Frickin’ Cold

Well, today is the first “real” day of winter that we have had this year. It is about -27º and about -38º with the wind chill right now and it is going to get colder tomorrow. Just about anyway that you look at this weather, it sucks. I guess if you were the glass is half full kind of person you might say that at least the cold keeps the mosquitoes down. Well, it does here, but the bugs are tougher in Winnipeg and Edmonton.

My heart goes out to those people that have chosen occupations that keep them outside in this kind of weather. The cold is one thing, but at some point the cold becomes very dangerous. Canada Post had a policy of never saying it was too cold to work, no matter how frigid it became. The best that they would do was to tell us to use our own judgement. I think the reason is that if they set a limit once then the union would cling to that temperature forevermore. You can’t very well say that -44º with a wind-chill of -60º is too cold to work, because the carriers in Winnipeg wouldn’t have to work from October to May.

One winter we had a very, very, very cold snap which was combined with high winds and blowing snow. I’m not sure about anyone else, but before I went out I thought that I might die of the cold, and after being out for an hour or two I was hoping to die and be sent directly to Hell. That night while I was checking to see if all of my fingers and toes worked, the local station interviewed one of the guys that I worked with. He could have and should have said that it is inhumane to send people out in this weather for the sake of a few bills and junk mail. That is what he should have said, but “Bonehead” kept a stupid grin plastered on his face and said” Well, it’s not too cold. You get used to it and it makes you feel alive!” Well, he sure earned his nickname that day. BONEHEAD!!!

The deep cold is predicted to only last for a week, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel for all of the outdoor workers. They should think of the light as an extremely large, warm heater.

I guess I should mention about Canada Post raising the price of a stamp by two cents. They said that it was because the volume has dropped off and costs have risen. Fair enough. I personally think that there is a need for a post office and that 61¢ to send a card, letter or an invoice across the country is still a deal. Yes, you can send an email in seconds but not only does that take a monthly charge from the cable company, but also about $1000 dollars worth of computer. Just a rough calculation tells me that you could send 2623 letters in a year for that price. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I doubt if I have sent or will ever send that many letters.

I have been thinking about how short sighted it is for us as a society to keep paring down the workforce in the guise of saving money and increasing profits. The same people that I hear complain about Canada Post, Air Canada or the government in general having too many people doing too little work, are the ones that whine about the high unemployment rate and isn’t it a shame about all of those homeless people. We should keep the jobs that give people a chance to be proud and if possible make even more jobs. There was a time not too long ago that this country was an agrarian society and the bulk of the population were employed. The wages were small, but small wages and a full belly is better than no wages and an empty belly.

We can’t go back in time, but there are a lot of very smart people out there and if they would stop filling their bank accounts for a while and try to solve the real problems that we have, I am sure we could conquer some of our bigger problems. Hell, we might even get back to being happy to have a job an apartment and health. Well, and a computer, big screen TV and new car.