July 28, 2005
Dear Everyone:
Back in early June, “Jeannie” was ragging on me about exercising. Or rather, my lack thereof in her opinion.
“Jeannie”: “You should walk an hour a day on the treadmill.”
Me:
“Absolutely. And where would
that hour be coming from?
She hates it when I apply logic.
The truth is, ever since I had to come in to work an hour early,
I’ve been coming to work an hour earlier.
Instead of starting at
“Jeannie” (trying a different tack): “You should get a pedo- a pedo- “
Me: “A
pedophile?”
“Jeannie”: “Yes! You should get a pedophile and use it to count your steps. On the treadmill.”
I’m pretty sure she really meant a pedometer.
A little while later, I was in a store looking for items to buy for the ARMA Silent Auction, and I found a talking pedometer. I immediately bought it for the Silent Auction. Then I bid on it and now I have a talking pedometer.
Later, I bought another one for “Jeannie”.
Once you get the thing set up, it can tell you how many steps you’ve taken since it was last cleared. Or it can tell you how many miles you walked. Or how many calories you’ve burned. So I set it up and hooked it on my waistband and every now and again I would hear a little voice say, “5,000” (or whatever x-thousand steps I’d taken.) It’s a cute gadget.
Now the latest “safety and health” gimmick at work is called “10K A Day”. It’s a walking program. You’re supposed to sign up and the company will send you a (cheap) pedometer. Each day, you log onto the site and record the number of steps you’ve done since the same time the day before.
At our staff meeting on Wednesday, the “safety moment” was an introduction to the website. (Try it yourself at http://xxx.10kaday.com.) We were strongly “encouraged” to participate in the program. So yesterday, I signed up, but declined the pedometer (you have the option of declaring that you already have one.)
I spoke with a woman at work who is already on her third pedometer. This first one fell in the toilet (no surprise there.) The second one accidentally went through the wash, but luckily was spotted before it got into the drier. She’s waiting for the third to die before starting with the official “Company” pedometer.
You also get to choose which “route” you want to
walk. The
The system also told me I’d have to walk 13,214 steps per day to finish the Trail within 28 days. But I figured: Hey! It took Lewis and Clark a lot more than 28 days to finish, so what’s the rush?
Today I officially entered my steps:
7225. But don’t
expect the numbers to be so high all the time.
This has been a very busy week.
“Jeannie” and I had our hair cut last Saturday and I was busy at
the ARMA Board of Directors strategy meeting on Sunday.
Consequently, many of the things that I normally do on the
weekend (shopping, cleaning, laundry) have had me running around every
evening trying to catch up.
Most nights I didn’t sit down until around
(By the way, “ARMA” doesn’t mean anything anymore. It’s simply a brand and doesn’t need to be explained. Like IBM isn’t International Business Machines. Or 3M doesn’t stand for Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing.)
Naturally, you can see why the company loves this new program. Everything is measurable! You can get counts of how many people signed up; how many people recorded their steps; how many total steps have been taken. So far, the combined company has walked 112,017 miles. Don’t you just love it?
Of course, it in no way measures how much safer or healthier anyone is. But it’s easy to lose sight of that in all the details, isn’t it?
(Cynical? Who’s cynical? Excuse me, I need to walk somewhere.)
Love, as always,
Pete
Walking… Walking… Walking… Walking… Walking…
Walking…
(“My grandmother started walking a mile a day when
she was 60 years old. Today
she’s 72. We don’t know
where the hell she is.”)
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