Team Players
Back in the days when I was working down in Printers Row. (Home of the Book Fair). I noticed something about my fellow commuters. People getting on an eight o'clock train to get to work by nine were not the ones coming home just after five. You would find some of the same people who were at the train at six in the am or even five just rolling back to the six in the evening train or the seven. While these people may be flying back and forth to work on the Metra commuter rail they were, and probably still are, spending an inordinate amount of time at their places of work.
These are the Team Players. Middle Management types often fit this description. They are the ones pulled into meeting after pointless meeting to discuss every little detail of their assignments while said assignments are still waiting for attention. They still need to be done on schedule. It's not always manager types. Any poor fool getting a salary rather than an hourly wage is liable to this kind of warped lifestyle. The office needs to stay competitive so everyone has do a little more and that usually boils down to working harder and longer for no extra pay.
Team players get fat. No time to take care of ones health or eat right. It's quick high carb meals and lots of coffee to keep moving all day. Who has time for the gym with weekly deadlines.
Team players get divorced or just never get married. Children grow up to write books about how their mommies and daddies weren't there for them when they were needed them.
Team players are prone to substance abuse a few beers here maybe a toke of the secret stash there whatever it takes to get a little relaxation in during the few down hours between work and sleep.
And talking of sleep team players don't get much and when they do its not enough. Your family obligations don't go away even if you have no time for them, so sleep is sacrificed to run errands.
The worst time for a Chicago Land Team Player is the winter. They get up before the sun and stand out in the biter cold waiting for their train. They get crammed into a tin can with a bunch of people who talk loudly or use their cell phones and have no idea that the team players need these 20 minutes just to relax, to rest, to escape from the stresses of work and home. Then the team players come home in the dark and from the outside world you can see them through the windows of the train. They are exhausted, beaten down and they know that there is no walking away from their jobs so the lot of them, in the almost empty train, which pulls past my Beverly stop in the evening hours, sit in silence. They do not read or make phone calls or do any of the things earlier riders do. Sometimes as I watch the trains go past I imagine I can see them holding back the tears about ready to burst.
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These are the Team Players. Middle Management types often fit this description. They are the ones pulled into meeting after pointless meeting to discuss every little detail of their assignments while said assignments are still waiting for attention. They still need to be done on schedule. It's not always manager types. Any poor fool getting a salary rather than an hourly wage is liable to this kind of warped lifestyle. The office needs to stay competitive so everyone has do a little more and that usually boils down to working harder and longer for no extra pay.
Team players get fat. No time to take care of ones health or eat right. It's quick high carb meals and lots of coffee to keep moving all day. Who has time for the gym with weekly deadlines.
Team players get divorced or just never get married. Children grow up to write books about how their mommies and daddies weren't there for them when they were needed them.
Team players are prone to substance abuse a few beers here maybe a toke of the secret stash there whatever it takes to get a little relaxation in during the few down hours between work and sleep.
And talking of sleep team players don't get much and when they do its not enough. Your family obligations don't go away even if you have no time for them, so sleep is sacrificed to run errands.
The worst time for a Chicago Land Team Player is the winter. They get up before the sun and stand out in the biter cold waiting for their train. They get crammed into a tin can with a bunch of people who talk loudly or use their cell phones and have no idea that the team players need these 20 minutes just to relax, to rest, to escape from the stresses of work and home. Then the team players come home in the dark and from the outside world you can see them through the windows of the train. They are exhausted, beaten down and they know that there is no walking away from their jobs so the lot of them, in the almost empty train, which pulls past my Beverly stop in the evening hours, sit in silence. They do not read or make phone calls or do any of the things earlier riders do. Sometimes as I watch the trains go past I imagine I can see them holding back the tears about ready to burst.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 2:45 AM
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