Snow Daze

I am tired. This morning I got up early and cranked-up the trusty Sears snowblower for its maiden run of the season. Started on the first pull. I wrangled the 6 inches of blizzard in the driveway and 2 foot snow banks left by plows. Snow work is good work. You get a visual reward when you look back and see how much you have cleared away by dint of your hard labor.

At a desk in an office the mounds of paper never seem to disappear. Stuff is never really done. You get to thinking about cycles. Office Work is tightly linked to cycles. I know guys who get up every morning, and they don't think about the date on the regular calendar, they think about what fiscal week it is. They are the beancounters who toil and sweat and agonize about money that belongs to shareholders - nameless, faceless gamblers whose greed infects the institutions that they have bought a piece of. 21st Century slavers who buy and sell the anonymous workforce like they were just cattle. Hey, I know: it's just business. But it's not about worker satisfaction.

Judy hates to drive in the snow, and I don't mind. So I drove her to work in the Caravan. On the way over to Watertown, I noticed two vehicles spun-out - both big SUVs being operated by people who do not have a firm grasp on physics. I was a C student in High School but I still understand momentum, inertia and gravity enough to stay out of a ditch in slippery weather. (At least when I am sober)

My wife and I have both picked-up some respiratory congestion probably from the grandkids who were sniffling all week during their visit. Or, was it from all the kissing of friends and relatives during the holiday festivities. We'll we all got to share something besides the love I guess. Cough, Cough. Or maybe she got it at work and gave it to me. Staying home sick is not an option at her place of work; they don't believe in being sick. So all the sick people come to work and give it to their coworkers and customers. I dunno.

If I was back working in an office, I'd be home taking a sick day. I don't believe in spreading disease or working on snowy days. If I was feeling ok, and there was no snow to shovel, I'd probably be at my desk, shuffling paper, staring at some PC screen of data base attributes, running queries, thinking about lunch. Maybe I'd be dozing at the director's end-of-fiscal-quarter meeting. Of course, this is the meeting where he reflects on the contributions the IT group has made to the company during the past year. (Funny, he never mentioned my projects.) Mainly he talks about the hardware improvements to the infrastructure, (like any of us non-geeks give a rat's patooty about hardware.) Then, the employee of the quarter would be recognized. Always one of the cute young gals with bodacious boobs. No argument. They do make working in an office more interesting.

But just thinking about the meetings at the old office makes me want to yawn.