A Lesson

The most valuable lessons in life are sometimes those which happen when you simply think about everyday things in a new way.

 I remember in 1990 when the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed. I was working at the Public TV station in Flint at the time and we were required to sit through some videoconferences explaining the law and its ramifications. I figured it was only marginally relevant to me. I didn't have a physical handicap. Neither did the employees I supervised. If the new laws made the lives of disabled people a bit better, that was fine, but as far as I was concerned this was all stuff that would take place in the background.

 One of the immediate results of the ADA was the rather old building which housed the TV station was upgraded to make it more accessible to those with disabilities. One such upgrade was the addition of a push button outside the entry door which would automatically open that door when pushed. I had no problem opening that door anyway, so I figured it made no difference to me either way. But then we started airing telecourses for a local Community College. One of my jobs was to haul the weekly load of videotapes from a building located across campus back to the TV studio. On some weeks, these heavy tapes had to be carried by yours truly in an cumbersome box requiring all my strength to carry. And guess what? When I arrived breathless at the entry door and my hands were full, I was able to push the access button with my elbow, have the door automatically open and easily walk inside.

 I've often thought about that incident in the years which followed. In making things a little better for one group, we - sometimes in unintended and unplanned ways - make things a little easier for ourselves as well. Ever since, when questions of rights for minority groups have come up, I have tended to err on the side of wanting to maximize the rights of such groups. My reasoning is that not only would expansion of those rights be good in and of themselves, but there might, when one least expects it, be benefits for us all.

Comments

I've recently found out that people have posted comments to my posts only to have these comments disappear. Please know that I have NOT been deleting them. I don't know the cause of the problem but I will try to figure it out and correct it if possible. Thanks fer yer patience!

Some Thoughts and Another Damned Haiku

When it comes to my employment history, it seems I've lived backwards. The conventional wisdom is that one puts up with crappy jobs when starting out and after "paying one's dues" one is rewarded with a more enjoyable job and better working conditions.
Me? I once had a job I loved and excelled in. It was close by, I had understanding supervisors and I was well compensated. Now? It's a daily 125-mile round trip slog so I can clean toilets and deal with a sketchy supervisor who treats most of his employees like shit.
How bad is he? He refuses to let me have my 50th birthday off despite the fact I have plenty of vacation hours saved up and 23 years seniority at the University. What a dick.
Today, I toured the University of Michigan with my son. He is doing exceptionally well in high school and has a very good chance of being accepted. It was hard to contrast my grizzled survivor-mode existence with the optimistic the-world-lies-ahead-of-you vibe of the new prospective students taking the tour. There was a part of me that wished it could be me looking forward to college. All the knowledge. All the opportunities. All the freshness and excitement of new possibilities. But I had my chance. It's time for me to step aside and let the new generation have its chance. It's time for them to dream.
And time for me to get back to scrubbing toilets. Someone has to pay for it all...

Thinking of my son
On the cusp of adulthood.
The whole world awaits.

Sign of the Times

This, I presume, implies their competitors' customers are some sort of inferior stale lukewarm coffee. Or something.
(Sign at a Marathon station in Davison, MI. January 2012.)

Imponderable

Something that has long puzzled me: the Book of Revelation was written somewhere around 70 AD or so. LSD wasn't invented until 1943.
The fact that something THAT fucked-up could have been written without the help of acid is TRULY a miracle!

Still Kicking

Life can certainly get dull if all one does is work and/or recover from and get ready for more work. There’s a part of me that craves a creative outlet, though time constraints often prevent any efforts in that direction. It is for that reason, therefore, that I am happy to have actually written a new song… my first in many, many months. I don’t really know if it’s any good or not and I likely won’t get any feedback until I get a chance to play the demo to my fellow Ice Halo bandmates next weekend, but it just feels good to have written something… anything!... again.

The New Front Line in the Culture Wars: The Janitor's Closet!

In my new incarnation as a janitor at a medical institution (one in which yours truly has recently won an award for best cleaning of patient rooms, thank you very much) my workday begins and ends with a trip to the janitor's closet. Throughout my worklife, I have seen more of these closets than I’d like to admit. They are all pretty much the same. There’s a sink in the corner with a drain for pouring out filthy pail water at the end of the day. There are racks on the walls for hanging dust mops and brooms. There are shelves for boxes of trash bags and various cleaning solvents. And they are almost universally too small. Even the closet at my prestigious institution is so small that once the cleaning cart is parked inside one must squeeze around it to access the supply shelves. So imagine my surprise when I heard there was a move afoot by a state legislative group (in Virginia, to be precise, but the movement has to start somewhere and if it catches on in Virginia, then it will surely spread to our beloved Great Lakes State eventually) designed to tackle the problem of small janitor’s closets! Who are these wonderful people? Obviously some sort of commie pinko labor-loving outfit that wanted to “stick it to the man” by symbolically reforming the most lowly physical manifestation of the working environment, right?
Well, no. Actually the folks advocating this reform are Conservative Republicans.
Republicans?
As Ned Flanders might say, that’s a real head-scratcher, right there. I thought these people were against government regulations in the workplace. But who am I to be so prejudiced? Maybe they just started to feel sorry for the lowly blue collar working stiffs and decided to give us poor janitors a break. Or perhaps (and more likely) they’re getting huge campaign contributions from large corporate donors who make janitor’s closets. Dunno. Either way, we’re gonna get bigger closets, so who cares?
But wait. These Republicans don’t want to have these regulations for janitor’s closets at all workplaces. Just certain ones.
What? Well, okay… maybe there are some places that are too small to be able to afford to re-do their existing janitor’s closets. Some small mom & pop companies, perhaps. So I guess I could see why the Republicans would want to give these smaller places a break. But still, maybe the rest of us who work in larger (and richer) places will soon get our palatial 50-square-foot janitor’s closets! Right?
Well, no. Not exactly. The regulations aren’t based on the size of the company, but on what type of facility they are. Specifically, medical institutions.
Well, that kinda sucks for about 90% of the janitorial workforce out there, but for those people like me who earn their bread cleaning medical facilities, it’s still something I can look forward to, huh?
Nope.
Not all medical facilities will be required to expand their janitor’s closets.
Okay… so which ones WILL be required to expand them?
Only medical facilities that provide abortion services.

Uh…huh.

So… Republicans are against intrusive government regulations on grounds that such regulations would inhibit the ability of employers to do what they do. Unless the Republicans happen to disagree with what those employers happen to do. In which case it’s fine to pile on as many costly regulations as possible just to be a pain in the ass.
So… I guess they don’t really care about us lowly janitors at all and we’ll have to live with our cluttered closets forever and ever amen.
Unless we work at an abortion clinic.
Their closets will be awesome!

Fuck the Republicans!