Category: Life in these United States

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What People Do (Privately?) in their Vehicles

When I drive, I like to look at the people around me. It’s always amazing how many people seem oblivious to the fact that everyone can see them picking their nose (my friend Pam has an obsession with poop, mine is nose-picking), putting drops in their eyes, yelling at someone on their Bluetooth, or stuffing their pie-holes with a burger.

If you don’t have polarized sunglasses, I highly recommend them for voyeuristic driving activities. See, when you look through your rear-view mirror at the car behind you and you’re either A) Not wearing polarized glasses, or B) Not wearing any glasses at all, the sunlight usually creates a glare, preventing you from really seeing in. Polarized glasses however, change the direction of the sun’s reflection off the glass so that you can see through the glare. Nifty stuff this science!

Anyway, people in their vehicles are notoriously bored. Some alleviate the boredom by doing any one (or more) of the aforementioned activities—some with more aplomb than others. Most people simply sit there like bumps on a log looking like their life has come to a sudden end and they just really don’t care.

It’s sad really that a race of beings, such as humans, could evolve themselves into such mindless boredom.

When questioned, most “minds” would say that human’s greatest society-changing discovery might include:

  • the steam engine…and thereby the combustion engine of today
  • medical marvels (antibiotics, MRI’s, X-Rays, etc.)
  • the microprocessor

But I offer a different view. I believe the most society-changing discovery of all time (not including fire…cuz obviously fire trumps all) is the Air Conditioner. Yessir, once again we can thank the British for making us miserable. Were it not for one Michael Faraday in 1820, inventing the first in a long line of modern air conditioners, we might all be outside doing something more suited to our heritage. Instead, we’re stuck in our cars.

Think about it, without air conditioning, we couldn’t stand to sit in our cars; we couldn’t sit in these blasted skyscrapers and we darn sure couldn’t run our supercomputers. Oh sure, we could still have toasters and hair dryers, but there would be no advanced computers and we wouldn’t all be sitting in our automobiles—miserable—on our way to work everyday.

So next time you’re sitting at home watching sports on TV, consider the AC. And then, feel free blame the Brits.

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Dad Blogs Life in these United States

Those Little “Oh crap!” Moments in Life

By now, most of you know that I recently went back to work for a company that I used to work at as a contractor. Well, actually, the location is the same, but the company was bought out by Mega-Corporate, so the theology is different, but the general culture and politics are the same.

At any rate, when I worked there previously, I was a writer of all things product oriented. Now, I’m back and while I still basically do that, my official title is much for “official” sounding and I have more responsibility.

OK, so stage set…on with the story.

I was brought in on a project today because…well, it’s my job now. There were two papers being written for a single subject, but each with a slightly differing focus. Due to some daylight savings time scheduling issues, I went ahead and dialed into the 2 p.m. call just to make sure that I wasn’t supposed to be on it rather than the 3 p.m. call as my MS Outlook showed.

During the call, one particular high-level guy at my office was talking about some changes to the paper (not the one I was supposed to on the next call for) and someone mentioned my co-worker who was supposed to be on the next call, but for whom I’d taken over. Well, someone said, “Oh, she’s delegated this to some Chris person who will be on the next call.” Well, this high-level person said, “Yeah, well, Chris is just a writer.”

Now, writers by nature have thick skins. It comes with the territory; otherwise anytime someone edited or critiqued a story, we’d be popping the anti-depressants and calling 911. So, this didn’t really phase me, but ever since I saw this particular high-level person walk out of the bathroom stall with papers in-hand, not wash his hands and then proceed to put those same papers on my boss’ desk, I’ve really just not liked the guy. I tell ya, it was straight out of a Seinfeld episode (“I’m sorry sir. This book has been in the bathroom; you can’t return it.”).

So, I un-mute my phone and chime in, “Oh John, that’s not entirely correct.” There was a pregnant pause at which point he attempted to backpedal while simultaneously attempting to ascertain my new role while explaining to everyone on the call about my former duties.

I tell ya, it was priceless. Others on my team seemed much more distraught over the whole thing, but I surprisingly had a very “zen-like” calm over it. Dunno why.

So that was my fun for the day. To his credit, high-level person called later and apologized. That was nice of him, but I still won’t shake his hand.

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Dad Blogs Life in these United States

New Guy Office Embarassment

It all started pretty innocuously; but let me first provide a little context:

I have severe lower back problems. I’ve had two discectomys for my lower back and I continue to have a good deal of pain. Sitting makes any back problem worse. So, I sent an e-mail to my office’s facilities manager asking for a chair with a seat that tilted back, so as to relieve the pressure off my spine. In fact, here’s the text of the e-mail (edited for brevity):

“My name is Chris. I work for Tom up in Prod. Marketing on the 4th. I was mentioning to one of my team members that my chair and my back (2 surgeries) don’t get along, and she indicated I should contact you to see if we have any alternate chairs.

I understand these are very nice chairs we have here (Leap), but what they don’t do, is angle the seat enough to take the stress off the spine. I only know this because I’ve suffered from back pain since I’ve been working in an office. Ideally, people with my back condition want a seat that tilts back much like a recliner seat. That puts all your torso weight on your back rather than pushing it down into your spine and buttocks.

I know, I know…Waaaay too much information right? Basically, I just wondered if you have any other chairs I might could test-drive for long-term comfort?”

Pretty basic right? Well yesterday, no fewer than 5 people–yep, count ’em–showed up at my cubicle. Three of the people were from some sales place and one of them was an ergonomics expert. They proceeded to criticize my whole work area, I’m sure in hopes of getting my company to purchase a bunch of stuff for me.

I work for arguably, the best known IT company in the world, and I’m sure the dollar signs were just floating across their eyes. I was finally able to convince them that I wasn’t looking for the world, just a comfortable chair, so they finally left me alone.

Well, I’m test driving this new chair here, it’s a HumanScale Freedom chair. It’s a very interesting chair, with nifty arm thingies that go up and down like the seats on equipment at the gym. It has a gel-covered seat for my bum, and when you lean back in it, the neck part keeps your head in one place so that it doesn’t screw with all the perfectly aligned ergonomics you (should have) set up with your monitor.

But here’s the kicker…the seat doesn’t tilt! The one feature I asked for is absent in this miracle of modern steel and chemistry. And come to find out, from one of my colleagues who used to work in that industry, this chair isn’t even as expensive as the one I was using, which was a very nice Steelcase Leap chair.

I’ve now sent another e-mail to facilities politely refusing the chair, accompanied with a picture of a chair that does specifically what I want it to do. I mean, I’ve already caused a row, I might as well see it through till the end and get what I want.

So part of me is flattered that my company cares this much, but mostly I’m just embarrassed.