My tech skills have really slipped since I left work at The Valve Store® and stopped being the group’s informal IT Guy. Question: What is the first thing you should do when any piece of technology stops working correctly? Reboot! OK, maybe the third thing right after making sure it is plugged and turned on, but that is all it took to make the PC talk to the Kindle.
I don’t remember exactly when, probably sometime around 12 or 13-years old, I decided I wanted to be more grown up. So I asked for a watch for Christmas. It was probably a cheap Timex wind-up one with a plastic band that looked a lot like the one on this Etsy page, but cost about one tenth what that person is selling that one for. The plastic band broke after about a year and I replaced it with a leather one and I probably wore that watch until I was 18 and joined the Navy.
Within the first few days of boot camp you are issued your uniforms. You then are taken to the PX where they gave you a very specific list of items to buy, a Gillette Safety Razor, one ten pack of blades for the razor, one 6 ounce tube of Crest toothpaste, etc. When you checked out, the total cost of what you bought was recorded and that money came out of your first paycheck. You then boxed up everything you came through the gates with, in a box and mailed it home, including your watch.
One of the items on that PX list was a specific watch, probably a cheap Timex similar to what I already had. Because the military has to run like a finely tuned machine its members have to be at certain places at certain times, the watch was required. If you never wore a watch before, too bad, you were going to be wearing one now. So I wore various watches for the next ten years while a member of Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club.
When I left the Navy I stopped wearing a watch. Partially to free myself from that very structured life and partially because there are clocks everywhere anyway, in the car radio, on the walls and, if you could program a VCR, right there near your TV. Bill Gates put one in the lower left of your computer screen and now your smart phone is always at hand, so who wears a watch anymore?
No matter, when you retire from ASCO (at least as a salaried employee) they are going to give you the traditional gift of a watch. When Donna retired last year she tried to get out of it, she doesn’t wear a watch either, she said donate the money to a charity or something. No dice. You get a catalog with about 10 or 15 styles of watches to choose and they engrave the back with your name and years of service. With the help of the HR Benefits person they picked out the most expensive ladies watch for her because she was going to sell it and donate the money to a charity. We have even gone so far as taking the watch to a local jewelers and for ten bucks had him buff off the engraving of her name. We have yet to sell it though.
When my time came to pick out a watch I looked at all the options and picked out one that I would actually wear. My thoughts were, the company was making a nice gesture, so maybe I would start wearing a watch again, look more grown up. On Saturday I pulled it out of the box, read the instructions on to set it and strapped it to my wrist. Man, it is a nice looking watch. But it feels weird down there at the end of my arm. Plus the band is a little loose letting the watch move around, so invariably the face it is always where I have to twist my wrist an extra bit to see it. I pull the strap tighter to get to the next hole on the strap. Now it is too tight, my hand will probably go numb after a few minutes.
At this point I remember the real reason I stopped wearing a watch once I left the Navy, I could never get one to fit right. Leather bands with holes (even adding an intermediate one in between existing holes), metal bands with butterfly clasps, whatever the closure method they were always either too loose or too tight. I bet I could still make this work, poke an intermediate hole, wear it every day for a couple weeks until I got used to it, but my heart really isn’t into it. I really don’t need a watch, I’m retired. Besides, remember smart phone, computer screen, car radio, wall clock, etc. I guess I’ll go get the back engraving buffed off and put a pair of his & hers watches for sale up on eBay.
Emerson, the large business organization that the Valve Store is part of, has an electronic directory of employees covering the entire corporation. It is each person’s responsibility to keep it updated, if you get a new boss, move to another department, changed job titles, etc.
A few years back, tiring of it not being 100% accurate, they implemented a policy where if you don’t update it they would start withholding services. First no internet, then intranet, then emails and after that they close and delete your account. It used to have to be done quarterly, but about a year ago, they decided to start doing it monthly. Not a big deal if nothing has changed, you get an email, you click on the link and click the big green Update button.
I received my email this morning telling me it was time to update my employee profile. As usual nothing has changed in a month. I’ve probably made less than a dozen changes on this page…ever. I have worked for 6, maybe 8, different direct supervisors and my job title has only changed three times in the 28 years I’ve been here. It started as Draftsman, then changed to Design Draftsman and then to its now current Design Draftsman/CNC Programmer.
Last month, because I’m sort of a smart ass, I thought I would change my Job Title to Retiree in Training. But I decided against it considering I work for a corporation and those sorts of entities don’t typically have a sense of humor. Well, this month I couldn’t stop myself, I went ahead and typed in Retiree in Training and clicked the Update button. I half expected it to not let me, but it did. I wonder if anybody will notice?
Back in January when I designed my very own retirement banner, because I’m the only person making banners, I cheekily added the words “making”, “last” and “banner” in a smaller text so that it read “Congratulations Brian On (making) Your (last) Retirement (banner.) Well, as it turns out, not only was it not my last retirement banner, it was not even my next to last, but my 3rd last. I printed mine out on the Monday before last and the very next day HR asked to make one for somebody on 3rd shift whose last day is the same as mine, March 2nd.
Once my banner was put in the company cafeteria for people to sign, the word was out, and people started to show up with requests for banners that would be needed after I’m gone. I made 4 birthday banners last week, one for each person in a department. One for someone who was actually celebrating her birthday, but the other three were for later. They asked me to have them just say “Happy Birthday So and So” and they would save them and put them up every year.
Today was a banner day at the Valve Store, my work load had slacked off a bit, so I decided to work on knocking out the 7 requests I had collected over the last few days. First up was another retirement banner, next was a birthday banner for the same person. Next I did a birthday one for someone’s granddaughter and a birthday one for that very same someone. Then I had a pair of aunts and another person’s uncle. I rolled up the last banner just as the bell rung signifying the end on my work day. Only seven more to go, working days, not banners, but who knows have many more requests I’ll get between now and next Friday.
So I can see why the people who do wash their hands, soap or not, exit the restroom using a series of complex dance steps. They dry their hands with paper towels, reach for the door handle with the hand that has the damp paper towels, pull the door open, stop the door from closing with their foot, and then reach back to toss the paper into the trash can.
This leads to the trash cans getting full fairly fast because there is a lot of air in between all those paper towels. The bathroom trash cans here at ASCO get emptied twice a day, once in the morning and then again really late afternoon. So, if I use the restroom just before lunch or mid-afternoon the cans are almost full or in some cases overflowing.
For the last couple of weeks, I have taken it upon myself to play trash compactor. If I’m alone in the rest room1 I’ll put my right foot in front of the door (so it can’t be opened into me), raise my left foot into the trash can and squish all the air out from in between the waste paper. I then perform the above-mentioned exit maneuver to leave the room.
Back in early December I started a little countdown to retirement. I added the number of working days on the bottom of a small whiteboard on one of my upper file cabinets that I use it to keep track of projects and such which it is placed really where only I can see it.
When someone pops in and says, “Hey, I heard you are retiring. When?” I tell them April 2nd. The next question would always be, “So, how many days left?” I’d pull the whiteboard off the wall and show them. They would get a surprised look on their face because that number seemed awfully small for a date that far away. I would explain, “That’s in working days. It doesn’t count weekends, holidays and the 4 weeks of vacation I’ll get on January 1.”
My last day at work will be Friday, March 2, so right now that number stands at 34, while actually being 46 days away. Because every day was a working day in Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club, this would have been translated into Navy speak as, “Forty-five and a wake up.”
One of my collateral duties here at the Valve Store is Banner Maker to the People. Birthdays, Anniversaries, Baby Showers, Retirements, etc, if someone asks they will get a 3′ x 4′ full color banner printed out on my 42″ wide HP800 plotter. I have a few stock ones that I drag out, but most of the time I try to design something unique with a fancy font and incorporate the person’s personal interests somehow.
It was a slow Friday afternoon so today I decided to go ahead and design the last retirement banner I’ll ever print.
