THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 10, 1996 TAG: 9608100001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY
LENGTH: 77 lines
There's a myth that people in offices run the world while people in overalls run their errands. But the truth is, people who work with their hands feel vastly superior to the office workers who employ them.
Many tradesmen have figured out that even though their working conditions are not the greatest, they can take advantage of white-collar types who don't have a clue how things work or how much it should cost to fix them.
Add to this what I call comfy-chair syndrome - the guilt some office workers feel about their relatively comfortable conditions - and you've got some abused white-collar workers.
I had my first attack of comfy-chair syndrome a few years ago when I allowed a toothless man in a battered pickup to sell me a cord of green wood - even though he had promised seasoned hardwood.
The toothless man swore he had cut the wood five months earlier, yet I could see with my own eyes the wood was green as grass and slick with fresh sap. Standing there in my pumps, I was overwhelmed with guilt. So I silently wrote him a check instead of ordering him to haul the fresh wood back to where he had chopped it that morning.
That winter I fumed about how this guy must have driven home with a big gummy grin on his face after selling wood to a sucker like me. The sodden logs fumed, too, and I also had to endure the wrath of my husband who kept futilely lighting diesel-soaked grocery-store logs to coax the hissing, spitting green wood to ignite.
So you see, comfy-chair syndrome can make smart people act stupid.
I had a brief attack of comfy-chair syndrome this summer. We had a small repair job that needed to be done on our old house - some rotten wood near the gutters needed to be replaced. A contractor who examined the damage reckoned it was a two- or three-day job. What ensued, however, was a battle with a workman who managed to stretch this small job into weeks of what I call ``ladder time.''
I should have sensed the early symptoms of comfy-chair syndrome during the first conversation I had with the workman.
He arrived on a Friday afternoon and promised that work would commence ``the first of the week.''
I wanted to scream ``Why can't you say Monday like everybody else?'' I realize now it was comfy-chair syndrome that made me bite my tongue, smile and say that would be fine.
I suspected there was only one reason he wouldn't actually utter the word ``Monday'': It would mean he would be expected to show up on Monday.
To my horror, I learned that ``the first of the week'' can actually mean Thursday afternoon.
Not that work actually began then. Thursday afternoon, a.k.a. ``the first of the week,'' the workman and two helpers sprinkled big silver ladders all over our yard and then left. For four days.
The following week there was sporadic activity in our yard. One day I found all the bad wood was ripped off.
Then the workmen disappeared for a few days. Then they hammered on some new wood. In retrospect I realize I was suffering a debilitating case of full-blown comfy-chair syndrome. I said absolutely nothing to this crew with the work habits of lifeguards.
I was puzzled by how the men could look so hot and sweaty every evening without making much progress during the day.
Then my neighbors enlightened me. The guys usually arrived around 11, worked an hour or two until lunch time, returned two hours later, worked another hour or so, building up a big sweat just as I was about to return home from my supposedly cushy office job and my guilt-inducing comfy chair.
Another neighbor reported the men had been popping a few beers behind the house late one afternoon.
I tried to picture, for a moment, what the publisher of the newspaper would do if he were to drop into my office and find my feet on the desk and an icy Budweiser in one hand.
It would spell the end of my comfy-chair job.
With this picture in mind, I sent the workers (and I use that term loosely) packing.
It's one day at a time, but I think I've finally licked comfy-chair syndrome. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB