HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2004-01-15, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2004. PAGE 5.
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Take this job and shove it
you want a sure-fire conversation
starter? Ask people about the worst
job they ever had. You get some great
answers,
I met a guy who used to work in an auto
assembly plant in Ontario. His job was to put
the left rear tire on every Ford that came down
the assembly line. He said that when the heat
was on, he could do 52 cars an hour. He
reckoned he handled 24 tons worth of tires
each working day.
My worst job?
Well, I was a tar and gravel roofer for a
couple of summers. That was pretty bad,
lugging buckets of stinking, boiling pitch all
day under the blazing sun. We wore heavy
pants, hats, gloves and shirts with long sleeves
buttoned at the wrist because it was so hot on
the roof, it really didn't make any difference if
you were swaddled like a Bedouin or wearing
a thong. And the heavy clothes meant you
didn't get burned by the pitch. As much. What
made it really ugly was that I worked with a
crew of semi-insane French Canadians who
liked to start work at 4 a.m. when it was cool,
Which would have been fine, except that after
eight hours, overtime kicked in and we would
work all afternoon as well.
My impromptu survey has taught me one
[Ring: a job doesn't have to bust your hump to
qualify as bad. A lot of the really crummy jobs
are white-collar and found, surprisingly, in the
world of science.
Take Helge Zieler, a veteran research
biologist who works in Brazil. His area of
expertise is mosquitoes.
Zieler's job is to hike into the depths of the
Leadership races are not what they used
to be and some are making people
uncertain whether to laugh or cry.
Take the campaign in which the Ontario
Progressive Conservatives are trying to find a
successor to their defeated former premier
Ernie Eves. The early front-runner is one-time
deputy premier Jim Flaherty.
Flaherty ran second when Eves was chosen
leader and has an organization working and
hoping to get a convention called and over
before someone can emerge and pip him at the
post.
Flaherty is an attractive speaker, by far the
most exciting in the convention that chose
Eves, and bursting with ideas. But they are far-
right notions, including giving money to
mostly better-off parents who refuse to send
their children to public schools, which
mainstream Tories refused for decades, and
starving public services to cut taxes, which
were well and truly spurned by voters in the
October election.
If a party chooses a leader who epitomizes
policies that have been totally rejected by
voters, it is virtually consigning itself to being
in opposition for an election or two to come.
Another who has been reported a possible
candidate with a chance of winning is former
health minister Tony Clement, who is bright,
articulate, but up and down, ran a weak third
against Eves, partly rehabilitated himself by
managing the SARS crisis, but lost his seat in
October.
Opposition parties have chosen leaders who
did not have seats and won them later,
including Eves and New Democrat Bob Rae,
who eventually became premier, but picking
one who lost a seat would seem reaching out to
defeatism. -
John Tory, a back-room adviser for decades
to both the Ontario and federal Tories, who
recently lost for mayor of Toronto but showed
an attractive personality, also is being touted
rain forest, sit down and roll up his sleeves -
and count the number of mosquito bites he and
his fellow researchers endure.
Brazilian mosquitoes are an especially
ravenous breed. Zieler once tabulated 3,000
bites over a three-hour period. That works out
to 17 bites a minute.
Other lousy science jobs?
Well, there's a laboratory. in Virginia where,
every working day, 19 people report for duty -
all probably praying that they win the lottery
that week. They are 'dysentery stool sample
analyzers'. Which means they get to crack
open stool-sample canisters and analyze the
contents all the live-long day.
Which, bad as it sounds, is probably more
pleasant than the work done by two 'special
assistants' recently hired by Michael Levitt.
He's a gastroenterologist in Minneapolis, hard
It work on a study of how, ahem, bodily gas
provides clues to the health of digestive
organs.
Which is where the two 'special assistants'
come in. Their job description: Flatus Odour
Judges. They got to take a deep whiff of 100-
odd canned samples of human flatulence and
to rank them by degree of reek.
Another job I heard about but failed to track
for provincial leader.
But Tory is remembered most as the federal
organizer who tried to win votes by
emphasizing cruelly Jean Chretien's facial
twitch. Additionally backroomers rarely get
even themselves elected, the failures including
Tory Hugh Segal and Liberal Jim Coutts.
Another name commonly put forward is
Belinda Stronach, youthful president of giant
auto parts company Magna International Inc.,
who has funded Conservative causes.
But she has never been elected to anything
and cannot be said to offer welcome business
acumen, because she got her job from her
father, Frank, who built the company from
nothing.
Stronach and Tory are wealthy, but this is no
guarantee they can get others or themselves
elected. The well-heeled who failed running
for election include media baron John Bassett,
mining magnate Stephen Roman, financial
whiz Hal Jackman and Frank Stronach, who
tried to win a federal riding running oddly as a
Liberal.
Clement, Tory and Belinda Stronach also
have been cited often as possible leaders of the
party being formed by merging the federal
Tories and further-right Canadian Alliance,
because the Tory leader is devious and
Alliance leader too far to the right.
This new federal party is so desperate to
recruit someone to lead it laments daily (that)
former Ontario premier Mike Harris will not
come out of cozy retirement and accept the
down: Barnyard Masturbators.
Apparently some researchers are tasked with
`gathering' animal sperm needed for research
on fertility and artificial insemination.
Egad. You don't suppose that's where the
phrase 'chicken jerky' comes from?
Ah, but let me leave you with a related - and
sunnier - story. This one comes from Alberta
where a tiny advertisement recently appeared
in the University of Calgary student
newspaper.
The ad was placed by an Australian group
called The Reproductive Medicine Clinic, a
fertility clinic in the town of Albury, in New
South Wales. The clinic is looking for healthy
young Canadian men between the ages of 18
and 40.
Qualifications? Functioning gonads is about
all that's required.
The clinic is offering the lucky applicants a
free plane ticket to Australia and back, two
weeks accommodation and meals, all expenses
paid, a free medical exam thrown in....
And all the lads have to do is donate some
sperm every couple of days.
But hang on — this seems like a rather
unchallenging assignment. Why Calgary
semen? Aren't Aussie blokes up to the task, as
it were?
Apparently it's tough to get Australian
volunteers these days because of a new law
that says sperm donors Down Under can no
longer remain anonymous.
Not surprisingly, the Australian clinic has
been flooded with eager Albertan applicants.
Can't say I'm surprised. As jobs go, it sure
s
beats roofing.
post handed on a platter.
But anyone who followed Harris in Ontario
knows he bailed out low in polls because he
had weakened services- to cut taxes for the
better-off, and he would never appeal in have-
not provinces because he scorned social
services.
Compare these with some that contested for
leader. William Davis running for Tory
premier had to defeat Allan Lawrence, Darcy
McKeough, Bob Welch and Bert Lawrence, all
of whom had impressive careers in the
legislature.
Frank Miller beat Roy McMurtry, recently
honoured as an outstanding chief justice, Larry
Grossman and Dennis Timbrell.
This writer covered federal Tory leadership
conventions at which Robert Stanfield
defeated Duff Roblin, Davie Fulton and Alvin
Hamilton, and Brian Mulroney beat Joe Clark,
John Crosbie and Michael Wilson.
There are almost none with such proven
records seeking the top jobs today, but parties
probably get the leadership candidates they
deserve.
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Back off!
It takes all kinds in this wisle, wonderful
world.You don't live long before you come
to accept, if you want to get along, that
everyone's approach to life and living is
different. Some prefer organization, others
prefer chaos. Some are cautious, others are
risk-takers. You may not get it but you come to
understand.
However, as long as I live (and those I'm
talking about here may ensure that's not long)
I will never figure out why some people drive
the way they do. To describe them as reckless
and irresponsible is an understatement; short-
sighted, selfish lunatics might be more apt.
Now, I'm not perfect. I will admit to having
my moments too behind the wheel. In a
smooth-riding car set to a clear path on a clear
day, it takes utmost restraint to keep my gas
pedal off the floor.
However, should optimum driving
conditions be lessened for any reason, I not
only do adapt, I must. I've got too much
imagination to do anything else. I slow
considerably for bush areas, and with the
addition of traffic, am watchful and cautious,
travelling with the flow and rarely pushing the
envelope.
And in winter? Well, this Nervous Nelly
takes no chances. With snow on the road and
in my face there is way too much control in the
hands of outside influence for a foolhardy
attitude. I have tremendous respect for
capricious Mother Nature.
Yet, there are those who arrogantly assume
they have it all under control, even the other
drivers. Their reckless behaviour indicates a
cockiness, an assuredness in their own ability.
However, no one can ever be sure of what the
other guy might do.
Recently, while travelling a snow-packed
road at a speed of 80 km an hour in a 90 km
zone, I noticed a truck approaching from
behind. Swiftly. Within seconds it had caught
up to me and for the next seyeral miles
continued to tailgate.
Heading into an area with bush on both sides
of the road, I suddenly spied a deer. Back some
15 feet from the shoulder, it was fortunately,
showing little interest in crossing. Yet, I
couldn't help wondering where its friends
were. Should they be following its path, I
knew there was no way I would avoid a
collision. But what really burned me was
knowing that besides a front-end confrontation
with a deer, I would be rear-ended by a rather
substantial vehicle.
Angrily contemplating the what ifs I
couldn't help thinking that while the fellow '
behind seem to have an interest in the interior
of my car, for why else would he need to drive
so close, he might be better served sizing up
the apparent void between his ears.
If he was impatient enough to get that close
to me in the first place then why not pass? I
slowed down several times offering ample
opportunity for him to get by. If he thought
that his aggressive driving was going to inspire
me to speed up it was just the first uncertainty
he was dealing with. On snowy roads this gal
I assure you, will not be going faster than she
feels comfortable doing.
There is no good reason particularly in
winter conditions, to ride the rear of another
vehicle. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to
realize that if the car ahead of you needs to
stop suddenly, you're going to hit them.
You think you're, a good driver, stop
endangering lives and start respecting other
drivers. Give them space. Move on or back
off.
Leaders' races not what they used to be