 Working Man Blues By Michael WILLARD |
The words leaped out like a jump-in-the-box Texas Mongoose, translated from an article in Den newspaper. In working standards, Ukraine wants to be like the European Union.
Holy bananas, and I use here an exclamation point, a key on my computer that is the equivalent of nuclear meltdown and rarely if ever punched! Guys, folks in the Rada, go further West or further East.
Using Europe as a role model for working standards is like choosing Hannibal Lecter to give lessons in French cuisine. It is not something an emerging market needs, or, God forbid, wants.
Those guys who make the rules in the European Union don't take vacations, they take sabbaticals. A work day is four tea times, a two-hour lunch at Dino's and a three-hour debate over folks in short pants kicking a ball around a field.
A work week to these guys is punching a clock at 40 hours - or 35 hours if you are in France - regardless whether a auto transmission is half in or half out or a pulsating human heart is half in or half out during a transplant. I'm exaggerating in these Random Notes once more, but you knew that. Didn't you?
Before you Europeans get upset, I am not writing about you. I am writing about the other Europeans. You know, the ones who invented the Minuet, and have names that sound like they should be someone's butler.
I'm writing about the ones that make the rules. The ones that fear genetic spinach like Kryptonite, and shout frantically "MAD COW, MAD COW" at poor old men with benign tremors walking down the Champs Elysee.
I'm talking about the guys who swamped King Louie's court and drank his beer, but after the revolution, made sure the guillotine was of the prescribed height and sharpness at his Excellency's execution.
I am not writing about the French, English, German, etc. entrepreneur, and I certainly know an Italian head of his company in Kyiv who's never met a time clock. I'm talking about the infernal bureaucrats and the socialcrats.
I'm talking about the folks for whom the deliciously funny comedy program on BBC Prime, "Yes Minister", a so-called parody on government bureaucrats, was written. These guys are always in character.
I write this as the United States is about to embark on a war, and most Europeans think Americans walk around with guns on their hips. That's only true in certain states, like Texas, Oklahoma and West Virginia.
But, of course, we're all branded by that phony misconception. Most keep our arsenal firmly attached to the gun rack in the cherry red pickup truck. But then, I am from West Virginia.
This whole war thing has led to Americans being stereotyped, and one of the raps we get is that we work too hard. That work to us is a holy mission which, at the end, we get to take communion and rest for a couple of hours.
They say we don't know how to relax. That we plan a vacation at the beach like one plans a military invasion - hoping not to get wet and that it's over quickly. That we prefer our vacation snapshots to the vacation.
I 've even been on the receiving end of these barbs. The fact that I had a beach house in Florida for nearly a decade and never once put a toe in the ocean is certainly not sufficient evidence to convict.
My old boss, the one I write about on occasion, Sen. Robert Byrd, once took his only vacation in the Bahamas. He left after two days because "there was nothing to do."
When a colleague became ill and had a major operation for gallstones, Byrd called him while he was resting at home and suggested he come back to work. "Christmas is coming up, and you can recuperate then." This made perfect sense to the Senator.
Okay, maybe we yanks over do it. But most of us had football coaches who, when saw that we were hurt, and lying on the ground, shouted out so all could hear: "Roll him over. He ain't dead. Just sleeping."
In Europe, the poor guy would have been awarded a pension.
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More in the section:
Gripes, Gripes and More Gripes
Sleeping With the Enemy
Ukraine's Founding Fathers
Read also previous issue' articles:
Expats: Why Are We Here?
The Luckiest Man Alive
Being Vladimir Putin
The Age of Unreason?
Yes, I Give a Damn
News:
The Rush to Judgment
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