Nice little Haybudden

[Scott NC]

  I hate to be persistent, but why every day, twice a day...  In a big town where my other place was located it was once a month on wednesday's.  Small towns did it. 

[Frosty]

To mark Lunch and dinner or maybe evening milking time in farm country makes perfect sense to me.

We always knew it was 10am Friday when the air raid sirens sounded. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  Maybe I will call the Fire Chief back in Nickerson Nebraska and ask him.  He should know.  Sorry but this is driving me nut's now that it came up.  Peace to you Jerry!

[Frosty]

Sorry, I didn't mean to feed the curiosity into an obsession. I know how I get stuck on a thought and unfortunately lead others down the path all too often.

Maybe plan dinner or something more relaxing? 

Of course I don't mind bothering public officials, it's not like they have real work most of the time.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  We are having roast chicken tonight.  No obsession, this time.... .  I have a friend that's a volunteer there, I'll call him up after I eat.  

 

[George N. M.]

OK, Frosty, as a former "public official" I'd like to know what "real work" is and how public employees are not doing it.   My experience in public and private employment is that there is about the same ratio of good workers and drones where ever you go and at whatever level.  I have seen excellent and awful employees and supervisors in both the private and public sector.

GNM

[Scott NC]

  Sorry to interject:

 I could tell you about "real work".  You wouldn't like it though.  I'm was probably what you refer to as a "drone".  How many public employees cut the heads off hogs or tote 100 lb bags of product all day.   I worked my way out of it though and did some amazing things.  What you call drones are what put food on your table.  This is an incendiary turn of the topic so I will sign off.

[Frosty]

Yes George, I know. I retired after 30 years as a State Employee and have resisted calling radio talk shows when they start taking shots at how worthless public employees are. I doubt the callers or radio hosts would've lasted half a day on the drill crew, changing guardrail, patching potholes, repairing collapsed culverts, cleaning storm, drainage or sewer lines.

I take shots at public employees because I were one. Most officials were as good as the job allowed but I don't have much good to say about the top of the organization's mostly political . . . eh HEM.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

As far as testing tornado sirens noon is the least intrusive time in most folks schedule. At least that was what I was told when I joined the PD and on occasion had to test the siren's. We would do a 15 second test on one then another 15 second test on the other one (city had 2 sirens). There were different time's to let the sirens run depending on if it was a tornado warning or severe thunderstorm warning.

Funny story... One night while working the midnight shift at around 0100 hrs the system shorted out and the sirens started going off by themselves. Nobody knew where the master switch to shut the power off was located. Well they went off with a solid wail and while I was looking for the control box on the town square (there were several switch boxes on power poles) to see if one of them were it. After about 15 minutes some of the cowboys and farmers started showing up armed with rifles and shotguns.

They thought we were under attack from the Soviet Union. This was 1984 at the height of the cold war and after there was a close call when Russia almost launched an IBM attack on the U.S. due to some problems with their early warning system. By the time I found out how to power them down there must have been 40 vehicles there loaded for bear. One old timer told me that was the way town was alerted to a jail break back in the day and it was a signal to form a posse.

[George N. M.]

Nodebt, no, drones are those folk who don't pull their own weight no matter what job they are in.  We have all known them.  They are the ones who do the minimum work to avoid getting fired but that is all.  You never see them do anything more.  And, they usually whine about how hard life is.  In a sense, they are right, being lazy is hard work, avoiding work takes lots of effort.  They are both the guys in ties standing around the water cooler and the guys standing around a construction site watching one guy slowly sweep with a broom.  They are the guys who tell you, "Don't work so hard.  You're making the rest of us look bad."

IMO, almost all work is "real" work whether you are working with your back or your brain.  There is nothing special about doing a job that a machine or an animal could do as well and there is no virtue in using your brain to do calculations that could be done as accurately and faster by a computer.  If a skill or craft or profession or job is important enough that someone else will pay you good money to do it, it is "real" work.

I have worked at enough jobs, including the business end of a shovel, in the steel mills, hard rock mines, kitchens, and the infantry to arguing cases at state Suprreme Courts to know that I would rather work with my brain than my back.  That said, I have great respect for the folk who do the "dirty" jobs that need to be done in this world.  I've done them and know what is involved.

GNM

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Good gravy y’all!

I leave for one day to go to an auction an I come back to all this!
I swear, What am I gonna do with y’all?

Randy, thats a hilarious story!

Scott, don’t worry I know the local fire chiefs on several depts an I bug them randomly too! Lol

 if I get that old air raid siren I’ll probably call them an the sheriffs office BEFORE I blast it off! Lol

[Scott NC]

  Well, George, I guess an appolgy is in order.  I misunderstood your post, and went off half cocked.  I broke my own motto about biting my tongue.  I agree with everything you just said.  

  Part of the problem is, I have worked in too many places where everyone from a foreman on down are considered drones no matter your work ethic.  A lot of times the good workers are treated with the same attitude and respect (or lack of) as the lazy clock watchers.  It's a bad situation when you have to work with your back when you have the brains, skill and talent for better things.  I guess that's why I moved on so many times.  I'm not trying to complain here, just relating what I have seen....

  Let me say, I admire people that use thier minds to make thier way and I certainly wasn't trying to call into question your personal work ethic.  

  Scott

  Good one Randy.

  Billy, that will teach you to wander off to an auction....

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I guess I’ll just have to check in every now an then in between bidding next time! Lol

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I wonder if any towns still form a posse when there’s trouble now days?

[George N. M.]

In the west many sheriff's departments have posses (aka auxiliaries) but they usually handle things like traffic control, search and rescue, etc.. Sometimes they are called "posse" and sometimes not.  Sometimes they are actually mounted.  They may even be armed with either issued, Sheriff owned weapons, or their own personal weapons. They rarely, if ever, chase bad guys.  But in most states there are still statutes that allow the sheriff to conscript any citizen in an emergency to assist him or her.  This descends from the Old English Common Law of "raising the hue and cry" where the whole community was supposed to pursue a malefactor.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[JHCC]

In other words, it's a posse-bility.

On 5/21/2022 at 5:44 PM, George N. M. said:

drones are those folk who don't pull their own weight no matter what job they are in.

The origin of this term being drone bees (so-called because of the droning buzz of their wings), which are the only male bees in a hive and whose only function is to mate with the queen. One of the warning signs of a hive getting ready to swarm is that the worker bees push the drones out of the hive, so that they won't be a drain on the resources of a colony on the move.

One of the founders of my town (which was originally a cross between a utopian colony and a missionary training school) liked to remark,  "Drones will not be tolerated in this hive of industry." I have not seen any records, however, that would indicate anyone was sent to starve in the wilderness.

[George N. M.]

Nodebt, no apology necessary.  What poked a tgender spot was Frosty's comment about public officials not doing :real" work, not yours.  Yes, I know that Frosty was a state employee for many years but that in a sense makes the comment worse.  I know he was trying to be funny but it is still a little .... unseemly.  It is sort of like an attorney telling lawyer jokes or someone telling ethnic jokes about their own ethnic group.  It just kind of pushed my button.  But, anyway, we have all had our vent.  Good for us to purify the humors now and then.

BTW, on the topic of reporting on the local winds and tides it is now 34 degrees here and snowing, visibility no more than 1/4 mile.

GNM

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I thought only mothers could push someones buttons. After all she is the one who sewed them on and really knows which ones to push.

[ThomasPowers]

Only supposed to get to 80 degF today so I get to work on my wife's water collection system; when it gets back to the 90's I can go light the forge again...

[Scott NC]

  Right you are George.

   Thomas,  it came close to 100F last 2 days.  Humidity....   I think I need a little "office" in my new shop with a window ac.  More for making plans and storing rust prone stuff than cooling off, but kill 2 flying rats with one rock.... 

[Frosty]

Sorry to push a button George. Maybe I just got tired of being treated like menial help by guys I had to deal with out of our immediate office. I had to watch the game of bureaucratic empire building on an up close and personal basis. Our jobs, wages, benefits, hours, OT, every aspect of our positions was a nonstop bargaining chip for the administration. Talk about buttons.

It must've been nice having positions insulated from that sort of . . . business.

I have no more to say. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  I found a praying mantis egg pod that hatched today....  You should see the cute little buggers.  About the size of a big mosquito.  They were crawling all over my hand.  

[arkie]

RE:  Workers and non-workers.....see "The Peter Principle"

[George N. M.]

The geology/soil science version of the Peter Principle is "The clods sink to the top."

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."