Falling to earth
I was blog surfing today, which is about as athletic as I get any more, and was reminded of a pastime I used to enjoy, at least most of the time.
Karl of Secondhand Tryptophan went skydiving as a celebration of his birthday. Watching his video of the occasion reminded me of how I spent just about every Saturday and many Sundays for about a year and a half when I was in my early 20s.
A woman I worked with asked me to go with her when she went for her first jump. She had become interested in giving it a try from a guy she "liked", but she wanted some moral support and someone to ride along with her and keep her from turning around and heading home halfway to Elsinore. Lake Elsinore and Perris, California, were both great places to go back then. Out in the proverbial middle of nowhere, there was lots of space to drift around in and still find room to land that wasn't already occupied by houses and cars and, well, other people who didn't appreciate 'divers dropping out of the sky on their heads.
I went to watch and was immediately hooked. The very next Saturday, I was back, with the fee in my hand and courage in my heart.
They didn't do tandem jumps back then. Instead, you signed up for a daylong course during which you learned a few safety tips and how to hit the ground without breaking anything vital. This training consisted of jumping off a set of portable stairs a few dozen times, trying to get the drop and roll technique down because everyone knows it's the same thing to jump off of stairs as it is to jump out of an airplane.
By the end of the day (a few hours, tops) you were ready to make your first jump. I think the theory was, if they let you leave, you might actually come to you senses, so better get you in the plane ASAP. Fortunately, you were attached, or rather, the pull ring of your parachute was attached, to the plane by what was called a "static line." That way, once you fell away from the plane far enough to run out of line, your chute would automatically open and you would then float harmlessly to the ground where you would hit and roll just like you did when you jumped off the rolling stairs.
If you survived your first experience and actually wanted to do it again, you continued your training, progressing little by little each jump. The first several jumps were all static line, then what were called "clear and pulls." As the name implies, you just cleared the plane and immediately pulled your chute. Each subsequent time, you waited a little longer, learning how to control your body a bit better each jump.
The planes they used were older propeller planes, small and empty in the back. Everyone crowded in and inched their way toward the door-less exit to take their turn stepping out onto a tiny step while clutching the wing strut. The pilot would briefly kill the engine so you could get out and away before he started it up again, cutting down on what was called "prop blast." The idea was to step backward into the sky while still holding on and then let go with your hands, thus falling in a flat, tummy down position. A "hands first" was a very bad exit. About my third or fourth jump, I found out why.
When you let go of the wing strut with your hands and your feet are still on the step and the air from the propeller and the plane's forward motion hits you, you tumble head over heels backwards, not all lovely-floaty like you're supposed to. Your chute is attached to the plane and it's going to open when the line plays out, regardless of which part of the tumble you're in at the time. I was hurtling headfirst toward the earth. When a huge bubble of silk attached to your upper body fills with air and you're head-down, you become feet-down very quickly. Of course, I'm not complaining that it happened, in fact, I was quite relieved. And, even though I felt the force of the jerk from my head to my booted tootsies, it didn't really hurt. The wind was kind of knocked out of me, but, all in all, I was grateful it hadn't been worse. My gratitude was a bit premature.
It was late afternoon by the time we were all in and had stowed out gear. A bunch of us went to dinner and decided to catch a movie. All was fine until I sat in the movie for a couple of hours. The lights came up and I started to get out of my seat. Wow. That was a mistake. EVERY INCH OF MY BODY HURT! It felt as if every bone in my body was rubbing on the one next to it. Of course, my companions were less than compassionate. The more they laughed at me, the more I laughed at myself, and the more it hurt. Someone had to literally pull me out of my seat and I walked like the Tin Man without his oilcan for the rest of the night and much of the next day.
So lesson learned. I never did that again. I had a great time being a skydiver and met some wonderful people. Somewhere down the line, I started doing other things on my weekends and gradually went less and less until I finally stopped. But if I ever have to jump off the stairs, I still know how to hit and roll.
A mysterious illness has befallen us
I found out this week that even pseudo illnesses can be contagious. Ah, the power of negative thinking!
On Tuesday, I was actually on my way to work when I started feeling an almost overwhelming urge for a day off. A day to myself, while everyone else was away from the house (really, REALLY rare). It was a combination of lack of sleep (I've been on the insomnia train to nowhere lately) and irritation at work (I'm completely caught up, no, may I say, AHEAD of all of my projects and keep volunteering for work that amounts to fixing other people's crap that they should have done correctly in the first place) and, well, I'll be honest, I was just feeling lazy.
The closer I got to work, the more I convinced myself that I deserved a day off. So, at some point on the drive, I took an offramp and started back north to home and my books and my music and my cats and lovely, lovely aloneness.
I've never had a problem lying my way out of work. "Not feeling well." Simple, not too many gory details. As long as it's not overdone, it's believable. I went back in on Wednesday feeling rested, restored and rejuvenated.
It started pretty early. A phone call. Co-worker one, calling in, saying she thinks she has "what Sheryl had yesterday." Really? A case of fake-itis? The second call. Co-worker two, down for the count. I sense a pattern here. Caller number three actually said her whole FAMILY was sick. Now I'm being blamed for passing a non-existent illness to a spouse and children I've never met!
It all brought to mind a guy I worked with in the past. He was the poster boy for hypochondria. If someone sneezed with 20 feet of him, he could be out for a week, hovering around the proverbial door of death. The best example of his ability to co-opt any and everyone's symptoms came when a woman we worked with quietly confided in a couple of us that she was going home with a bad case of monthly cramps. Not forty-five minutes later, Mr. Health and Vitality announced he had to go home. He was absolutely certain he had caught what she had!
He sure was cranky when we told him what she was suffering from. Maybe some Midol would have helped.
Meetings of the mind
Before this job, I had never worked at a company with more than 200 employees, and that was only once. In my last two jobs, I had maybe 35 and 20 coworkers respectively and that included all of production, the warehouse and the office personnel. In both cases, I was a department unto myself taking care of all the graphics and most of the marketing needs of each company. There were few "procedures" in place and fewer reasons to have meetings. Everyone knew everything everyone else was doing, every time and every place. Everyone get that?
My present situation is, shall I say, a wee bit different. Along with literally hundreds of Standard Operating Procedures, there is always a meeting on one or another phase of the project either in the planning stages (wherein everyone is sent the agenda and encouraged to contribute their five cents worth - allowing, of course, for inflation) or being held (wherein several people stop by your cubicle saying "going to the meeting?" and troop en masse to one of the dozens of beautifully appointed conference rooms) or it's the post-meeting dissection (complete with emailed minutes so you won't forget a second of what went on.)
I, personally, am over it. The first few weeks, it was nice to be face-to-face with my new colleagues, getting to know them and the corporate atmosphere and finding out what was expected of me. Now, thank you very much, I would like to have the time to actually DO some of that work, without being interrupted three or more times a day to shut my computer down and attend another meeting.
We have big meetings in the auditorium. Little meeting on the outside balcony. Medium sized meetings with snacks and drinks brought in to conference room 2-7, which is across the bridge, up the stairs, between two other departments full of people who look up from their desks to watch us invade their territory and plant our flag on the island of their big, shiny cherrywood conference table.
One day a couple of weeks back, I checked my calendar to find that I was scheduled to attend no less than six meeting in one day. None were to last less than an hour, two were 90 minutes and the three in the morning and the three in the afternoon were all back to back to back. Add in the fact that they were in various far-flung corners of the two ginormous buildings we occupy and picture a bunch of people, clutching agendas and pens and notebooks, scurrying to and fro, asking each other, "do YOU know where we're supposed to be next?" Go ahead, picture it and try not to laugh. No, I couldn't either.
The absolute, break-down-and-laugh-like-an-idiot-no-matter-WHAT-impression-it-makes moment came for me when I realized that meeting number six of my six meeting day was all about the proper planning and execution of... wait for it, it's worth it... the MEETING! Yep. There's even an SOP to cover it.
I, personally am most fond of the rule that imposes a moratorium on meetings both Wednesday afternoons and all day Fridays (although, there is a place on the company intranet where you can apply for special dispensation to have a Wednesday afternoon or Friday meeting if it's important enough - I kid you not.) I like to think that someone with great wisdom and an eye on the bottom line realized that not a lot of work is getting done during 7 hours of meetings in an eight hour workday. Most likely, however, that's when most of them have their tee times.
Alan D. Feinberg
When I first signed on to this project, I, of course, Googled the name I was assigned. In images, a nice black and white photo came up. A smiling fireman, with the requisite fireman's mustache, Alan stuck me right away as someone I would have enjoyed knowing. He could be the neighbor down the street that you wave at when you're both heading to your cars on a workday morning, or someone you see in the grocery store, buying hotdogs and all the fixings for the barbeque over the weekend.
I started reading whatever I could find written about him, slowly getting to "know" this everyday guy and the image I had formed at the beginning grew stronger and stronger. A family man, with a marriage that had lasted 23 years at the time of his death, and two children, a son and a daughter, everyone who spoke or wrote about him talked about his devotion to his wife and kids.
He began his career as a firefighter several years into his marriage to Wendy, who worked as a stockbroker at the time. Since firefighting paid less than his previous sales job in the garment industry, he became a "Mr. Mom" to his kids and worked his schedule around taking care of them, as they grew up, available for their sports and school activities. He was able to participate in field trips and coach their soccer and baseball teams. He was also able to teach them life lessons by example. His daughter, who was 18 on 9/11, wrote about her father in an essay that was part of her college application: "My father has taught me the true meaning of a hero," wrote Tara, now 18. "It amazes me how someone can have such an unyielding desire to help others, even when there is a constant risk of the danger involved. Even when my father is not fighting fires, he is altruistic in other ways. If there is an accident on the road, he will always stop to administer first aid and call the police. My father is the first one to run onto the field at a soccer game to make sure the player is not seriously hurt."
He was considered an excellent firefighter, and had reached the rank of assistant battalion chief, responsible for most of the administrative duties concerning the five fire companies that make up Battalion 9. However, time and again, what he seems to be remembered for was his willingness to help anyone who needed it, any time, any place, with enthusiasm and a smile.
On one site, an anonymous tribute caught my eye, and my heart: "Alan was truly a wonderful man. He loved his job as a fireman. He loved helping others. He was a great dad. He always talked about his children. I believe that whomever Alan met in his life, that he made quite an impact on them. I will always remember his smile and his beautiful blue eyes. He touched my life in a way that no other has. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. I know that Alan died doing what he loved to do. But, it’s still hard to know that he is gone. I thank God that I got to know Alan. I will always thank God that I got to see him for that last time at the jersey shore on Sept. 9, 2001. I looked up from where I was standing and there he was. Standing at the snack bar. Smiling that great smile of his, he will forever be in my memories and in my heart. I miss him so."
To touch the lives of so many by simply being himself, he must have been a remarkable man. He was only 48. His kids, Michael and Tara, were only 15 and 18. On September 11, 2001, I was 48. My kids were 18, 16 and 12. He'd been married 23 years; I'd been married 19 years. We could have been friends. Our children could have been friends. He's gone and I am still here. I vow to never forget that.
Visit the
2,996 website and read more tributes to the heros of 9/11.
The Odd Couple
I'm new to the cubicle jungle. I never realized that there's a whole set of etiquette rules for an atmosphere where you can hear people you can't see. It's a strange feeling to know so much about coworkers you don't really know. I share a wall that is the outer border of my sub-department, so the two guys on the other side of the wall aren't part of the group I work with, lunch with, and go to meetings with. I recognize them by sight, but I feel like it would be rude to openly acknowledge what everyone already knows... the wall is thin and voices carry.
Oscar and Felix are technical writers, scientific story tellers, immersed in the prose of rules and regulations. They seem to be some kind of hired guns, brought in for a special project as a team. They don't live in the area and have obviously been put up in the same hotel, if not in the same room. In the beginning, there was much talk about where to go for dinner, what sights to see over the weekend. Felix is an older gentleman, either childless or with grown offspring. Oscar has youngsters and often talks about this or that aspect of their upbringing, involved even from a distance.
As the project has progressed forward, the twosome has apparantly spent a bit too much time together. The tone has gone gradually from easy familiarity to polite distance. I knew there was trouble brewing when Felix told Oscar that he was on his own for dinner a few times, then started making solo plans for the weekends. Then, yesterday, there was the "advice."
"I'm not saying you should do it this way, but I told my wife at the beginning that the house and kids were her domain. I provided the support, but she wasn't to expect me to run her errands. Your wife has you hopping, taking care of all kinds of things. That's why you're late all the time. It may not be my place to say it, but you have to get your priorities straight."
As Oscar delivered this little tirade, I turned to see my cubicle buddy laughing while trying not to make a sound. He gave me a thumbs up, implying that ol' Felix had it right, and we had a 5 minute exchange of notes about how things were a bit different in Felix's time. What we waited for, but didn't hear, was what Oscar's reaction would be. Silence. More silence. In fact, that was about the last thing we heard from the boys the rest of the day.
Today, things seemed to be back to polite cordiality. I think it helps that Friday is the end of their tenure with us. Both men talked of flying home, and I don't know which one sounded more relieved. I, personally, can't wait to see who moves in next. It's better than daytime television.
People watching at work
My new job has introduced me to a whole world of new characters, some just bit players, some that provide comic relief and then there's the drama. I'm walking a fine line between wanting to put down roots and remembering that there's a good chance I'll be leaving in a few months, never to see any of them again. The former, the desire to make new friends, is edging ever so slightly past the urge to play it safe. Whatever I do, I will still be spending 40 hours a week with these people for at least the next four and a half months, so it's much more fun to push the banter limits and see who responds.
My cubicle-mate is a classic nerd, and has the greatest dry sense of humor. He's mostly quiet around everyone else, but makes deliciously wry comments when it's just the two of us. When I call him a nerd, it's a term he embraces. The other day, someone said he should have a beanie with a propeller on top and he said he already does. He "gets" all my puns and has begun to actually wait for them, secure in the knowledge that I'm simply unable to pass up an opportunity to engage in really bad word-play.
One of my co-workers is the classic aging hippie earth-mother type. Wild, curly Janis-Joplin hair shot through with gray, wire-rim specs, Birkenstocks and all. And another is a perfect soccer-mom persona. There are a couple of young mothers who are constantly torn between wanting the career and wanting to be home with their babies (been there, felt that heartache) and a quiet older man who lives alone in what you can tell by his cubicle is a really neat apartment that houses hundreds of books. There's also the guy who everyone plays pranks on, and teases like a younger brother and the grandmotherly older woman who gives everyone advice,
The one that bothers me a little is a single mother in her mid thirties. She's obviously bright and she's very attractive. She's ambitious, going to school two nights a week in addition to working full time and raising her son. She has everything she needs to climb the career ladder, and yet, I'm willing to bet she'll never get beyond middle management. Why? Because she dresses as if she's going clubbing every day. Four inch high sling-back heels, tight, slinky dresses cut way low (and she has quite an impressive rack), hair loose and long. She looks good, but out of place. The way she looks and dresses is what you notice about her, not her ideas or how well she does her job. She's getting in her own way, and it's sad, 'cause I'm sure she has no idea she's doing it. If I knew her better, or was a little braver, I would tell her what I think, but I know damned well that it's not my business to try to fix something that she doesn't even think is broken.
So I play my part in the comedies and dramas and try not to get too attached to the place. It's easier to pull up roots if they don't grow too deep.
Gridlock
I have been extremely lucky in the past. I never realized how lucky. Traffic, road rage, a long nasty commute. None of these have even been a factor in my working life. I've either lived close to my job, or worked hours that allowed me to avoid the worst of it. The few times I've had to endure traffic, I've been blissfully serene, listening to music, sometimes reading (yes, reading while driving... and I don't need any lectures, I know it isn't the safest thing to do, but I do it anyway), basically chilling.
And feeling superior, of course. I would never let something as banal as traffic get to me... I was much more evolved than that. If you can't control the situation, you can control your reaction to the situation.
Well, screw all that... commuting every day down I-15 and back SUCKS!!!!
So far, I haven't found a time slot that I can fit my 9.5 hours between that doesn't deposit me on the dreaded stretch of highway that is the bane of all North San Diego County commuters while it's bumper to bumper 5 lanes across. Construction that continues for the majority of the distance I travel doesn't help, of course, but it's mostly just too many people, too little road.
Then there's the yuck factor. See, people in their cars seem to think they're somewhere completely hidden and private. You have WINDOWS people, and everyone else in the world doesn't want to watch while you attend to your nasty bodily functions. I swear, people pick their noses, dig around in their mouths, stick who-know-what in their ears and the SPITTERS. There oughta be a LAW!!! I was behind a guy yesterday, completely stopped, when he decided to hauck one out the window and I SWEAR he spewed out a cud that would have made any bovine proud. As I was trying to NOT follow suit, traffic started moving, so I gagged my way merrily up the road.
Why, you may ask, do I watch? I honestly TRY not to, but it's everywhere I look!
Starting tomorrow, I resolve to look straight ahead, not allowing my eyes to stray left or right but only on the taillight of the cars ahead of me. I will concentrate on the music, not the guy in the pickup truck stuffing a 3 pound breakfast burrito in his mouth. I will ignore the spitters, the pickers and the diggers.
I will regain my auto-serenity.
Does anyone have a good book on CD I can listen to?
