What job can you do that makes many people happy quickly?

A bright and sunny outlooks needs... bright sun. To get bright sun indoors you need clean windows. My favourite humans in the world right now are the window cleaners cleaning the windows on my apartment building.

After 3 bloody long years of construction on the outside of this building, the construction workers are gone and we finally have window cleaners! It wasn't worth the effort to attempt to clean the windows when the construction workers were still making a mess of the place, so it's been 3 years since we've had clean windows. 

We now have a team of 3 window cleaners armed with soap, brushes, and - luckily - picks to scrape off the nasty construction glops on all the windows going down the side of the building. I've had to close the windows, which is tough when we're having a heat wave (over 30 degrees with the humidity! I thought we left Toronto!) but I have no problems with doing this for the amount of time it takes to clean the windows.

So if you are thinking about finding a job that will make others happy, window cleaning is a good one!

Who wants a "Danger: Work in Progress" sign?

It may frequently actually mean "there's a guy with a bucket of soapy water hanging from a rope over your head", but wouldn't this be a great sign for everyone to have?

The weather has warmed up (a little bit) so the window washers are up the sides of the buildings in Vancouver again. That's gotta be a cold job on a cloudy day. They set up these great signs on the ground underneath where they are working.

Danger: Work in Progress

Wow, wouldn't that be a great sign to have? You could put it just inside the door to your workspace. It is ambiguous enough it could mean many things, like:

Don't bother me, I'm doing work and it could be dangerous to bug me.

Don't come in here if you don't want to work - that's what's happening in here!

Don't judge me now, I'm still a work in progress, I'm not done yet!

I'm working here, watch out world, there's something coming!

Or, I just stole a window cleaner's sign, so watch out when you're on the street, there's one missing!

Isn't it nice dealing with people who have pride in their work?

I had to go have blood taken for tests today and it's always something I hate doing because people have great difficulty finding my veins. I typically have a pink tinge to my skin, but my body's attitude is generally: "Yes, there is blood in here. No, you can't have any of it." So when I find someone who can find the vein on the first shot without leaving a huge bruise, I'm very relieved. I'm sure I will never see them at the same lab again, it's only the ones who have problems who seem to stick around in the same job for extended periods of time, but I take my happiness when I can.

Today I actually had a lab technician who found the vein without a problem! Celebrations began almost immediately. I asked if she thought they would ever get one of the machines that use blue light to light up veins in people to make the job easier. She said she expected hospitals could make good use of those, but in the drop-in labs they don't really need it "Because we're all so good!"

Wow, actual pride in her work! That is so rare, and so incredibly welcome! Someone who does her job well, and takes pride in doing it well. Life is good.

Did you remember to bring the...?

It's taken ages to get everything together and you're outside your apartment waiting for the elevator now. Then someone says "Did you remember to bring the ..."

Now the elevator door opens and there's someone in the elevator. So you either:
* decide we really didn't need that anyway and go into the elevator
* split up and arrange to meet downstairs at the place you usually meet up when this happens
* apologize for making the elevator stop and everyone goes back into the apartment ... thus starting over again: "Did you remember to bring the ..."

On the outside of my apartment building there is a lot of construction work going on. This means that there are at least 5 construction platforms being used by the construction workers to go up and down the outside of the building. They are like little, slow elevators. They've been doing this for months, getting onto years now. Up and down. Slowly. The men on these little elevators wreak of body odor and cancer stick smoke and it all gets blown into our apartment. Day after day.

It's become quite obvious that the "Did you remember to bring the ..." problem is a plague on these construction workers. First thing in the morning, you hear the little motors going and the bumping on the outside wall begins. The babbling of radio programs gets louder as the platforms get closer to our floor, then fades as the platform goes higher. The stench of body odor and cancer stick smoke makes everyone inside wrinkle their noses in disgust. A few minutes later, the motors get louder again, the radio blabber gets louder, the smell gets worse. Then it fades again as they reach the ground. Half an hour later and yes, they are back, once again with the motor, the radio, the stench. They forgot to bring something.

It's annoying when you're going out for the day and have to go back to get something. But wouldn't you have a checklist if you spent your days going up and down on slow little elevators for a living? Wouldn't the aggravation of having to go back down to get a forgotten tool just drive you nuts?

Did I mention that the building is about 30 stories tall? Urgh.

Is a power outage a good thing or a bad thing?

Due to a underground fire in downtown Vancouver yesterday the power to most of the business district was out yesterday and continues to be out today. So is this a good thing or a bad thing?

From a business point of view, productivity of workers is zero unless they can work from home. From a retail business point of view profits will suffer - but if they have insurance, maybe not. But from an individual's point of view, on a gorgeous sunny summer day, I'm thinking this is really a good thing.

Yesterday all of the traffic lights in the affected area were out. That meant many police officers found themselves directing traffic all day. But today there are portable generators on almost every intersection powering the lights so traffic is back to normal - just a bit noisier due to the generators humming. So that's not good, but it's not that bad either, it's interesting to find out that portable generators are enough to run the traffic lights in a downtown this size.

Workers from the power company are underground replacing more than a dozen power lines that were burnt in the fire, it's quite an education to see on TV news reports just how many power lines there are down there. Education is always a good thing. It's important for people to think about how much their lives depend upon things they don't see because they are underground - and to realize their lives won't end just because the power is out. There is a difference between necessity and convenience.

Some of the office buildings are completely closed and there are chains on the doors because the elevators won't work, so even if the daylight is enough for workers to do work in their offices, they can't get into the building. So that means a lot of people must have used the stairs to get out yesterday. That would suck. But why are people even bothering to try to get in today? That's a wake-up call that should make them think.

Oh look, over there, it's water, it's park, it's beach! So if you can't work from home... you've won a day off, and it's a great one! Celebrate!

I was walking through the affected area earlier today (on my way to a courier shop that was not in the outage area) and I actually found an open coffee shop! It was on the edge of the area that was hit, so they were open, and according to them, very busy yesterday. They were not as busy today, and when asked, the woman behind the counter said "It depends on how you look at it" when asked if she was happy the power outage didn't affect them. She looked like she longed for the beach. Words of wisdom in a coffee shop, the right place for them really.

I won't trivialize the inconvenience to hotels and apartment buildings in the area without power - for them it's a really bad thing, but for the office workers who have the day off today, take time to enjoy the bad thing that can be a good thing "depending on how you look at it".

Why use air conditioning in your automobile?

Yes, OK, I used to live in Toronto and I know how hot it gets there, so I can understand why everyone in Toronto drives around with their windows up and their air conditioning on. But now I live in Vancouver, where the weather is more moderate, and the air is typically between -5 and +25 degrees Celsius. Never really too cold, and not often too hot.

So why, after about 8 months of rain – constant, daily, day-long, month-long rain – on the first warm sunny day in the spring, were people driving around with their windows up and their air conditioning on???

We were driving on a short vacation on Vancouver Island between Victoria and Parksville (which is just North of Nanaimo) in the middle of May. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and we had the windows down, and if we were dogs, we'd have had our heads out the windows. It was fabulous to have a truly warm day. Many of the other automobiles around us had the windows down and smiling people inside, just like us.

But there were other vehicles with the windows rolled up and the regular determined, grumpy looking people inside. It was warm enough they had to have air conditioning on to survive inside the vehicle if the windows were closed. But why? Why didn't they roll down the windows and enjoy the day?

Yes, the Hummer that passed us with rolled-up windows was not a surprise, if you hate the environment enough to drive one of those, why bother to roll down the window, save some gas, and enjoy the day?

But it looked like a lot of people were heading out for a weekend of camping, with their windows rolled up and air-conditioning on. Do they enjoy the sudden rush of fresh air when they arrive at their camp-ground and open their car door that much that they didn't want to contaminate that moment with some fresh air before it on the way up?

Some people looked like they were driving home from work, with their windows rolled up and air-conditioning on. Did they enjoy the climate-controlled - recycled, hasn't been fresh since the building went up - air inside their offices so much they didn't want to spoil that feeling with fresh air on the way home?

It is truly mystifying why humans will put themselves in uncomfortable environments when the alternative is so easy. Roll down the window, take in some fresh air, and enjoy life!

When you display a Mohawk hair style what do you do for a living?

Beyond spending a great deal of time putting various products in your hair to keep it standing straight up, what do you do for a living when you have a Mohawk? Mothers everywhere ask their children this when they come home with the shave-the-sides to leave a broom-on-the-head, stripe-up-the-middle, colourful-blue-bristles-from-the-brows-to-the-top-of-the-backbone hair display. But there ARE adults who proudly display their skulls with this Mohawk stripe to the world. So what do they do for a living? They can't all be in punk bands.

Last night we got a clue to this mystery.

The construction workers working on the outside of our building have been filling a dumpster outside our building with their debris. This dumpster was taken away and replaced by an empty one last night.

A yellow truck with an empty dumpster pulled into the alley. Carefully, but not so quietly, the empty dumpster was dumped in the middle of the alley – an argument may have started between someone trying to drive a car down the alley, but the driver who got out of the truck sported the ever-feared tuft-on-top Mohawk and car drivers found another route to take for the next half hour. The noise caught our attention so we watched the event.

The truck driver skillfully backed the truck up to the filled dumpster, with the truck bed angled up at about 45 degrees, and got out to prepare the dumpster. He jumped into the dumpster to flatten down and rearrange the contents, then he jumped out and got out a cover for the dumpster. After tightening the cover, he hooked the winch on the truck bed to the dumpster. Getting back into the truck cab he drove ahead a few meters, dragging the dumpster behind – yes, you can see the mark on the pavement from this, but there are other older marks, so what's one more. He then jumped out of the truck and unhooked the dumpster. He jumped back into the truck and skillfully angled it to the front of the empty dumpster. He then even more skillfully positioned the empty dumpster into the place where the full dumpster had been – in one shot – he got out to check the placement, and it was spot on, so he unhooked the dumpster. He then jumped back in the truck and angled it in front of the full dumpster, jumped out, hooked the full dumpster and then loaded it up onto the truck bed which lowered from the 45 degrees to a flat surface. After securing the load, he jumped in the truck and drove off. It had been a masterful performance of skill and choreography.

So that's what you do when you display attitude and defiance of societal norms. You aren't an average construction worker who spends all day going up and down the sides of buildings drilling and making noise while talking about the sports you played on the weekend. You are a lone worker who dances through your work with skill and style, and an attitude that makes others leave you alone to do your job. Gee Mom, I think he wins!

Do I really want to know the construction workers that well?

Outside my window now, and for about the last year or so, there are construction workers working on my apartment building. Yes, a Vancouver condominium that needs repairs done on it from water damage, what a surprise! (Heavy on the sarcasm there, ALL buildings in Vancouver's West End neighborhood need repairs done on them due to water damage. No, we haven't had a flood or hurricane or any other natural disaster, we just live in a rain-forest area and no one can make a building that won't be damaged by the rain, which we get for six to seven months at a time. It's a soggy place.)

These construction workers talk a lot. They talk on the way up the outside of the building on the swing scaffold. They talk on the way down the outside of the building on the swing scaffold. They talk when not moving and the drilling momentarily stops (it's an occasional reprieve, they are replacing all of the tiles on every balcony, and drilling and refilling all of the joints between all of the wall panels out there).

The building walls are mostly glass, and they are also spending a lot of time replacing all of the caulking around every single glass pane. Glass is not a good sound barrier. So there is a looming shadow behind the blinds as the swing scaffold stops, they remove the old caulking, clean it out, and put new caulking on. This is not an engrossing task for them, they tend to talk the most when they are on the other side of this non-sound-proof glass.

It's a lot of talk about nothing in particular. Hockey is always a popular topic. Food – what should they have for lunch today. Games of various sorts. No debates about the dichotomy of good and evil, why don't humans have tails, or what is “colour” and is black a colour?

The problem is, I'm not trying to listen in. I really don't want to hear it. And I'd rather do my work without the chatter in the background. But I'm getting to know all about these men, and I don't want to. When I see them down in the lobby when we're all coincidently walking about, do I really need to be wondering which one had a great game of softball on the weekend? I'm going a bit nutty, and my ears hurt from listening to my Ipod all day! I'm beginning to think it would be quieter if I worked in an office building - at least it wouldn't be one conversation at a time going on! As a recent escapee from the corporate world, this makes me shudder!

Why does that 3pm dip in energy always get you?

It's gotten a bit cold.

This isn't as interesting as it used to be.

I want to have a nap.

Sound familiar? It means it's about 3 in the afternoon, and your energy is dipping to a familiar low. Why is it that so many people have a lull of energy in the middle of the afternoon? So many people have this happen that I think it's actually just normal.

Why does the regular working day ignore this human lull and carry on as if non-human workers are doing the work? How many people try to ignore their body and push on through like "dedicated" workers and end up doing work they will need to do again in the future because work done during this low energy period will inevitably suck? See that sentence back there, yep, the last one? It's a badly composed sentence that really needs editing, but it's that time of the afternoon when I don't feel like editing it.

I think it's important to listen to your body. If you don't feel like doing something that you have no problems with at other times, and you are listening to your body, you should stop. The work that you produce at low energy times is not your best work.

That's my advice for improving the world. If you are feeling low in energy, don't do your normal work, take a break. If everyone did this, the overall quality of the world's work would rise, and everyone would be happier. So take a break, already.