Corrections or additions?
This article by Richard K. Rein was prepared for the February 19, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
On Duct Tape, Snowstorms, and Valentines
Here’s a week that began with a search for duct tape,
switched to a scramble for a snow shovel, and ended with a belated
Valentine’s Day exchange between employees and employer.
Let’s begin with that duct tape. A day or two before the nation became
obsessed with duct tape and clear vinyl as the safeguard to an
imminent
terrorist attack, I needed duct tape. My need was more prosaic than
that of the rest of the nation — I needed it to tape down some
computer cables that had been rearranged during the installation of
some new desktops for my staff.
The desktops were my equivalent of a Valentine for the staff, several
of whom have been suffering for years at makeshift desks consisting
of particle board straddling file cabinets. Despite knees banging
against steel file cabinets and clothing catching on jagged edges
of lumber, my staff has managed to turn out some pretty good pieces
of writing.
But in recent months, with the economy down and the workload
increased, the normally cheerful disposition in our office had begun
to slide.
Well meaning folks suggested all sorts of make-nice things that could
be done — at least some of which appeared on the cover of last
week’s Valentine’s Day issue of U.S. 1, a slew of touchy-feely
suggestions
from a human resources consultant aimed at helping companies retain
their staff. I couldn’t bring myself to initiate even one of them.
I took a simpler approach: I can’t make my employees be happy at work,
I decided. That’s their choice. But I can at least remove some of
the barriers to unhappiness. Crummy and crowded workspaces were an
obvious target. By last week more than half of the cubicles were done,
except for the finishing touches of duct taping some computer cables.
Where was that roll of duct tape we always have around the office?
Nowhere to be found. By that time, of course, people were standing
in line for duct tape and clear plastic at Home Depot — the
computer
cables would have to wait.
If the lines for duct tape were bad, they were soon forgotten as
anxious
people lined up at supermarkets in the face of what we all must agree
is the Blizzard of the Millennium. A couple of thoughts on this
blizzard:
1.) If Osama Bin Laden and company really want toterrorizeAmerica, they can infiltrate the nation’s cadre of television weatherannouncers and forecast a blizzard of Ice Age proportions. Even ifnot a single snowflake flutters to earth, the forecast alone willdisrupt the nation. Ice melter will replace duct tape and clearplasticas the object of hysterical desire.2.) For whatever reason central New Jersey handled thisblizzard far better than it did the last major snowstorm in 1996.Back then, as I recall, the snow started fairly early on a Sunday.By the time I headed off to work police on Nassau Street were pullingmotorists over and telling them to go home. I talked my way throughthat and made it to the corner of Route 1 and Alexander Road (thisin the pre-overpass days), where my path was blocked by a car stuckin a seemingly insurmountable mound of snow. With the snow shovelhandy, I was able to shovel that motorist free and make it to thecorner of Alexander and Roszel, from which point I had to walk tothe office. Roszel Road was not plowed until several days after theblizzard.The bottleneck at Alexander Road and Route 1 continued for at leastfour or five more days, with the normal two lanes of traffic onAlexandersqueezed down to one by a huge mound of snow dropped off by a plowon Route 1. Morning and night, twice a day, rush hour traffic cloggedup at the crippled intersection. Articles appeared in the dailypapers;politicians blamed each other for the lack of snow removal.On the fourth or fifth day after the blizzard I couldn’t take itanymore.Headed home late at night, shovel still on board, I stopped at theintersection. After 15 minutes of shoveling, and a few seconds oframming my Subaru into the remaining embankment, the lane was opened.This year the roads in West Windsor did seem to take longer to getplowed than those in Princeton Borough. But in their defense thoseWest Windsor snow plows certainly have many more miles of road toplow than they do in compact Princeton. On Monday afternoon, at theheight of the storm, I easily drove into the parking lot at 12 RoszelRoad — the sole person on duty at that moment.There I recognized that Valentine. Four people on our staff whonormallyplay critical roles on a Monday in order to prepare this paper forits Tuesday printing — Kathleen McBride Sisack, Barbara Fox, DianaJoseph-Riley, and Stan Kephart — all on their own decided to comein Sunday ahead of the storm and do what they normally do on Monday.I figure that was their unspoken Valentine to me. And I stayed until11 p.m. Monday and wrapped up most of the job — my Valentine backto them. But enough of the sweet stuff: Who took the duct tape?Corrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
