Blowing off Steam
It’s been a bad night at work. There have been a lot like this lately. Not bad on the scale you’d find in one of the political hotbeds of the world…the consequences being death or worse. I mean the kind of bad North Americans tend to think we can or should endure by the permission of our choices. Bad in a factory job setting, with more to complete than is possible, never mind reasonable….with mishaps enhancing that sense that everything is getting away from us…with the obligatory accompanying stress; that sense that all is constantly on the brink of utter collapse.
Melodramatic? Perhaps. Try it for a few months and see how it affects you.
How does it affect us? Well, to make a nice mélange of metaphor, break time is filled with the chatter of backseat quarterbacks. Decisions are picked apart for efficiency, timeliness and or relevance to this plane of existence. In other words, we see how much worse things have gotten.
Before we go back to work, one fellow breaks into a very polished soft-shoe dance. You might argue he does it because the boss’s office is directly beneath the 2nd floor lunch room and the sounds might be a puzzle. I would not. You see, we are experienced with such nights. We know silliness is a vent. Sweat is a vent. Besides, the dance is really quite good.
As we pass each station on our way back, the radios are turned up significantly, though the preferences vary wildly. One of the younger fellows prefers a classical music station, though he occasionally joins another in a fondness for rap music. The next station we pass blares hard rock. One worker points his fingers from the top of his head like devil’s horns and nods his head vigorously to the beat, as if in a mosh pit. Others join in the motion. Off to one side, the same music inspires two others to begin an impromptu square dance.
Continuing to walk back, yet another radio station chimes in with the classic Rolling Stones lyrics:
“Pleased to meet you
hope you guess my name”
Followed by the back-up singers chanting “who-who”.
One of the fellows picks up this chant as we arrive back at our station, randomly hooting out “who-who” at odd intervals. Inevitably, from the other side of the shop comes the answering call, “who-who”. The place starts to sound like an owl sanctuary. For the next solid hour, every time a number doesn’t make sense, a part gets damaged, a machine stops in mid cycle for no apparent reason, instead of the customary string of expletives comes the cry “who-who” and the accompanying chorus of responses, bouncing our frustration off the reassurances of the others.
As I absently “who-who” a response, working on a machine puzzle of my own, I wonder if there is some insight into the nature and purpose of birdsong in all of this.
Finally, after more than an hour of pretending not to take much notice except for that uneasy nervous smile, the boss at last yells out, “Would you guys please SHUT UP! What the hell is all this ‘who-whoing’?”
At the sound of his “who-who” the chorus of reflex begins again.
“Shut up!”
Laughter to the point of tears followed for several minutes. Suddenly the night wasn’t quite so bad. Anytime that started to wear off, a tentative, apologetic but rebellious “who-who?” could send us back into a fit of laughter, making the night’s work much lighter. If there is an art to blowing off steam, these guys are the Salvador Dali of that art scene.