Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Hard-working Americans?

The following was inspired by “Washington clichés, fake news and ‘poiticianese’ by Jim Heffernan.

Oops!  That old newspaper guy let a typo get through!  At least he did better than many newspapers do: he used a diacritical mark in the right place.

Politicians of all stripes appeal to all Americans as “hard-working”.  How do they know that all that they appeal to are really hard-working?  Some have jobs that are almost fun.  Some have jobs that the only hard-working part is boredom.  Some have jobs that seem to be one crisis after another.  Some have jobs that not only are hard but dangerous (and interestingly some of these politicians think reducing the danger is “over-regulation”.

I think I’ve had jobs that have had one or more of these features: programmer, consultant, presenter, Santa Claus, line painter, grocery bagger, stocker, and cashier, and many others.

I’ll mention one that had many of these features: bus driver.

I had the stress of being on time. I had the stress of unruly students.  I had the stress of non-working buses. And I had the joy of attending events on the clock.  I had the joy of napping while my riders toured their site.  I had the joy of reading a book while waiting.  I met lots of really nice people and a few that weren’t so nice.  In short, it was a job that I was glad I did that I am glad that I’m not doing now.