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22 March 2010

oh, the people i work with

recently, the site labor had to take a random drug test, so they were
hanging out in the trailer awaiting the urge to pee, when they broke
into conversation about current events. these are blue-collar
millwrights and a white-collar nurse (administering the drug tests) and
mostly all of them are born/raised/work in florida most of their lives.

i don't have a clear definition of what it is to be a democrat or
republican. i do that know that if i had to identify myself as one or
the other, i would lean to democrat. to me, dems are more liberal and
the GOP is more conservative (in word if not in deed). for some reason,
i usually consider blue-collar workers to be democrats wanting small
government and white-collar businessmen to be republicans wanting their
money. that's why i was surprised to hear the conversation drift to how
much everyone awaiting their drug test was dreading the passing of the
health care reform bill. these guys love their gones almost as much as
the fanatical gun-slingin' texans i met in egypt. they recounted witty
conservative slogans like "i'll take my money and my guns... and you can
keep the change". i felt completely out of sorts with this group (so i
stayed in the other room, continuing to work but eavesdropping
nevertheless).

i wouldn't dare venture into a conversation on the topic because i am
sure i don't have enough information on the topic. what i do know is:
1) i have good health insurance, and i have to pay more than i think i
should, 2) i think we need health care reform, and i'm willing to help
foot the bill (i don't care what you say, we take for granted a great
deal of the luxuries we have that ARE socialist in nature), and 3)
these people would not be able to engage in an intelligent and open
discussion on the subject. point in case... when they started talking
about welfare. they dove into the stereotypical complaint that welfare
recipients just breed to get more money from the government (we say this
at home as well, but here they specify latinos and cubans). it got
crazy when the nurse brought up animal welfare. she owns a small farm
of animals (she's single, and there's a reason for it). i can't recall
specifics but i think i recall more than a normal amount of cats, a dog,
a cockatoo, some mice, some sort of normally outdoor rodent thing like
a squirrel or something, etc. i don't recall all of it, because my
brain expected a normal amount of animals to be recounted. when it was
inundated with all this unexpected data, it just started writing over
the original data. anyways, nurse crazy face thinks the government owes
her money to feed her animals. WTF?! where do these people come from?
she has animals because she has no friends or something along that line.
that's not the governments fault, and her overcompensation CERTAINLY
isn't the governments fault. i just couldn't believe she said it.
what's more, the rest of the guys were agreeing with her. i hope to
hell they were just being nice and didn't want to exclude one of their
conservative group. these people are loony tunes. yea nightshift in
the deep south.

later y'all

4 Comments:

Blogger swedish chef dave said...

Dude
nightshift brings out the vampires and burglars and just insane insomniacs, just ignore them all, hope you keep your sanity with the guys with no teeth and all having the same DNA, it would be difficult to identify the murderers down there
later

5:35 PM, March 23, 2010  
Blogger themom said...

Geez, I had a similar argument with one of the nurses at cardiac rehab. I'm like "pull your head out of your ass!" But then again...you know me! that's some insane thinking there, but florida workers can be classified as "southern" and IMHO there is a fine line to them between rethug/dem! Just give 'em their guns and possums and all is good with the world.

9:26 AM, March 25, 2010  
Blogger Baltika Pete said...

Zac,
Some years ago I worked down at Blue Hills power station in Nassau with two American millwrights from Colorado.
They both considered that Rush Limbaugh was a communist!
You can imagine the debates we had with me as a Limey left winger.

4:23 AM, March 27, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ok and I work at a casino where noone gives a rats ass about anyone but themselves, and when they throw down $150,000 every 3 months then complain of this reform it makes me sick because it is something to benefit people like me, who don't reproduce to receive state medical and bust our humps to get the minimal coverage that I do get. I feel your pain of having to listen to such conversations.

thedaughter

8:40 PM, March 28, 2010  

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