Category: Work

September 11 – man on a rooftop

man on a rooftop
neon orange shirt, red shoes
visible, hidden

The building across the driveway is getting a new roof.

I have been watching the work from my office all summer.

The work seems to be in its final stages and the entire roof has been coated in a bright white paint or plastic coating of some sort.

This morning, one of the workers was walking across the vast white expanse.

The worker was wearing a neon orange t-shirt, blue jeans and red shoes.

Dots of color in motion over a blank canvas.

Calderesque.

A two dimensional mobile.

The worker had no place to hide.

Completely exposed.

Visible.

At least to me as my office window is on higher than the roof the worker walked on.

From the ground, the worker was hidden.

Unseen by most of the world.

September 6 – OHHH Friday

Weekend starts tonight
I leave work at 5PM
My mind left last night

I worked three days this week and somehow it has been a long, long week.

Somewhere, Jim Harrison has a passage about how we have yet to equate the energy drain of mental work with the impact of physical labor on a human being.

I quit worrying about ‘job satisfaction’ a long time ago.

Sad that rather than the job well done, I want the job done

Just done.

Done and without a long tail that comes back to me.

I also cannot understand how I came to embrace the TGIF philosophy.

I felt I could enjoy each and every day.

I thought I had that much faith in each day.

Narratives within narratives.

Not sure what that means in this context.

But I liked the phrase and it is too difficult to hammer into a haiku.

The story not yet told.

Anyway, it is Friday!

September 4 – super highway

super highway
of information, don’t go
without a helmet

I was off during the long Labor Day Weekend but I was also on call.

That means that if there are immediate problems or issues with the TV Station websites that I work with, I am the person to contact.

There were stations on Friday that remembered that High School football had started and they needed assistance.

There were stations dealing with their coverage of the Hurricane Dorien.

(Luckily for me, my company, TEGNA, does not own a TV station in Alabama.)

And there was a mass shooting in Odessa, Texas.

Wednesday finally and eager to be back at work so I can relax.

August 23 – Look for recognition

Look for recognition
Work any good? Measure up? Well,
Grapes were sour anyway

I entered a haiku contest hosted by Landmark Books in Traverse City, Michigan.

I hoped to win.

I looked for recognition that these often mindless scribblings might be considered, ‘good’.

I was downcast to learn that I had not won.

The winning Haiku,

High Murder of Crows
Scripture on Cloudscape unfolds
A thousand meanings

submitted by a Ellen Lord, is interesting and in my opinion, echos a reocurring theme about crows from the writer Jim Harrison.

I pass over that Ms. Lord lives in Charlevoix, Michigan and that Ms. Lord has now won twice in the 5 times this contest has been held.

I got away from the writing these just for the fun of it.

Well, this episode is over and I have learned my lesson.

Besides, those grapes were sour anyway.

ONE hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the things to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”

“IT IS EASY TO DESPISE WHAT YOU CANNOT GET.”

Æsop. (Sixth century B.C.) Fables.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.