Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Working, Playing, Day and Night…

As I sit here, men with pneumatic drills are tearing up the sidewalk in front of my house.  A flatbed full of conduit blocks my driveway.  The street is littered with chunks of concrete and piles of blacktop waiting to be spread.  I am psyched.  The only thing that’s not aesthetically pleasing about this block where I live is the web of wires overhead, and soon they’ll disappear underground, bringing me at the same time access to Animal Planet and other miracles of modern programming.  Tonight I will get home well after dark, despite the extended length of these early summer days, because I have a literacy training at 6 and I’m meeting a friend after that, and because the heat has broken and it’s summer in San Francisco - the sky is a pale grey bowl from horizon to horizon, diffusing light and confounding shadow.  I ran three miles this morning in about 25 minutes, which is damn good for a deskjocky like me.  Everything seems to be working out okay.

And in honor of working, here’s a little essay.  I don’t know why I wrote it or what it’s about, but it was fun and I don’t have time this a.m. to get all creative on your ass.  It happens.  Deal with it. 

*****

I’m not proud of what I do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to do it.  Somebody has to, right?  And that’s me.  It’s hard work.  I mean, you work hard at this job.  Usually it’s not too hard on the brain, but sometimes you have to think fast, and you have to think of everything.  If you blow it, that’s it - no do-overs.  So you gotta be able to get it right the first time.  And when things go wrong, that’s when everybody comes lookin’ for you.  It’s like, if nothing goes wrong, this stuff is invisible, but if something does go wrong, people are gonna be extremely upset.  Well I’ve been at this job for a dozen years, going on 13, and I think I’ve seen everything.  It can really hit the fan in this business, I’m sure you can see.  I’ve pulled the fat out of the fire more than once, sometimes when even I thought there was no way to avoid disaster.  But I avoided it.  I thought fast, I acted faster, I took control and I fixed things.  I fixed things.  None of them coulda done it - they needed an expert.  They needed me.  And I came through for them.  Most of them probably didn’t even know it, but I know.  I know what I did, what could have happened.  Things turned out okay because I was there, on the job, doing things right.  I’m proud as hell of what I do. 

*****

That was refreshing!  But not very funny.  So, just to ensure you get your RDA of FNY, I recommend that those of you with soundboards check out the “sound off” link on my sidebar.  Just let the page load and pick a celeb to pester with requests; some of these don’t seem to be loading right on my little home PC but Sam Jackson (right column near the bottom) is a true classic.  I should be back soon with lots of weird things to mutter into your cyberear.  Heh.  I said rear.

"It’s like, if nothing goes wrong, this stuff is invisible, but if something does go wrong, people are gonna be extremely upset.”

sounds a lot like stage management!!!

and traffic engineering! Does anyone ever think, “Wow, traffic is flowing very well today and the traffic lights are working just like they should”?  Nope.  But let there be one glitch in the signal system and everyone is pissed off.

Thanksless jobs abound.  Thanks for reminding me that I’m not alone.  Maybe that should be part of our job descriptions.

FWIW Lori, I fixate on traffic flow.  I watch the timed lights, the duration of “walk/don’t walk” signs, how long cross-traffic gets the green as opposed to arterial - one of my hobbies.  Along with making wax molds of my navel.  A man’s got to keep busy during those red lights and traffic jams.

How do you manage to create mental images that crack me up and gross me out at the same time? wax moldings of your belly button? eewww!

i believe people do a good job mostly for themselves.  you work the way you do for yourself.  i don’t know how to put that.  the words aren’t coming easy.  or pretty.  but how lucky you are that you can feel that the work you do is important.  gotta have that. 

but the belly-button thing—ewww.

Training for a literacy program! You are awesome! Good show, old man. Really. I’m so proud. You are doing it. (I started one in San Diego in 1991. 18 people showed up, 15 finished, and to this day, I get reports occassionally from about four of the people who still are teaching adults to read. They say it is the “best-feeling job” they have had in their whole life experience, to teach someone how to read. And they make personal friends with all of these people, extending their nuclear families--not usual, I know, but these are very unusual friends, with very big hearts.)
Your personal rewards will exponentially be far superior to the efforts you make. I congratulate you and wish you the very best.