September 15, 2005
Dear Everyone:
This has been “The Week of Caring” at work. It’s part of the United Way Campaign that goes on every year about this time. The company “encourages” employees to volunteer for various projects to be done for many of the charitable organizations in the Bay Area.
In previous years, while the company “encouraged” involvement, our previous supervisor dropped broad hints that such “involvement” should not involve using company time. This year, the newer supervisor sent us an email “encouraging” us to volunteer, just as long as it didn’t cut too deeply into our billable hours.
Then, one of my co-workers, while she was in
I took care of the billable hours issue by working on one of my projects extensively over the last two weekends. So I had plenty of hours “in the bank”. The project was to do some repair work on some outdoor equipment at a nursery where volunteers take care of children whose families are in some kind of crisis.
So, last Tuesday, instead of going to the office, I donned my official “Week of Caring” T-shirt, with the new company logo on it, and drove up to “Pleasant Hill”. Since the nursery is only a few miles away from where “Jeannie” lives, and where I used to live, I had no difficulty finding it. Other people, who relied on one of the less-reliable Internet map services, took a more circuitous route, but eventually everyone showed up. Except our Team Leader, who had a health matter come up at the last minute. She sent her son to fill in for her instead.
We also had a last-minute addition of some guy from another operating company. There was another team from Wells Fargo Bank and another team from some other company. They also had official “Week of Caring” T-shirts with their own company logos on them. But they were there to work on two other projects.
Our project was to sand and varnish some wooden picnic tables, with benches and a wooden play structure. I don’t know what the structure would be called. Maybe a tree house without a tree. It stood on four wooden posts. About four feet above the ground, there was a platform. A ladder led up to the platform on one side. On the other side, a wooden slope held “rocks” to be used in climbing up to the platform. There was a slide to come down and the whole thing was covered by a cloth canopy.
The project was supposed to last from
That’s when I piped up with: “I have a 40-foot heavy-duty extension cord in my car.” I keep it in the trunk for ARMA nights when the Speaker needs to use a projector. The restaurant dining room that we usually use has only one outlet, and it’s set in the wall, near the ceiling, clear across the room from where the Speaker will be.
So New Guy took on the play structure while the rest of us tackled the much smaller picnic tables (they’re intended for children, after all) with hand-held sanders or wooden blocks with sandpaper wrapped around them. Soon it was time to start varnishing the tables. I concentrated on places I could reach while standing up. But five people trying to work around the same small table began to present a problem: The real possibility of more varnish landing on your person than on the table.
So instead, I directed my attention to the play structure. The surrounding ground was covered in what looked like dark blue bark chips, which turned out to be chunks of some kind of rubbery stuff. When the kids played on the structure, they often tracked gravel and “blue rubber” up onto the platform. Many of these pieces had become wedged between the wooden planks of the platform, as well as between the floor and the side railings.
If these pieces were left there, they would get varnish on them and turn into a gooey mess. So I got out my “all-in-one” tool, the one “Alice” gave me for Christmas one year, and began to tackle the stuck-in stuff. I found that the “saw” knife worked best at digging out bits of rubber and gravel.
When New Guy decided he needed masking tape to protect the edges of the metal ladder rungs and the “climbing rocks”, etc. I went back to the trunk of my car and produced duct tape. There’s a reason why there are so many “emergency kits” in my trunk. You never know when you’ll need duct tape.
By the time I had dug out all I could, everyone else was ready to varnish the structure. Two of us stayed above, on the platform floor, painting the upper frame and side railings. The other three took on the lower stage and the outside of the side railings.
We finished, predictably, just after
It wasn’t until after work yesterday that I started putting things back in the trunk. The extension cord (complete with power strip) went into the canvas bag that I use to bring it into the restaurant when we need it. The duct tape went back into the larger “emergency kit”. Half the space in that trunk is taken up with “emergency supplies”.
Because you never know when you’ll need duct tape.
Love, as always,
Pete
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