Keep on Moving (UB40)

So, there's this guy that I met a long, long time ago. Okay, maybe not *that* long ago in the scheme of things, but I met him a good 4 years ago. His name is Maurice & he rides the train from Auburn to Seattle. He's an older man. Reminds me an awful lot of Bill Cosby for some reason. It could be because he is an older black man & it could be that he seems to be wise in his older age.

One thing that I think is so *neat* about Maurice is that he is, without a doubt, a "ladies man", but not in the creepy-oompa-loompa-I-just-wanna-get-in-your-pants sort of way. No. Instead, he actually knows a LOT of women on the train. Well, maybe he doesn't KNOW us, but he knows our names, at least. In my opinion, I think this is a pretty cool trait to possess - to know all these women & not come across as some perverted, dirty old man.

Maurice is in seemingly great health. He was in the military many years ago. He's mentioned to me that he stays in shape by working out frequently. When he'd take the stairs at the train station, he'd climb them two at a time. For the past several months, however, I noticed he's been squeezing himself into the elevator & riding up the two stories to the skybridge & then once into the garage, he'd take the elevator up the flight or two to his car. I'm kinda baffled by this because I'm still certain that he could take the stairs if he wanted to. I don't talk to him all that often, except for a passing "Hi, how are ya?" otherwise, I'd ask him why he insists on taking the elevator. I'm going to make the assumption that it's because he'll have a few more minutes with the ladies.

As for me, I've decided that as long as I am physically able to, I am going to take the stairs up & down the few flights of stairs at the train stations.

Today, I am thankful for:

1. Working limbs
2. Recycling centers
3. Good hair days
4. Keeping up on my other blog
5. Comments from my readers

What irks me today:

Several weeks ago, my department approached our boss to find out if we could alter our schedules so that 2 people can get off work earlier than 5pm. As it is, we have 6 in our dept: one is off at 4pm, my boss leaves at 4:15, and the remaining 4 leave at 5:00. Is it necessary to have four people there til 5p? No. So, we came up with a schedule where in alternating weeks, two people could leave either at 4p or 4:30. After some hesitation & thought, she reluctantly agreed to it, but said she will not babysit it AND we can't start it until the new year begins. Cool!

Jump to this past week. I was bored & thought, 4 - ten hour days would be pretty cool & with 5 working employees & 5 days in a week, well, you do the math. Without ANY hesitation, denied! I tried to tell her it would work. She didn't care if it work, she wanted nothing to do with it. No was her final answer, Regis. I altered it a bit, rotating it from each person having a day off every week to one person having a day off each week & the weeks would rotate . It too would work. Not even a budge. No was her answer once again. This time, she offered the explanation that we don't have enough work to do in our daily routines to constitute working an additional two hours a day, for four days.

I think she had thought long and hard about what reason she would give when it was brought up again, but actually getting a reason made me feel "okay" with the result. As it is, I really don't have enough to do to fill an 8 hour day. I honestly don't know what I would do with a 10 hour day. Still made me mad though.