Work Nightmares

On the bus this morning, I passed a highrise apartment building. They had scaffolds hanging off the second floor, and I could see a frame built into the side of the building to hold the platform all the way to the top story. I got to thinking about the guys whose job it is to clean the windows, or fix them, or whatever things need doing that require them to work from a scaffold on the outside of a building. Besides the obvious idea that they must have very good mind control and be able to say, "Don't look down" and then actually not look down, or if they do look down, sort of stay in denial about the imminent danger they're in at every possible moment, thus avoiding fear and insanity.... well, they must have worse work dreams than the rest of us.

We all dream about our jobs and how they can go wrong--being hours late for a meeting, showing up in our underwear (I've actually never had that one--is that weird?). When I was a teacher, I dreamt about my kids (teachers call them our kids--yes, we know they're not "our" kids, but we do it all the same....I used to forget and use this terminology when I was out and about with friends, and people thought I had actual children, i.e. sons and daughters). Well, anyways, I used to dream I was late for work and the kids were running around the classroom unsupervised and terrorizing each other, or a disapproving parent saw the chaos and started a campaign against me, or little so-and-so still couldn't read by the end of the year, or little Miss whosit just would not respect my authoritay. It's whatever your worst fears are of your job that you have nightmares about.

So getting back to my point (thank God), if you work on highrises, your work dreams must always end with that that awful sinking falling feeling in your stomach as you realize you're falling to your death. That would suck.