THINGS AT WORK THAT CAN KILL YOU

I've wiped out and almost gotten myself killed racing a pallet truck around in an ice cream plant I used to work in.

I've cut my hands many times cutting the fins off of northern pike, pickerel and other fish at a packing plant I worked at in northern Manitoba.


I've been hit from behind when I was a truck-driver and stepped on rusty nails while hauling stuff around. I just about puked cleaning up the washrooms when I worked as a janitor.

And I almost blew myself up filling up machines with gas at an equipment rental place where I had a job.


Now, as a journalist, the biggest workplace dangers are breaking a nail on my keyboard, losing my vision staring at a computer screen or developing sciatica due to poor sitting posture.

But I've noticed in the last couple of months that I'm terror-ridden in the office by something that almost certainly could never hurt me, really, because I've never touched it in the 10 years I've been there.

It's this. It's a paper-cutter. The old kind. Guillotine style.

Chop Chop.

The thing is old. It's green. And it's been sitting on the printer station table where we all print up copies of stuff we need for as long as I can remember.

Never bothered me before. Just another object.

Now, I can't get it out of my mind. It's not that I have dreams about it...I have waking images, when I'm in the office, of my fingers getting cut off by it.

It's gross. I can't explain it. It's almost a phobia.

What phobias do you have with whatever objects you work with?

What unrealistic fears do you have about the pencil sharpener, water cooler, dying plant in the corner or what have you?

Or how dangerous is your job, anyway? As dangerous as mine?

I'M THINKING...(THE SEQUEL)

THIS BEING A POLITICALLY CORRECT AND GENDER-NEUTRAL BLOG, I HAVE TAKEN A DECISIVE STEP IN THE INTERESTS OF SEXUAL EQUALITY.

First, if only as a token gesture, the type is in pink, showing my feminine side.

Second, I am wearing high heels and dark red lipstick as I write it, which I normally wear only for Homo Escapeons.

This post is a sequel to the one before it and both, including comments, should be read to understand the need for the sequel.

The original talked about how I was thinking, and as such focused on my male brain.

But some females -- regular visitors, but also new ones -- wondered about shoes, knitting yarn and other feminine things they could not find on my male brain diagram.

Some wondered what THEIR brains might look like, similarly dissected and analysed.

Others made huge leaps and assumptions, some even referring to how they regularly accomplish world domination of males by strategically using parts of their female brains.

All, in my view, seemed to feel excluded from the process as I simply scratched my head and thought, only with my male brain, which some would say has its limitations.

Today, I have commissioned the brain surgeons who operate my blog to design an illustration of the human female brain that could be compared on an equal basis with the male brain.

Without further comment, snickers, laughter, sneering, sexual arousal or any other show of emotion or opinion, I now reveal, in the interests of equality for both genders, the male AND female brains.

At the moment, we see no need for a prequel, but we reserve that right in the future.

I'M THINKING...

THIS COULD TAKE A WHILE...

A GENTLE SEOUL

THE PERSON WITH ME BELOW IS JUNG SOEK.

I've posted about him before. He's from South Korea, near Seoul. He moved to Canada with his wife and two sons (now three) a couple of years ago.

I met him when I volunteered as an English as a Second Language tutor through the International Centre.

Initially, I volunteered hoping to be able to help disadvantaged people, particularly refugees from war-torn countries, who had come to Canada to escape persecution.

I got him instead. OK, I thought at the time.


I tutored Jung Soek for more than a year. We met every Tuesday at a shopping mall. His English improved dramatically, but that's not really what this is about.

This is about how two human beings from completely different cultures can meet and share their experiences and help one another to more clearly understand what being is all about.

Jung Soek is driven. He is driven to becoming a Canadian.

And the reason for our most recent meeting was because he has now been granted Landed Immigrant Status, along with his family.

I was his first tutor. He became attached to me like a moth flies to light. Yes, we talked about the English language. I'd correct him all the time and we tried to use books, etc.

But what became more valuable to him -- to us both -- was just talking about our different lives, cultures, experiences.
I've gotten to know a lot about South Korean life through him.

They are much more serious than we are in North America. Honour means so much more. Discipline. Respect. People don't smile there nearly as much as they do here, he has told me.

But we here are much more impatient, he has lamented...especially with people from other places who don't know how to speak our language very well.
We don't treat them with respect.

He is often treated as stupid, even though he is very intelligent. And I know this. He is very emotionally intelligent, as well as intellectual. There is a huge difference.

I have gone with him to his banker, to his lawyer, to cell phone salesmen, to help him do what he needs to do.
I understand his accent and what he's trying to say, because of that year or more with him. I've been his translator many times.

Others don't seem to want to take the time to understand, literally or figuratively. And I know it can be frustrating.

But I tried to imagine myself moving to South Korea and getting over the language barrier there, trying to learn Korean.

Good luck.

I wrote some letters of recommendation on his behalf to the Canadian immigration people.

It took what seems like a long time, but he has finally received that Landed Immigrant Status.

Now Jung Soek has the freedom to move away from his oppressive South Korean/Canadian employer, who brought him over here in the first place as a dental technician on a work visa.

Now he can move to Calgary, knowing he has a future here in Canada.

And that's what he plans to do and what he wanted my advice on this week as we met at yet another shopping mall, where I took these pix.

Jung Soek has been bugging me to let him measure my teeth so he could make me a new set that would hide the gap between them.

I told him I had lived with these teeth my whole life and I wasn't about to have them "fixed" now. He doesn't understand that, but he smiled that big smile you see and accepted it with grace.

As thankful as he is to me, I am equally thankful. He is a deep-feeling person with a completely positive outlook on what's ahead of him and he's very happy to be here.

What more can you ask of any person, no matter where they're from?