Nate1952
05-15-07, 12:03 PM
The last few years have brought some changes to my workaday world - and I'm assuming that these changes are being replicated in other places.
About 3 years ago I spoke to the manager of our physical plant - Fred - trying to convince him that it would be a visionary and virtuous exercise to install bicycle lockers that would protect commuter bicycles from the weather ... and from casual vandalism.
Fred, in turn, explained that money was really really tight - and there was nothing really wrong with the open bike racks we already had.
The next month work began on a New and Improved Smokers' Porch: a deluxe space, 25 feet from the entrance (per statute) enclosed by a brick wall ... 4 feet high ... built by masons (gotten estimates on any masonry work lately?) ... protected by a metal roof. I estimated that this Celebration of Cancer Sticks cost something like $5-$6,000.
But Fred was a smoker - knew that smoking was essential to a Good Quality of Life ... knew that bikes were something that grownups didn't bother with ... and thought that that bicycle commuters were just part of an strange lunatic fringe.
So I should have known where his priorities would lie. (Did I mention that Fred is now deceased? Lung cancer. Funny how that all worked out ... almost a kind of karma effect.)
So Fred is gone, and we still don't have our deluxe bike lockers - although, under the regime of our new HR Director, smokers now have to pay more for the company-sponsored medical insurance. Non-smokers get a discount.
HR is taking a lot of steps to curb smoking. But I'm also encouraging them to begin initiatives toward obesity.
This is a call center - and call centers attract ultra-heavy people because there is no chance of unpleasant exertion at work. Each of these ultra-heavies is a ticking time bomb as far as I'm concerned, and I think our HR guy is thinking more about them, too, because he has been pushing Bike to Work Day very hard.
So I strolled around the compound today to assess The Impact. The great thing about having so few regular riders is that just a few more gives us a 200-300% surge (a "surge" of our very own). In the East Rack we have 2 machines, where there would normally be just one. And the West Rack has 3, where normally there would be none.
My bike is here, in the bullpen, as it is almost every day - and someone else has hers in a cubicle adjacent.
So where normally we would have 2, we now have 6 people who have taken the leap. I hope to give them all positive reinforcement, so they will hopefully try it again.
About 3 years ago I spoke to the manager of our physical plant - Fred - trying to convince him that it would be a visionary and virtuous exercise to install bicycle lockers that would protect commuter bicycles from the weather ... and from casual vandalism.
Fred, in turn, explained that money was really really tight - and there was nothing really wrong with the open bike racks we already had.
The next month work began on a New and Improved Smokers' Porch: a deluxe space, 25 feet from the entrance (per statute) enclosed by a brick wall ... 4 feet high ... built by masons (gotten estimates on any masonry work lately?) ... protected by a metal roof. I estimated that this Celebration of Cancer Sticks cost something like $5-$6,000.
But Fred was a smoker - knew that smoking was essential to a Good Quality of Life ... knew that bikes were something that grownups didn't bother with ... and thought that that bicycle commuters were just part of an strange lunatic fringe.
So I should have known where his priorities would lie. (Did I mention that Fred is now deceased? Lung cancer. Funny how that all worked out ... almost a kind of karma effect.)
So Fred is gone, and we still don't have our deluxe bike lockers - although, under the regime of our new HR Director, smokers now have to pay more for the company-sponsored medical insurance. Non-smokers get a discount.
HR is taking a lot of steps to curb smoking. But I'm also encouraging them to begin initiatives toward obesity.
This is a call center - and call centers attract ultra-heavy people because there is no chance of unpleasant exertion at work. Each of these ultra-heavies is a ticking time bomb as far as I'm concerned, and I think our HR guy is thinking more about them, too, because he has been pushing Bike to Work Day very hard.
So I strolled around the compound today to assess The Impact. The great thing about having so few regular riders is that just a few more gives us a 200-300% surge (a "surge" of our very own). In the East Rack we have 2 machines, where there would normally be just one. And the West Rack has 3, where normally there would be none.
My bike is here, in the bullpen, as it is almost every day - and someone else has hers in a cubicle adjacent.
So where normally we would have 2, we now have 6 people who have taken the leap. I hope to give them all positive reinforcement, so they will hopefully try it again.