Political Rant Which You May Skip if So Desired

I had a thought about voting as I read through yesterday's news. The media, call it fake news or lamestream or, alternatively, Faux News, all of which, even sprinkled throughout as they are with the occasional actual journalistic effort, have got us all perceiving current politics as confrontational, hostile, dangerous, crazy, infuriating, or outrageous, and the issue of voting has been covered similarly. The very act of voting is front and center now, voting is the equivalent of a soldier going "over the top," risking immune system and well-being to resist the oppressive opposition (whoever that might be) and it has all somehow come to this: voting is a negative act--we vote against the other guy almost more than for our guy.
Just sayin'. Everyone should vote, but I hope not just the ignited, furious anti-whatevers. If you're not sure, or if you are upset and have decided to withhold your vote, or just turned off by the negative politicking, just ask yourself, if the election results came in, which result would make you say to yourself, oh good, glad that guy got it? You must have an opinion. So vote for that guy.  Voting is not like going into battle. It's just the opposite, in fact. It's meant to be the peaceable way to resolve conflicts, or come to decisions.
Just vote.  It's what we democracies do.  It's no big deal. Until someone tries to stop you.

Another Week Passes

Friday again. I struggle to find meaning, for myself and for this blog, and it is just a little alarming whenever another week passes without my having made any progress on that. You might think it is from getting old, but the truth is that when young, it's not that we actually have meaning, it is that we're too busy to realize or worry about the fact that we don't. It's nice to be needed.

One time a few years back as my son was lecturing me (as he is sometimes wont to do) about thinking of myself as "getting old," he said I was "still relevant." This made me laugh. Not because I know that I am not necessarily relevant, but because he sounded so much like a Sixties Baby Boomer. I suppose we can't help but transmit some of that stuff.  I guess as transmitted rhetoric goes, this was pretty benign. Anyway, he was probably talking about my continued willingness to loan him money from time to time.  No--that's not fair.  He's a good man.

So, as the years go by, dreams and aspirations become hobbies, which can be defined as stuff you like to do but no one else cares. One advantage is it takes a lot less energy to do anything when you're not trying to draw a crowd.

Meanwhile, while much can be said about my two years spent as a clerk at the phone company, back in the early 80s, the thing that I remember the most vividly was how, as the only guy in an office full of women, it would sometimes be tough to navigate all the office politics. I was often held to a different set of rules and standards when it suited the other clerks. It so happened that the last two guys who were clerks in that office wound up getting promoted to management pretty quickly, and of course leaving all of them behind. No doubt this bothered some of them, or it seemed to me that it did, and I eventually learned from an ally that some of them had actually gotten together and decided that they weren't going to let this latest guy (me) get promoted this time--not if they could help it.

They were very effective at this, even though it was moot, even though they failed to understand that I wasn't there to work my way into management--my plan, which was no secret, was to put in my two years to be eligible for a transfer, and get a job as an outside repair technician. Yes, and leave them all behind. So, I was treated OK, but only provisionally. I didn't care, that much, but the whole thing was sort of un-fun.

No matter. At about the two year mark, I figured out a way to get my transfer, even if it meant moving to Oklahoma; there was an oil boom going on down there, and much more work so that it was easier to get into the type of job I wanted. I submitted my transfer request, and it took about a month or so to get it. I was told one Friday that I was to report to work in Oklahoma City in a week. Luckily for me, the short notice wasn't a problem, and I got everything I owned into a '72 Oldsmobile Cutlass and drove down the Saturday before my start date. 

I'll give you the spoiler.   At that moment I had no reason to believe that Oklahoma City, a five hour drive to the south of Kansas City, would be anything other than a fine place to live.   I saw this as a permanent move.  I'd have to stay there for two years before I could put in another transfer, anyway. As it turned out, I was anxious to get back to KC some months before the two years were up, for a handful of reasons, and I managed to do so pretty much right after I had the two years in.

But that first day on the job, that was something. You might say a harbinger, but you might not if, like me, you weren't sure what that means. I found the work location, a long, low cinder block building next to a large, brick telephone central office, and I walked in and found the smallish room where my new crew was. I was a little early of course.  The phone company was very big on punctuality, and this was my first day and all. It was a medium sized beige room with a cluttered wooden desk in one corner--the boss's, I assumed, though no one was seated there--and a couple of long tables in the middle of the room, lined with chairs, with a scattered array of telephones on them.  A handful of guys were already sitting around, and they all looked up at me. Someone asked if I was the new guy, to which I answered yes and asked where the manager of the crew was.

"He's not here today," someone said. "He said you'd be here.  You're supposed to ride with Gene."

OK, so my first day was to be spent riding along with one of the techs.  Too bad I was so stupid I wasn't dressed for December weather in Oklahoma. I ascertained that Gene wasn't there yet. Then someone, who for the life of me for the next two weeks I thought was called "Little Phil" but whose name was actually Littlefield, (Oakie accents) looked up and asked me if I had ever done outside tech work before. They had no idea where I came from, or from what job. I said, no.

Littlefield just lowered his head and blurted "God DAMMIT!  They were supposed to get somebody in here who could start working right away!" 

"I'll learn as fast as I can," I said.

Welcome to Oklahoma.

In Dogged Conscientious Pursuit of 500 Words (The title counts!)

I am not sure if I will get my 500 words in today. This is because I allowed myself to get distracted at every turn as the day went by. Something good: I was able to walk a mile and a third after lunch, which is something I should try to do every day as well. There is an Arby's on a busy highway not far from my house, so we went there, to the drive-thru, and got food. Very close by is a walking track, and along the street in front of it are maybe five trees, spaced out, that provide good shade at that time of day, at this time of year. So, we parked in the shade, ate lunch, and listened to NPR news and then walked around the track four times.  (X 0.33 mile)

In another lifetime, it seems, I lived in another house that was fairly close to this track, and I walked there after dinner.  Sometimes my son, who was a little kid then, would come with me and play on the play apparatus while I walked. Very happy memories, so I enjoy going there nowadays.  Just in much different circumstance.

I just had a thought--just now--you thought you smelled something burning--about what I wrote about my first job at the phone company. It was at the Southwestern Bell administration office building in downtown Kansas City. The employment office was on the ground floor of it. My last job with the company was also in that building, but on the 10th floor. Just thought it was odd to have that happen, because in-between, I worked at several different locations in two different states and three different towns.

This building, by the way, was the one we theorized they built on an old Indian burial ground, but during construction, they just moved the headstones. (!!!) But that's a long story--possibly way over 500 words--for another day.

Stay safe. Keep flossing.

Self Assessment

 I just read yesterday's post, and I think I sounded just a bit narcissistic. I didn't mean to. I got the idea to write about my career at the phone company, thinking there were a few juicy bits in there, and you must know that, at least in my experience at blue collar type jobs, most of us think we're good at what we do and, who knows, probably just a little bit better than some, and maybe, on a good day, just a little better than most.  Well, just walk into a work place and tell someone they do shitty work, and see what happens.  No matter how much that particular person might have just been bad-mouthing the company or saying how much he hates his job, he thinks he's good at what he does.

The truth is that, in general, I regard my overall "career," (if you want to call it that) at the phone company as sort of a lukewarm failure. I showed up, I got paid--that was the actual motivation, to be clear--and over the years some jobs were good, some bad, some I was good at, some not so good.  The last place I worked at, as a matter of fact, was the latter. I could list reasons and everything, if I wanted to preserve the ego, but no, I was in a type of job I was no good at. Not even close. Was it all bad?  No. Like I said, I got paid.  Was it all good?  Well, no.

But, my point, I think it's worth the effort to possess an accurate self-assessment. If you're bad at something, learn from it--either get better at it, or better at avoiding it, or better at enduring it--whatever. But it probably wouldn't do much good to get better at lying about it. And, if you're good at something, might as well own it.  Why not?  If you got it, flaunt it. As Elmore James, the American Blues guitarist sang, "You got to shake your moneymaker." Of course tooting your own horn might best be reserved for resumes,  or classic, ground-breaking autobiographies, or possibly anything after the third date--or possibly before the third date. I'm not sure.

I'm never going to make 500 words, but I went way over yesterday, so there. And, I give this post 3 out of 5 stars, mainly for impeccable punctuation.

The Early Days

 I've given myself the assignment of writing 500 words, at least, every day. Since my life doesn't have 500 words in it each day, this is liable to make this blog pretty boring. You have been warned.
I retired from the phone company, which, here, was Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. (at first) in 2009. As a matter of fact it was about two weeks before the stock market bottomed out. I had worked at Ma Bell for about 29 years. The round number of 30 years had no meaning, in my case, as my retirement was the same no matter what, as long as I was old enough and had enough service--which I did.
I started there in 1980, therefore. A friend told me I should apply for a job as either a clerk or an operator and I would stand a good chance of getting hired because of Affirmative Action, which in its fine print recognized something called "non-traditional jobs," which meant that as a white male, I should go to the head of the line so that more men could be operators or clerks. This worked, especially since I passed a typing test that required I type more than 50 words per minute, and do so relatively error-free. Since not too many men could do that, apparently, I was hired in a couple of weeks, as a matter of fact.
The plan was to hire on, as I did, and then after the obligatory two-year period had passed, submit a request to something called the Placement Bureau for a transfer to the job that I really wanted, which was either installer or repair technician. That's what I had in mind, but there were lots of technical, or "craft," jobs in the company to choose from. The trick was to think of one that was needing people in my area.
I put my transfer in but nothing came up. They were doing no hiring in the departments I wanted into. I continued clerking--I worked at the Employment Office either filing, or answering the phones, or standing at the front desk handing out applications to people who wandered in (very busy back then) or administering tests to people who were actually being considered for hire.
For every job category, there was a specific test applicants must pass in order to be hired into it. The tests were theoretically applicable to the job duties.  There was an "Operator/Clerical" test for either of those jobs that tested some language abilities as well as math abilities, as well as one weird section testing one's ability to follow instructions and then make marks on a graph with some degree of accuracy. There was a "Craft" test, for the jobs I wanted, meant to determine if you could perform math and English problems with a little bit more complexity, as well as demonstrate some spatial relationships understanding--that was the classic one with the pictures of boxes with patterns all over them, then several "unfolded" boxes (sort of like a hopscotch layout) with patterns that may or may not match the regular boxes, which you had to identify. Not sure how that applied to the job, but I suppose it helped weed out applicants with no mechanical aptitude whatsoever.
There were more tests--five or six, in all.
So, administering these tests was the fun part of the job. We all took turns on different weeks.  Testing was done three days a week, a few times a day, with groups ranging in size from 15 or so to maybe 30. It was an interesting experience being in charge of such large groups (relatively speaking!) and moving them to a testing room on the next floor up, and then seating everyone and giving instructions, and everything else that testing entailed. It was a good learning experience for me.  I was very hesitant and shy at first, which DOES NOT WORK in a setting like that, and I learned to be a little more assertive and, most importantly, learned how to communicate in general terms and still make sense.
Imagine, say, thirty people whose names you have all called, and they are all standing up in the smallish employment office seating area, and they are all trying to be on their best behavior, they want to impress, and they want of course to pass this test they are about to take.  They are nervous. I am a twenty-nine year old man wearing "business casual" clothing, (though not real good stuff, as I was only making $168.00 a week) and I must move this pulsating, amoeba-like collection of people into the elevator lobby, into two elevator cars (at least) and make sure they arrive at the 2nd floor, which was very important since the building had 13 floors and these people weren't employees and should not be wandering around without supervision! From the elevator lobby on the second floor, I have to direct the group down a hall and into a room, which looks very much like a classroom, with desks in rows, and two long table at the front.
But here I am with all these people and the first few times I had to do this, it was very awkward, very halting and no doubt very confusing to the group of applicants. Then, one day, I was walking toward the elevators after leaving the employment office, this crowd behind me, walking slowly to match my speed, and I stopped and turned around. And they all stopped, too! In that instant I understood that it was, in fact, very easy to control them to the degree I needed to.  At that moment, I was important--I was how they were going to get hired.  I just had to tell them what we were going to do, then do it, wash, rinse, repeat. From then on, for weeks, months, after, I learned to speak loudly, clearly, and with confidence, and at some point just before I transferred out of that job, I was told that among all the testers, and I was one of a group of about six or seven of us, MY groups always got higher scores, on average, for that whole time. Since I wasn't helping them cheat, this told me that I was just better at giving tests, putting people at ease, and communicating clearly with them. I was sort of proud of that.

The Environment

 First, I have to say that every time I see the word, environment, I remember an incident that happened with my wife at the grocery store where she worked some years ago. She told me this. She was walking with the store manager and pointed out to him that a huge banner on the wall behind the customer service desk read:

ENVIROMENTALLY SAFE DRY CLEANING SERVICE

She said to him that "environmentally" was misspelled. He said that was OK, that he'd leave it like that so people could feel good about themselves when they spotted the error. To which my wife replied that she wasn't particularly proud of remembering something she learned in the fifth grade. 

That has nothing to do with anything, but I enjoy thinking of it. Personally, I didn't like the store manager, but I didn't have to work with him, so that was OK. 

Today, the environment we're talking about is the one in which I do my writing. It's in the finished basement, and not all that well lit--there is one east-facing window--but, you, know--lamps.

I spend a lot of time here--too much probably--because the S.O. works on her book in the spare bedroom upstairs and I have this free time, so . . . 

The nerve center of the basement.

Yeah I know.  Who has a big stupid computer tower anymore? At least it doesn't have a noisy fan although when the power goes out, it does suddenly feel eerily quiet. And I got this great big screen so I can maintain denial of needing reading glasses. 

Hatch Act Being So Unfair

Trump has hinted that he might make his Republican nomination speech from the White House. He says it will beneficial because 1.) it’s safer for him not to travel, 2.) it’s easy, 3) it will save a lot of money. Nancy Pelosi and others, including many Republicans, are pushing back. They say it is not legal for most who will be involved, and that it goes against tradition and respect for the White House--the idea that you shouldn’t use the White House for political functions. Since, like, forever. 

 I have an idea. Trump could make everybody happy, including, I am guessing, even himself, by making his speech from the golf course--that is, any one of the golf courses he has used, combined, about 268 times in just this year. 

 Why is this good? Well, 1.) he must have determined that going golfing is safe, else he wouldn’t have done it so much, 2.) it’s easy. Seriously, everything is easy for Trump. He just walks around, or rides around, and everybody else does all the work. It’s part of being President. Then 3.) it will save money, probably. Trump is obviously worried about saving taxpayer money, and since he has gone golfing 268 times in just this year, I think we can assume he has determined it doesn’t cost a lot of money.

 Except according to the web site www.trumpgolfcount.com, his golf trips, combined, have cost the American taxpayers $138,000,000. But, you know, what’s one more golf trip? Plus, he can get in a few holes before or after the speech. Actually, since he’s going to do that some time soon anyway, if past behavior is any indication of future behavior, that means the speech will cost zero dollars over the normal amount of taxpayer money Trump spends. Win-win.