15 July 2008

Wasted Talent


Work is about doing things so repetitiously that no matter how shitty of a job you do to start off with, eventually you get to be pretty good at what you are doing. You get talented. That is usually when the drinking on the job begins. Trouble is, when you change jobs all that talent gets wasted.

I used to work on the river breaking up booms of timber for the sawmill. Three of the tools you get to use on the river are chainsaws, peavies and axes. I got to be ok with the chainsaw and I got real handy with peavies and axes. When I was chopping kindling for a campfire I was reminded how much I still like to swing an axe like an executioner. Using an axe well demands a sharp focus.

Chop, which is what an axeman does, is one of the few words in the English language that sounds like what it is describing. Fuck is another. I cannot think of any more.

5 comments:

ib said...

"Chop" and "fuck", indeed.

Oddly, the word "cancel" has the same weight - or absence of it - for me also. It has an awful whispering quality. And is similar to the word "scalpel", which is straying too far from your original thought.

Put those three words together and you get one evilly poetic sentence, and I hope one that's not portentous.

"Fuck. Chop. Cancel."

I'm feeling a bit raggedy round the edges at the moment. I am going to take the subway into town this morning and avoid walking or taking the bus.

ib said...

"United We Stand, Divided We Fall".

I like that ; although I'm never very sure if by nature I'm much of a team player. Nice sentiment, though.

Andraste said...

Whiz.

That's all I have for now.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

I'm something of an individualist myself but when it comes to the politics of industrial workplaces I stick with the union.

Your driver said...

If I might be so bold as to suggest: the best way to be an individual, and to be respected as an individual is to be a stand up guy. Solidarity for fuckin' ever.