When I was born in Springfield, Illinois, the heat and humidity were just part of Summer. I hated going down there after my parents got divorced, for no other reason than the ridiculously high humidity and the sweltering days. Now, the climate has shifted north and we are in the hot zone. Yesterday, it felt like I was a guppy, breathing water. It was supposedly the third highest humidity ever recorded here with dew points above eighty degrees. It made me feel sick. I had to force myself to eat something for lunch and other than a few cheese curds and a couple cucumbers, nothing else even sounded good. The combination of high heat and humidity make it difficult to cool a body down and for many, exhaustion ensues. I am much happier when the temperature is fifty or below. My theory is that you can always put on more clothes if you need them, but even if I had been naked yesterday, I would have felt overheated.
What was most striking about the weather yesterday was that it just seemed to make me angry. It did not help that I was working under the conditions dictated by someone who had no idea how to get the job done easily or with any sort of common sense, but that is just a small part of the picture. The work was over an hour away by car and although the traffic was light, it still seemed way too far to drive for the amount of money I would be making. Add to this the horrible first-day traffic snarl that occurs in and around EAA and their annual Air Venture Fly -in. We had to drive over ten miles to get my carpool riders in and another ten miles to get out and back in after lunch break. Added to this, the work should have been done in less than half the time, but because of stupid decisions made along the way by "the boss", we had to spend even more time and effort doing things twice and then three times in some cases.
Hiring professionals is usually done when you need skilled workers, but this guy seemed to think we were just glorified temp workers with no skills or experience. In my case, and in the case of at least one of my fellow workers, our individual experience was quite possibly greater than his entire life span. Now, before you let that sink all the way in, I must add that we were both nearly double his age, we both grew up in the theater and we both tend to work smarter, not harder. All the heavy shit (about two tons of cable and wire) were on wheels when he arrived. The first order of business, as he said was to unload all of the copper out of the boxes and onto the floor, taking the wheels out of the picture for the rest of the day. Indeed, he did have a detailed drawing of where every pre-labeled end was supposed to be placed on the several sticks of truss... (which filled a room as large as an airport hangar) We should have placed each coil near the middle of the run, pulled half off in the direction of where it was supposed to end up, flipped the coil and run the rest out toward the source of power, but that would have made sense.
Perhaps the weather was only a small part of how angry it got me, but after struggling all day to make things work, get them finished and looking pretty, the last step of the day was equally grim. We had practiced exemplary cable management and could have gotten the last step done in about twenty minutes, but he told us that we needed to stretch out the coils and recoil them before they were sent to the dimmer racks, from which power flowed. Another ton of cable being pulled out and back nearly 100 feet was the last thing we wanted to do late in the day, but he was the boss. This leads me to the main point of my Heat and Humidity rant. The entire climate change issue is the result of letting ignorant people lacking all common sense make important decisions for the rest of us.
The self-centered oligarchs just see what they want, nothing else matters. however many of us need to be maimed, killed or thrown to the curb it is of little consequence as long as the wealthiest among us continue to get their way. I used to love working with the company that I worked for yesterday, they were a big corporate player, but their middle level managers respected the stagehands union enough to let us get work done without very much interference. When this guy told us to do the opposite of what made sense, or what was smart, we should have said "No.", or at least "If you want that done, you will have to do it yourself." Instead, we resigned ourselves to doing more than double the work for the same pay and welcomed our difficult row to hoe. The heat and humidity had taken their toll on our reasoning skills, but there was no reason to abandon our experience and skills fo rthe sake of a guy who had no clue.
We continue to break records for heat and humidity across the nation. For those of you who still think climate change is a myth, check out a few sources of information. The human species has forever changed climate, we have tools at our disposal that can change the course of our destructive actions, but we lack the will to make better choices. We have the power to stand up, with one voice, and say, "No!" all we lack seems to be the will. climatechangepsychology at blogspot is a good place to start.
What was most striking about the weather yesterday was that it just seemed to make me angry. It did not help that I was working under the conditions dictated by someone who had no idea how to get the job done easily or with any sort of common sense, but that is just a small part of the picture. The work was over an hour away by car and although the traffic was light, it still seemed way too far to drive for the amount of money I would be making. Add to this the horrible first-day traffic snarl that occurs in and around EAA and their annual Air Venture Fly -in. We had to drive over ten miles to get my carpool riders in and another ten miles to get out and back in after lunch break. Added to this, the work should have been done in less than half the time, but because of stupid decisions made along the way by "the boss", we had to spend even more time and effort doing things twice and then three times in some cases.
Hiring professionals is usually done when you need skilled workers, but this guy seemed to think we were just glorified temp workers with no skills or experience. In my case, and in the case of at least one of my fellow workers, our individual experience was quite possibly greater than his entire life span. Now, before you let that sink all the way in, I must add that we were both nearly double his age, we both grew up in the theater and we both tend to work smarter, not harder. All the heavy shit (about two tons of cable and wire) were on wheels when he arrived. The first order of business, as he said was to unload all of the copper out of the boxes and onto the floor, taking the wheels out of the picture for the rest of the day. Indeed, he did have a detailed drawing of where every pre-labeled end was supposed to be placed on the several sticks of truss... (which filled a room as large as an airport hangar) We should have placed each coil near the middle of the run, pulled half off in the direction of where it was supposed to end up, flipped the coil and run the rest out toward the source of power, but that would have made sense.
Perhaps the weather was only a small part of how angry it got me, but after struggling all day to make things work, get them finished and looking pretty, the last step of the day was equally grim. We had practiced exemplary cable management and could have gotten the last step done in about twenty minutes, but he told us that we needed to stretch out the coils and recoil them before they were sent to the dimmer racks, from which power flowed. Another ton of cable being pulled out and back nearly 100 feet was the last thing we wanted to do late in the day, but he was the boss. This leads me to the main point of my Heat and Humidity rant. The entire climate change issue is the result of letting ignorant people lacking all common sense make important decisions for the rest of us.
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| Since 1984 I have had the experiences of riding my bicycle around all five Great Lakes to spread the word about how to live a more enriching life, a more rewarding, full and passionate life, while using less resources and conserving the natural wonder and beauty of our planet at the same time. Back then, some called it voluntary simplicity or self-sufficiency, I called it living better for less; today, we call it sustainability. |
The self-centered oligarchs just see what they want, nothing else matters. however many of us need to be maimed, killed or thrown to the curb it is of little consequence as long as the wealthiest among us continue to get their way. I used to love working with the company that I worked for yesterday, they were a big corporate player, but their middle level managers respected the stagehands union enough to let us get work done without very much interference. When this guy told us to do the opposite of what made sense, or what was smart, we should have said "No.", or at least "If you want that done, you will have to do it yourself." Instead, we resigned ourselves to doing more than double the work for the same pay and welcomed our difficult row to hoe. The heat and humidity had taken their toll on our reasoning skills, but there was no reason to abandon our experience and skills fo rthe sake of a guy who had no clue.
We continue to break records for heat and humidity across the nation. For those of you who still think climate change is a myth, check out a few sources of information. The human species has forever changed climate, we have tools at our disposal that can change the course of our destructive actions, but we lack the will to make better choices. We have the power to stand up, with one voice, and say, "No!" all we lack seems to be the will. climatechangepsychology at blogspot is a good place to start.
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