My father was a World War II veteran. He served in the Army Air Corps. He didn’t see any action, but he did tell me a couple of stories about his service.
One of them was from his basic training, where he learned the most valuable lesson. The drill sergeant lined up all the new guys and asked them “any of you who want to be a pilot, take two steps forward!” Every single one of them stepped forward.
“OK, then. See that pile of horse manure over there? Go take those shovels and pile it over there.”
Never. Volunteer. For. Anything.
I was reminded of that lesson this week. We’re a bit short-staffed and overwhelmed with work, and I could always use a little more money, so I offered to work an extra day this week. O/T is always a good thing.
Now, I always understood that when you do something like volunteer to work overtime, there’s a tradeoff: you don’t get stuck with the worst shift. It was one of those unspoken rules that I lived by.
It shoulda been spoken.
So, today and tomorrow, I gotta be in to work at zero dark thirty, about the time I usually have my second piece of the day half-done. Normally, I write my three pieces before I go to work, setting them to publish throughout the day. I’ll try to keep up the three pieces a day routine for these two days, but one or two of them might have to wait until after work. (For example, this and my 11:00 piece were written Wednesday night.)
Oh, and Dad? Sorry I didn’t listen.
When I was knee high to a tadpole and had dreams of F1 racing glory, I went to work in the oilfield. In Alaska, in the wintertime. One day the crane operator, the boss of our offshore roustabout crew, asked for a volunteer. Yeah, I was quite surprised to hear him say Thank You Elmo. Only to turn and look at the rest of the crew. Who were collectively giggling. One step back.
I spent the day with the platform’s main engineer, down in the sewage treatment plant.
NAVY =
Never
Again
Volunteer
Yourself
Reminds me of the story about the Sarge asking for volunteers….the majority of the guys take one step BACKWARDS, leaving a few idiots to standing up front to “get the job.”
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer wingnut. Your standard of living exceeds, what, 90% of the world’s population? You poor, poor thing. This bleeding heart of mine bleeds just a little more for your suffering.
Mr Wizbang blog apparently censors civil comments that suggest he might not be the very most oppressed person on the planet. Thin skin? Defensive? You be the judge. Should you wish to evade censorship, my post is still viewable in the “add comment” mode.
My abject and humble apologies. Apparently I was the defensive one. My browser must have cached the page from before my comment. Wizbang did not censor it, it’s still visible.
Crct123, Yeah, that’s happened to me before, the cache thing. Posted multiple versions with alterations of the same post. Trade secrets imperiled! And though Jay Tea, et al hang it all out for BushCo, and whistle past lots of graveyards, they can take it and don’t delete. Except for Mr. Ho when he posted 30,000 words from Roberts Rules of Order or something one time, but hey: bandwidth might have been affected.
Actually, brian, as I recall, MrHo was reprinting entire copyrighted articles without attribution. Pinheads giving us crap is one thing; setting us up for lawsuits over copyright infringement is quite another. THAT’S what got his ass banned.
J.
Crct123
Nice hairshirt you got there.
BANNED? MR. HO? He WAS a Crazy Mongolian but the light water/ heavy water distinction regarding the Indian nuclear reactor was educational. Maybe from now on he’ll add (c)Xaviera Hollander if you let him back in.
The pervy helpline Sheffield Gayphone, based in the UK are on the brink of closure after articles appearing on the internet have exposed serious wrong doings.
Reports circulating on the internet have exposed Sheffield School Teacher Joe Tang, Sheffield Doctor Tim Hooson and Sheffield Residents Albert Thomas, Jon Williams and Peter Williams for sexually harrassing male callers, using threatening behaviour to anyone exposing them, sending death threats and driving people out of the City Of Sheffield.
But their sick and appalling behaviour has not stopped there. According to other reports and eye witnesses the meetings which they organised were nothing more than to get into the pants of innocent victims and luring them into the notorious ‘Lawton Tonge House toilet’ which apparently caused the lawton tonge house toilet scandal a while back.
“The men who run Sheffield Gayphone are apparently Ugly and have difficulty getting anyone, so the only way they can get anyone is to abuse their positions, and this is what they do” said a local gay man
Sheffield City Council have seen the articles on the internet and are reviewing the £2000 a year grant which they receive, However information on the internet shows that the city council have been fully aware about sheffield gayphone for several years