Me: *shows Basic Human Decency To Cashier

Me: *shows basic human decency to cashier

Cashier: ??!?! Thank you! You’re the nicest person ever!

Me: are you ok

On the topic of precarious ladders:

So writing about working at heights hijinks and life-panicing moments got me thinking about an old member of my first local. This guy had been installing wiring for the Big Bang, I garuntee. We were talking one day about ladder adventures. Both being short, small, and overconfident, we had plenty of moments to swap, but his took the cake.

He was on a North American tour of an Opera, back in his day, and they were down in the States, I want to say California but I can't recall precisely.

So this venue they're at, they're doing the load in, and it has this odd grating installed over the last few feet of the stage that allows the actors to walk right above the orchestra, a sort of grid covered pit.

The touring rig has a lighting pipe that needs to be hung right out over the stage edge, so motor lines are dropped in, everything is built and hooked up, and up it goes. But then, the local crew explains to Ronnie, because of the unique floor covering the pit, it wasn't load bearing enough for a scissor lift to be run across it. "But how do we focus those lights?" Ronnie asked, confused.

So that's when the house crew went out into the house, up to the back of the third balcony, and pulled out three segments of an extension ladder, 20 feet each. A quick chat determined that the apron pipe was about 40 feet above the deck, so two chunks of the ladder were passed over the edge of the third balcony to the second; over the second to the main floor, carried out to the edge of the stage, and linked together.

"Now what," Ronnie asks, probably well caught on, but just making sure. The local guys grin, and walk the ladder upright. Then four of them get around the base. "Up you go."

40 feet, straight vertical, no safety, nowhere to anchor to, no wall around, held in place by four crew hugging the bottom.

Up zips Ronnie, straddling the top rung and hooking his feet into lower bars, pulls out his wrench, and gets the first light focused.

"Okay, now, hang on," the guys at the base holler, and proceed to waddle-walk the base of the ladder to get Ronnie to the next fixture.

One foot, pivot-twist - rock onto other foot, pivot twist. Stop, work, repeat.

The whole width of the apron.

I can still see the grin on Ronnie's face retelling it, I bet he was having the time of his life.

And then, the story goes, he was so comfortable up there, and the ground team so competent, they got the pipe done in record time, but halfway along, tragedy struck upstage.

If you've never heard a motor bag dump a full length of chain after everything has been flown out, well, consider yourselves lucky. A collective groan went up from the carpentry team as a bag spilled, the only way to clean it up being bring the set in again.

"Hold up," says Ronnie, "maybe we can help." And his base team waddle-walked his ladder across the stage, where he pulled up the chain and stuffed it back in the bag to the cheers of the other crews below. Lighting was the hero of the show for the rest of the production's stay there.

So... Every now and then, when my leg is cramping because my harness is biting off circulation in my thigh because I'm folded in half trying to adjust some fixture, and my retractable lanyard is trying to choke me to death, or at the very least pull my hair out, and some Technical Director is griping that I "shouldn't be doooiiiing thaaaaat..." Okay fine, then I guess you can't have the effect, because I can't set it up legally; I think back to Ronnie, seated on the top rung of a forty foot ladder, being waddled across a stage, and I wonder if all this safety has dumbed down our skills.

And I wish like hell I could try that.

7:30 pm. -3°C. Ontario.

Getting paid to sit next to gear while a bunch of middle class white people present the story of a teen-pregnant Jewish middle-eastern refugee family.

By singing to synth music tracks.

But there's a real donkey and horse.

Oh great, snow. You know what that means.

It means inconsiderate, lazy, selfish, assholes are going to be driving around with their vehicles covered in snow.

Roof, hood, trunk, windows, mirrors, bed covers - covered in snow, the barest hints scraped away by the windshield wipers and maybe the effort of holding the button to make a side window roll up and down.

Hoping it'll all melt eventually, or blow off once they start driving.

Yah. In my FACE.

Don't "have time" to clean your car off?

How much time you going to waste when you cause me to crash and I take your ass to court? How's a criminal negligence charge going to look on your resume?

"But my children's-sports-team-minivan / suburbitank-for-grocery-shopping / lifted-full-cab-hemi-truck is too tall to reach all that snow on top!"

You live in Canada. Snow isn't a surprise. The LACK of snow is maybe a surprise. But now it's here, like it always is eventually, own up and clear it because it's the decent thing to do. It's the same reason you shovel your sidewalk. It might not actually benefit - YOU-, but it helps everyone else, and covers your ass from fines.

- like seriously some dudebro sunglasses boi pulled up beside me with a sports car shorter than my motorcycle, and it had an inch of snow on it. One sweep would have shoved it all off. The barest minimum effort. Ugh .-

To everyone who does their part to make sure their vehicles are safe, we appreciate you! Thank you!

Temperature Control

Me as a child: Why can't we turn up the heat? More clothes are stupid. We're inside! We have heating! We are gods of our artificial environment!

Me as a broke ass adult opening a hydro bill: Ohhhhhh.

This is perfect. Next time I doze off at the console while the designers are bickering during a 14 hour levels session I can just point to this.

From the second link: " ‘I’ which means ‘to be present’ in a situation that is not sleep and ‘nemuri’ which means ‘sleep’. Erving Goffman’s concept of “involvement within social situations” is useful I think in helping us grasp the social significance of inemuri and the rules surrounding it."

"In this context, inemuri can be seen as a subordinate involvement which can be indulged in as long as it does not disturb the social situation at hand – similar to daydreaming. Even though the sleeper might be mentally ‘away’, they have to be able to return to the social situation at hand when active contribution is required. They also have to maintain the impression of fitting in with the dominant involvement by means of body posture, body language, dress code and the like."

I am at the board, dressed in black, ready to type. Just wake me up when you figure out what you want. Golden.

In Japan, public napping is a sign of hard work. It’s called ‘inemuri,’ which means ‘sleeping on duty’ or ‘sleeping while present.’ Because falling asleep in public is thought to be a symptom of working yourself to exhaustion, it’s socially acceptable in restaurants, stores, commuter trains, and on park benches- as long as you don’t sprawl out and take up too much space. Source Source 2