Not Useful, But Perhaps Entertaining

The first day back at work after a two week break cannot be expected to pass smoothly.  Once I made it out of bed at 3 a.m., I pretty much knew I would make it through.  I even had vague hopes of getting something useful done, both at work and afterwards.  Oh silly, silly me!  But if it is not easy being me, at least it is entertaining.

To begin with, I had problem after problem at work.  There is no point in going into details.  In fact, perhaps my employer would prefer I not even mention that there are ever any possible problems at my place of employment.  Everything goes smoothly at all times!  Only I do not work in fantasy land.  It was all right though, I resolved my problems with some help from co-workers and settled down to be as useful as possible under the circumstances.

One circumstance that was sad for me was that one of my best friends at work retired as of the day before shut-down.  He was in today for a final sign-out.  We had cake and coffee to mark the occasion during the 9 a.m. break.  I only bring it up to mention something I found rather amusing, although perhaps I flatter myself.  There were several manager-types at our little cake gathering, including one fellow I had never seen before.  But there was something vaguely familiar about him…  I had it.

“You look like that guy from the safety DVDs,” I told him.  “Tim Wright.”  Tim Wright is the host/narrator for several of the DVDs we watch at our monthly safety meeting.  He is a rather doofy character (there are not many un-doofy sorts in these safety things).  In one DVD, he is just a head, having lost all his other body parts through unsafe work practices.  I told the manager he looked as if Tim Wright could be his younger, doofier brother.  A little later, when the manager was making congratulatory remarks to my retiring friend, I asked another co-worker who he was.

“He’s the plant manager,” she said.   Well, he still looks like he could be Tim Wright’s brother.

I thought no more about it when I went back to work, and I imagine our plant manager did not either.   If I ever see him again and he brings it up, I will point out that I did say he looks less doofy than the DVD guy.