I’m getting ready to leave on a business trip - a fundraising convention in New Orleans. The plane leaves tomorrow morning sometime and I’m coming home on Sunday. I’m very comfortable with this level of information. I know the details are written down… the little things like departure time and airline and hotel and the like. I’ll look at it before bed most likely… perhaps just before I pack. This distresses the people around me for some reason. There’s a certain “comfort gene” I must be missing - the one where I have to pack two or three times and well ahead of the trip, where I have my flight itenery written in several places (in case of fire) and in several languages (just in case the whole tower of Babel fiasco decides to repeat itself just to mess with me). In honor of all these nervous people, I’ll check my flight times just before bed, but I’m not going to pack until sometime between taking my shower in the morning and walking out the door. 
Archive for January, 2004
We got more tape! [See Jan 05 entry]
Had someone by some weird quirk of fate seen my thinly veiled fictional account? Had I made a subtle difference for good in the universe around me?? Was I an instrument of the underprivileged packer - nay, a superhero of the warehouse working class???
As it turns out, the president’s wife needed to pack something.
Bugger it all.
Ah yes… The new year. Businesses also make resolutions. Usually to save money. Can’t fire any more people - everyone knows that corporations do that just before Christmas anyway so that’ll have to wait another 11 months. So, cut spending! Yeah… cut spending. It’s a one to one ratio - every dollar you don’t spend is a dollar you still have! Really, this is a big concept to middle manager types - the equivalent to chaos theory or hyper threading technology. If you don’t know what those last two things are, don’t worry, it doesn’t mean you are a middle manager. After all, you can read.
So, I’m walking through the warehouse - we’re a shipping facility, remember this because it’s important - and I stumble upon a rather large pile of empty tape guns. Huh? Did they all break at the same time? I look around and see an employee searching shelves and drawers and I ask what’s up. They tell me they are looking for a tape gun, to which I reply that there is a rather large (now somewhat scattered) stack that I just stumbled over. She tells me she’s searching for a gun with tape in it - because, and bring back to your mind what I told you to remember earlier - because we’re not buying any more tape. We go through too much and it’s expensive.
Thank God we’re not a medical facility.
What this country needs is some moral viagra.
Damnit.
January 1st of the new year. The one time we resolve to change our wicked ways and become better people. We knowingly list off all the faults we rationalize away the rest of the year. We have plans to eradicate these faults that are so detailed the Secretary of Defense would be proud. January 1st is spring cleaning for the soul.
January 2nd of the new year. We can’t remember to write the correct year on our checks, let alone abide by a detailed resolution plan. Faults? Yeah, I suppose we could eat less, do more, quit [insert vice here] but we’ve got to get back to work, get the kids to school, take the car to the garage. January 2nd we throw everything from spring cleaning out in the garage - just for now - until we get some more time later.