Hard(ly) Working JOW #501

I have started some contract work for the government. That is part of the reason my JOW is late this week. I had to attend a training seminar that crammed two hours of instruction into three days. At least I did get the most important thing down: how to fill in my timesheet. That experience got me thinking about work and let to this week’s tardy JOW.
---
A man stopped to watch a couple of men working along the roadside. One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was about 25 feet behind filling in the old. The men worked right past the fellow with the soft drink and went on down the road.
"I can't stand this," said the man tossing the can in a trash container and heading down the road toward the men. "Hold it, hold it," he said to the men. "Can you tell me what's going on here with this digging?"
"Well, we work for the county government, " one of the men said.
"But one of you is digging a hole and the other is filling it up. You're not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting the county's money?"
"You don't understand, mister," one of the men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of us--me, Rodney and Mike. I dig the hole, Rodney sticks in the tree and Mike here puts the dirt back."
"Yea," piped up Mike. "Now just because Rodney's sick, that don't mean we can't work, does it?"
---

For thirty years, Johnson had arrived at work at 9A.M. on the dot. He had never missed a day and was never late.
Consequently, when on one particular day 9 A.M. passed without Johnson's arrival, it caused a sensation. All work ceased, and the boss himself, looking at his watch and muttering, came out into the corridor.
Finally, precisely at ten, Johnson showed up, clothes dusty and torn, his face scratched and bruised, his glasses bent. He limped painfully to the time clock, punched in, and said, aware that all eyes were upon him, "I tripped and rolled down two flights of stairs in the subway. Nearly killed myself."
And the boss said, "And it took you a whole hour to roll down two flights of stairs?"

Some jobs lead to happy endings

My grandmother told me how she ended up marrying Grandpa. She was in her 20s, and the man she was dating left for war. "We were in love," she recalled, "and wrote to each other every week. It was during that time that I discovered how wonderful your grandfather was."
"Did you marry Grandpa when he came home from the war?" I asked.
"Oh, I didn't marry the man who wrote the letters. Your grandfather was the mailman."

I have broken the code for those comments you find in help wanted postings:

COMPETITIVE SALARY:
We remain competitive by paying less than our competitors.
FLEXIBLE HOURS:
Work 55 hours; get paid for 40.
GOOD COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
Management communicates, you listen, figure out what they want you to do.
ABILITY TO HANDLE A HEAVY WORKLOAD:
You whine, you're fired.
CAREER-MINDED:
We expect that you will want to flip hamburgers until you are 70.
SELF-MOTIVATED:
Management won't answer questions
SOME OVERTIME REQUIRED:
Some time each night and some time each weekend
DUTIES WILL VARY:
Anyone in the office can boss you around.
COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT:
We have a lot of turnover.
SALES POSITION REQUIRING MOTIVATED SELF-STARTER:
We're not going to supply you with leads; there's no base salary; you'll wait 30 days for your first commission check.
CASUAL WORK ATMOSPHERE:
We don't pay enough to expect that you'll dress up; well, a couple of the real daring guys wear earrings.
SOME PUBLIC RELATIONS REQUIRED:
If we're in trouble, you'll go on TV and get us out of it.
SEEKING CANDIDATES WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERIENCE:
You'll need it to replace three people who just left.
PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS A MUST:
You're walking into a company in perpetual chaos.


These exerts are from actual resumes:

• "Personal: I'm married with 9 children. I don't require prescription drugs.
• "I am extremely loyal to my present firm, so please don't let them know of my immediate availability."
• "Qualifications: I am a man filled with passion and integrity, and I can act on short notice. I'm a class act and do not come cheap."
• "I intentionally omitted my salary history. I've made money and lost money. I've been rich and I've been poor. I prefer being rich."
• "Note: Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as 'job-hopping'. I have never quit a job."
• "Number of dependents: 40."
• "Marital Status: Often. Children: Various."
• "While I am open to the initial nature of an assignment, I am decidedly disposed that it be so oriented as to at least partially incorporate the experience enjoyed heretofore and that it be configured so as to ultimately lead to the application of more rarefied facets of financial management as the major sphere of responsibility."
• "I was proud to win the Gregg Typting Award."
• "Please call me after 5:30 because I am self-employed and my employer does not know I am looking for another job."
• "My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I have no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage."
• “Lets meet, so you can ooh and aah over my experience.”
• Reason for leaving last job: “They insisted that all employees get to work by 8:45 a.m. every morning. Could not work under those conditions.”
• “The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers.”