrounds? Am I not to have any shred of personality or humanity on my desktop? I suppose I could compensate by color-printing my collection of desktops and littering the walls of my cubicle with them, but somehow that seems, well, wasteful and stupid.

Whereas their policy is just stupid.