Tag: work

What Was Your ‘Playing Weight’?

Briefcase n Scale

If you watched the Super Bowl, then you couldn’t help hearing some players described by their size, not just big and bigger, but by their weight. This is often referred to as a ‘playing weight’ because these behemoths are on rigid eating plans to maintain weight within certain ranges to make them more effective at their particular job, playing football (American).

Did you have a ‘playing weight’ when you were ‘in the game’? A self imposed ‘playing weight’?

Moreover, did you ever think of your job that way, as a game, a performance, a contest? Every day, when you went to work, you stepped into your particular ‘arena’ to earn a living and the resulting rewards.

Maybe it was was an office, a factory floor, classroom or stage. A desk, car and other people’s offices was my ‘arena’. I was in sales, and ‘on the road’, to where ‘wins’ could be had, at the customer’s places of business.

In sales, there actually is competition, making the ‘game’ more real, the ‘victories’ more invigorating, and, conversely, the ‘losses’ more upsetting.

And like a performer or athlete, maintaining a ‘playing weight’ and good health was important to a successful job. For a salesperson, living out of a suitcase, eating restaurant or fast food meals while ‘on the run’, or having drinks with a client, weight issues were problematic. Proper diet, exercise and rest was always a challenge, and important to successes or failures. At least, it was to me.

In his book, ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, Dr. Franklin Covey referred to keeping oneself physically, mentally and socially fit, as ‘sharpening the saw’. And it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Hence, the ‘playing weight’. At some point, we realize that healthy habits contribute to more wins than losses. No matter our game, there has to be time set aside to practice sensible health habits. Maintaining a smart ‘playing weight’ is an important component of those plans.

When the game is over and we hang up our ‘uniforms’, whatever it was we wore, when we get out of the game, so to speak, it’s important to be cognizant, then, of our retirement weight, as well. We want to still be healthy enough to enjoy the rewards that were won earlier.

So, what was your ‘playing weight’ when you were ‘in the game’?

Steve (srbottch.com)

The Bar Chronicles: #3, The ‘Pinboy’

Bar Night 2

‘…bowling really blossomed, particularly among blue-collar types, in the 1950′s and 1960′s after the introduction of the automatic pinsetter’ John McDuling

It was ‘bar night’ for three ‘old’ friends at a local pub in Rochester, NY, ‘The Lost Borough’. Our plan, enjoy a couple of signature brews and add another saga to ‘The Bar Chronicles’. The pub was busy, ‘trivia night’, complete with a booming voice emcee, eager crowd and ample beer to encourage gamesmanship. It added up to a rowdy atmosphere with plenty of hootin’ and hollerin’.

We selected an ‘ale’ from a ‘flight’ and forged ahead with our own game of ‘remember when’, parrying back and forth with personal recollections of our earliest work experiences, our first actual paying jobs.

We were delivery boys in pickup trucks and shoeshine boys on Main Street. We were floor sweepers in a haberdashery and washed cars at a used car dealership. And we were pinboys’ in a bowling alley, at least one was.

‘Pinboys’, a romantic word in a nostalgic sort of way. I was too young to remember ‘pinboys’, but one of us was the right age to be one. He was a teenager and his work station was at the end of a bowling lane where he perched himself on a bench above the pit. When the pins exploded off the deck from the impact of 16 pound balls rolled down the lane like fodder shot from a cannon, he quickly jumped into the pit and went into action; rolled the ball back, cleared ‘deadwood’, or reset new pins for another roll.

Generally, a ‘pinboy’, or pinsetter, managed two lanes, hence speed was an asset, and a priority. Younger boys with small hands could handle ‘two pins a hand’ while the older boys managed three. With pins in place, he’d jump back to his seat, step on a pedal to lower the rods, or pin holders, and wait for the next roll. A good day returned 8 or 9 cents a game, and an afternoon of work brought in some extra cash for this young man’s coal mining family in the post-Depression coal mining region of eastern Pennsylvania.

Tell me about your first job. Did you like it? What did you learn? I cleaned metal paint pots for a painting company and abhorred it. But I learned lessons of responsibility and discipline that comes from hard work, and stays with you for life. I got paid, but it wasn’t ‘romantic’ like my friend’s job, a ‘pinboy’.  I wish I could have been a ‘pinboy’…alas, I was too young.

Srbottch
Srbottch.Com