Mr. Clean

An action pic! He went into Whirling Dervish mode again yesterday and cleaned and fixed a whole bunch of windows including one I haven’t been able to OPEN for several years now. At this moment, he is on the other side of the window from teleCubelandia and this is the window the window replacement scammers are always bugging me about. Nope. I love this big multi-paned *almost* floor-to-ceiling window. I can see what’s going on in the street as well as what’s going on in, around, and under the bushes. Oh don’t get all excited. Mostly it’s just Henry/Henrietta (rabbits) and chipmunks under there. I dunno where they do their business but it isn’t under the bushes. I mean their reproductive business. I’m sure they poop wherever they want.

Taaarrred after an intense but fruitful meeting with Amazon Woman today. I don’t mean intense in interpersonal terms. We are trying to sort out a new prodject, one we don’t really have the vocabulary for yet. Having a common vocabulary or at least understanding someone else’s vocabulary is crucial to getting anything done in any endeavor. We’re not there yet but we work well together when we are figuring these things out. Although we are typically on the same page in our work, we approach things just differently enough that after we’ve beat our brains together for a while, we often come away with a better understanding of what we’re trying to do. Best boss I’ve ever had and really all of my bosses have been darn good ones.

A few of them:

Mr. Drysdale at the Sault Ste. Siberia Tempo store who chose me (summer employee) to drive with him to Traverse City to work for a day as cashier at a new store grand opening. No there was no funny business with him. He was on the up-and-up and even if he hadn’t been he was friendly with my dad and therefore would know better than to mess with me. (People didn’t really mess with my dad.) The gals at the Traverse City Tempo were initially a bit skeptical of me but I was GOOD at running those old cash registers, happy to help them with bagging, and FRIENDLY and I think we all went out to lunch together.

Byron, my first boss at my childhood career at That Darn EPA. He was skeptical of me at first (and probably should’ve been) but after I taught myself FORTRAN and proved that I could solve just about any data processing problem that came along and deal with the people who brought the problems (usually, I had some ugly moments), he left me “in charge” a lot of the time while he disappeared into the parking lot or wherever.

Manuel, who took Byron’s place for a while for reasons we won’t talk about. I returned from a vacation in the yooperland the first day we faced each other as boss and employee instead of co-workers. I jestingly asked if he really wanted this job and that lowered any tension there may have been. We went on to work very well together and cleaned a lot of things up.

The LSCHP, who hired me at an age when I didn’t think I’d ever have a job again, let alone a professional career.

i haven’t had a lot of jobs in my life because I usually tend to stick to the ones I have for long periods of time.

I was one of those “creative types” who don’t know what they want to do when they grow up until they are well, GROWN UP. With grown-up children in my case! If you are a young creative type, don’t give up!

2 Responses to “Mr. Clean”

  1. Margaret Says:

    It seems like you’ve had some awesome bosses and interesting jobs. I too have had great and not so great administrators. But I learned from each of them, even if some of that was How To Get Along with Difficult People.

  2. Tonya Watkins Says:

    I’ve had a LOT of nightmarish bosses. To the point where it was bewildering how bad they were, and how in the world they ever ended up in the position. From a boss who came *this close* to throwing a fax machine out of an 11th-story office in a fit of rage, to gaslighting and manipulative women bosses, to my last “boss” who knew nothing about the industry and spit all over me when he donkey-brayed at me in close proximity. Oh, and then the sexual molester. {{Oh yeah}}. I had a total of TWO excellent bosses, and I still remember them very fondly (and wistfully, because why couldn’t more people be like that?)