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Eighteenth Job of Bob - The all-mighty "State," Part VI - late for X-mas, wrong side bottle
This entry was posted on 9/18/2008 12:40 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob.
It only took a couple months for me working at two full times jobs, sleeping in the truck, staying up all night, and collapsing on the sofa, for me to relent, surrender and step back to part-time at the farm store. The one thing I got to show for my relentless work hours was that I bought Heide a new extra-long sofa - paid cash. Looking back, I wish life was still so simple now that a sofa could cap off a normal life's experience.
Choosing the library job was clearly a mistake. The young rube supervisor was a lunatic. Christmas was nearing and Heide made some thoughtful cookies and cupcakes for my janitorial shift's little party - albeit in the middle of the night. It was becoming a brutal winter. I needed to be at work at 10:30 p.m. I loaded the treats up in my pickup truck and struck out in the cold blizzard to get to work. The going was slow. Once in the library underground parking garage, I had to negotiate a couple locked security doors - all this with Heide's treats in tow.
I finally unlocked the last door to bust into the employee lounge one minute late - snow hanging off my nose. The rube looked up and glowered at me when I said, "Merry Christmas everyone." He had an expression like a bad waiter expecting a tip.
"Your late," the young rube said. I thought he was joking and I smiled, but then he said, "I am going to have to dock your pay and put a note in your file, Keith." That night out of respect for my wife, at least I think so, my hands with metal treat trays stayed steady. In another time and place, another Bob would have jammed both metal treat trays into his face and broken his nose.
A few weeks later, I was pushing my janitorial cart down the large library foyer. Ol' young rube came up and said, "Your window spray bottle is on the wrong side."
I smiled assuming he was kidding. "No," he said seeing my smile. "I run a tight ship here and your window bottle goes on the right and your fixture cleaner bottle goes on the left. I am going to have to write you up Keith."
Need I pontificate on the lunacy, the arrogance, the buffoonery, the nitwitery? It was after all a janitor job in the middle of the night in a sad college-library. It was not the maintenance crew for an F-16 Fighter Jet squadron in a war zone - good mother of God in heaven!
Wisconsin military service person of the week
Army Staff Sergeant Stephen G. Martin, 39. Staff Sergeant Martin died Friday, July 1, 2004, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He had been flown to Walter Reed from a medical facility in Germany. Staff Sergeant Martin was a member of the Sheboygan-based Army Reserve, 330th Military Police Detachment. He was wounded in Iraq when a truck bomb exploded June 24, near his checkpoint outside an American military compound in Mosul. It is the same incident that killed Sergeant Charles Kiser, 37 (remembered in last week's Cool Dadio blog postings) of Cleveland, Wisconsin and also from the 330th. Their unit was engaging an approaching truck, the truck exploded, killing Kiser and fatally wounding Martin. Stephen was a New Jersey native. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he joined the Rhinelander police as a patrol officer in February 1996. He was a police sergeant at the time of his death. He worked in the bicycle patrol and the city's schools. Sergeant Martin had been prior-military-service and joined the Army Reserve in a Military Police unit in Sheboygan in January 2003. The unit was activated in December 2003, and sent to Iraq. The Journal Sentinel went on to mention Martin helped train Iraqi police and worked in emergency medical services and fire training. Staff Sergeant Stephen Martin was the 20th Wisconsin military service person to be killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
86,661 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
8,530 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,147 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
576 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
314 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
360 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
30,561 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
2,379 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
91 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
11 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
130 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
15 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.
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