Here's one of my columns. It was a lot of work.
GUY STUFF
by Buck
WORK
Work, work, work. Sometimes it seems like all I ever do is work. The other day I was working up the courage to try to convince my wife that we need a big screen TV. The last time I tried to convince her that we needed something it didn’t work. That clever woman worked out a way to work the argument around against me. What a piece of work she is sometimes!
I thought I had everything worked out until a few minutes into the conversation she made short work of me.
Later, on my way to work it dawned on me that I had worked the issue from the wrong angle. What I had to do was to work out a new way to approach the problem.
Just then I had to stop for some unplanned maintenance. It seems that a few screws had worked their way loose and the armrest on the car door fell off. I worked my way over to the shoulder of the road where I was able to work out a way to fix the problem.
When I got to work there was a note on my desk to see the boss. He was all worked up over some news he had heard about a planned work stoppage. I was able to calm his fears and worked the conversation around to a discussion of how to handle our contract with the Kelly Works. In our most recent meeting with them (a working lunch) we had worked out an agreement that we all thought would work just fine. As things worked out they had a different idea of the agreement than we had. This situation was going to take some work.
I went to the site of our new office to see how work was progressing. Several workers had called in sick that day so the foreman was having to work around some scheduling problems with the ductwork.
He told me that his workman’s comp insurance premiums had gone through the roof and that he wanted to work out a new contract as soon as possible. I think we can work something out.
My next stop was lunch. I didn’t have much time so I just ordered a burger with the works. I know I shouldn’t eat like that so often but I figured I could work off the few extra pounds by increasing the length of my workouts at the gym.
I was delayed by some traffic problems on the freeway. It turns out that a work crew had started work with properly working machinery, but their backhoe had stopped working. They had to block traffic for some time in order to devise a work-around for the problem. I passed the time by listening to the radio where I learned that there was domestic trouble in China, that worker’s paradise.
Another station was broadcasting a panel discussion of the works of Shakespeare while a third station worked its way through the top forty country music hits.
As I worked my way across the radio dial I heard all kinds of different songs with titles like “All in a Night’s Work”, “Got My MoJo Workin’”, Nice Work if You Can Get It”, “We Can Work it Out” and “Workin’ at the Car Wash.” I guess different types of music work for different folks.
Traffic finally started moving again and I soon worked up to a comfortable pace. I took the opportunity to work a few problems in my mind and by the time I got back to work I had worked out a plan of action for the afternoon.
Well, that didn’t work.
The boss came in and told me we had to work over our contract with one of our suppliers who had lost a lot of work capacity to outsourcing. We decided to draft a working agreement until we could work up a final plan that would work smoothly.
As if that wasn’t enough to gum up the works, our office manager stuck his head in to announce that our computer network had stopped working. Of course I was assigned the dirty work of getting it repaired.
Now, I can work a computer just as well as the next working stiff but when it comes to networking I’m as dumb as a box of rocks. I worked the phones to find a technician who could work us into his schedule.
By this time I had worked so many angles of so many problems I felt like I’d been worked over by a gang of out of work wrestlers working up an appetite.
I worked my way home, grabbed a cold beer and flopped into my favorite chair to work up a serious relax session.
It worked like a charm.
See ya around.
BUCK
