Tick...Tick...Ticked Off!
by Julia Sneden
My friend, Maeve, is known as a patient person. She taught school for twenty-five
years, reared four children, and now takes care of an elderly parent. It’s
a life history that has worn down the rough edges of impatience.
Maeve has a reputation for being good in a crisis. She’s dependable. She
has great self-control. It takes a lot to bring out her temper. She’s a
reasonable, cheerful person, willing to put up with a lot.
In short, she’s someone who usually manages her to keep her cool. That’s
why I was dumbfounded when she called me the other day with a long rant
about the pruning of trees.
We
live in small city that prides itself on its beautiful, old trees. There
is one stretch of road that is lined with huge, old maples, planted before
1920. Before she retired, Maeve and her fellow teachers (of whom I was
one) drove that stretch every morning on the way to work. In the fall it
was like entering a great, glowing tunnel with flaming reds and oranges
and golds. In winter, the tracery of the limbs against blue sky was spare
and handsome. In spring, the leaves came out and made us realize suddenly
that what we had been missing all winter was not so much the leaves, but
the shade they provided. And in summer, the green canopy gave us dappled
sunlight and the illusion of being cool. That short bit of road never failed
to lift our hearts and make us grateful for its very existence.
And then, our local power company sent in a tree service to trim back branches
that threatened their lines. Only they didn’t just trim, they butchered.
Instead of cutting a space for the lines to go through, they cut every
single limb on the side of each tree that faced the wires. Imagine a row
of trees, 40 to 60 feet tall, with half the canopy gone. The poor things
look like giant toothbrushes. The “pruning” (read: mutilation) destroyed
not only the aesthetics of the tree, but also in all probability its very
existence. Aside from the stress that such brutal surgery brings, the next
good ice storm should produce lots of flattened trees, pulled down because
all the added weight will be on one side.
“It’s not just the stupidity of it that’s making me crazy,” Maeve snapped.
“It’s the fact that we had no warning. Had I known the plan, I‘d gladly
have protested, organized others, even chained myself to one of those trees,
but it just happened. One day the trees were there. The next day, they
were butchered.” End of story.
It seems to me that there are many kinds of stupidity in the world, from
individual moments of non-think (for example, the time I couldn’t find
my coffee cup until I opened the refrigerator and discovered it steaming
away on a frosty shelf) to the major follies that come from large entities
like government or businesses. Often the latter have simply grown too large
to police their many branch stores and offices. It was a sub-contractor
of our local power company, for instance, that did the tree pruning. It’s
not that anyone intended to be stupid, but…
Another example of careless stupidity, or lack of overseeing the work done
by local employees: if you have tried on clothes in a large department
store recently, you will understand me when I say that the so-called fitting
rooms are a disgrace. The floors are filthy, obviously never vacuumed,
or if they are, the rugs are so old and stained that you’d never know whether
they’re clean or not. You can’t avoid stepping on them if you need to remove
your shoes (to try on a pair of slacks, for instance), which is disgusting.
There is clutter everywhere, and not a wastebasket in sight. Pins are stuck
into walls. The little plastic clips used to hold garments just so on the
hangar, or the elastic on clips used to give a hung garment some shape,
are dropped on the floor. What would it take to provide a wastebasket,
or better yet a small recycling shelf with a container for pins, clips,
etc.? It’s as if the stores, having gotten you inside their doors and presented
you with their merchandise, don’t give a hoot about your comfort or their
image.
Sometimes the stupidity of large organizations comes from a lack of sensitivity
to the needs of its customers. Even the most caring of nursing homes seems
to have a problem keeping track of the patients’ clothing. From time to
time, for example, strangers’ clothes appear in my mother’s closet even
though the nursing home doesn’t do her washing. When I first insisted that
I would do her laundry, they looked at me with wide eyes and said: “Why
on earth?”
Well,
I had had some experience, that’s why. I had firsthand knowledge of three
nursing homes, and I can tell you that when they did the laundry, they
cooked it in water so hot that things shrank. A ruined sweater was the
least of it, but that particular garment mattered to Mother because it
was one she had loved for years, and by the time the home’s laundry finished
with it, it would have fit a two-year-old. In addition to ignoring the
washing instructions on labels, the nursing homes with which I am familiar
don’t iron. Anyone with cotton shirts is simply out of luck. And, of course,
they often lose things despite the fact that there are names written in
them.
Old people who must live away from home and family have very few possessions
left. Clothes are personal and important to them. Surely it wouldn’t be
too much to ask the personnel of the nursing home to take this fact seriously.
In my experience, they shrug and smile and say ”Oh, that will happen from
time to time.”
And then there is the inexcusable stupidity of all those government regulations
that are designed to protect, but often wind up hurting people. The INS
was due for a major overhaul, even before the circus surrounding Elian
Gonzalez. Its bizarre regulations and unresponsive bureaucracy have caused
distress to millions. All you have to do is read the newspaper to realize
that the agency is way out of control. So, for that matter, is OSHA, that
watchdog of workplace safety.
Back to my mother’s retirement community, for example: In a nearby building,
there is a lovely living room with a large fireplace. On cold days, she
loves nothing better than to be wheeled away from the nursing center and
down the hall to sit by the fire. She tells me that the thing she misses
most about leaving her own home is not having a fireplace. It’s a sentiment
shared by many of her peers.
This fall, Mother is looking forward to moving into the beautiful new nursing
facility that the retirement community has built. Their administration
is justly proud of it. When I asked if there would be a fireplace, however,
the man in charge shook his head sadly and said: “OSHA won’t let us have
one, not in a nursing home.” He added that one of the newer nursing homes
in town has a fake fireplace that doesn’t even put out heat, but the patients
draw up their wheelchairs around it, just as if it were real. There is
something quite pathetic in this. If OSHA is concerned about safety, surely
there could be accommodations made (lockable glass doors in front of the
flames, for instance) that would allow for safety without denying residents
the comfort of a hearth. God knows there are few enough comforts in their
lives.
I know that it’s futile to lose sleep over what the perpetrators probably
view as small matters, but they certainly don’t seem small to me. It’s
important, I think, not just to complain, but to be heard when one complains.
Write a letter to the editor of the local paper, or to the home offices
of stores (bypass the complaint department; it’s usually a dead end), or
to the CEO of a wayward utility. Some may view you as an old crank, but
at least you won’t be a silent old crank, seething with unexpressed resentments.
When you’re angry about something, tell somebody!