Sure, but the summer makes my powers obsolete

Every now and then I forget that not everybody is as indifferent to the cold as I am.

I've been like this for as long as I can remember. The cold just doesn't seem to touch me. I can remember the first time I got in trouble for it too.

I was living in Summerland and was heading out with my friend Gord early the next morning to go down to Vancouver for a... well... a Star Trek convention. Okay? Stop your snickering and I'll continue. :P

I was over at his house (he lived with his parents then) and it was after midnight, and his brother's girlfriend wanted to go home. So of course we offer to drive her, and then Gord was going to drop me off at home so I could pack and grab a few hours sleep, while he did the same.

It was snowing. A good solid snow, complete with those little wind flurries that swirl the fat fluffy flakes into miniature cyclones here and there. And of course the truck had been sitting outside, so it had picked up the chill.

I had on my leather jacket (my first, and a gift from my folks the Christmas before. Thanks guys!) as usual, but of course it was open and I had just a t-shirt on underneath. I was sitting in the passenger seat without any discomfort. Gord was driving and cold, and his brother's gf was freezing between us.

As it was a stick shift, she ultimately ended up leaning against me so as not to get mashed by Gord and his kung fu style of driving. And she exclaimed out loud that she could feel the heat pouring off of me. So since she was cold, and there was no centre seatbelt, I threw an arm around her shoulders to keep her in place and let her have as much of my heat as possible.

My girlfriend was none too happy to hear about that later. Oops. :P

Years later (while I was living in Kelowna) I came down to Vancouver to visit the fam for Christmas. My brother's birthday+Christmas gift to me was a haircut. Really. ;)

So we went downtown where the wind was blowing off of the ocean, up and down the canyons of the streets. The humidity was high and so the air carried a special chill. My brother and his friends (who we hooked up with) were bundled up and exclaiming at the cold. I just walked around with my jacket open and blowing in the wind, perfectly comfortable. I drew some comments: "What, are you high and too fucked up to feel the cold?"

Stuff like that.

Anyway, that's just how I am. And on the very rare occasions where the temperature is actually low enough to bother me at all, I can trigger a metabolic burn that has to be felt to be believed. But here in Vancouver that never comes up anymore.

So on to where this all came from: the night before last I'd noticed that the sky had been clear all day, so I thought it might be cold out when I left for work. So instead of the very light jacket I usually wear, I threw on the lighter of my two leather jackets.

Sure enough, I was too hot, even with it unzipped.

So the following night (last night) I went back to using my usual light jacket. Open to the t-shirt.

When I was about half a block from work, I met one of the mobile patrol guys that hang out in my building. He's the Indian guy. He had his jacket on, two sweaters, a shirt. One of the sweaters was a turtleneck and he had that drawn up to his eyes. A knit hat on. Gloves. Lord knows how many layers he had on under his pants. And he was biking around.

And freezing! He pulled up to me and said, and I quote, "H-h-h-h-h-h-i-i-i-i-i m-m-m-m-man-n-n-n-n!" and "How are you doing?" drawn out the same way. I was astonished.

So later when he was in my building and warming up, along with the Polish bike guy, they were both exclaiming how cold it was.

I told the Indian guy that he'd get used to it, since it was just his first winter here and wasn't really that cold. The Polish guy has been here for years though, and he's still young. I couldn't figure out why he was as cold as he was under all of his layers.

When they expressed their doubt that anybody could last outside, I took my book, slipped off my jacket, and sat on the concrete outside of the foyer in my short sleeved uniform shirt and thin cargo pants. And I was comfortable.

After reading a few chapters I came in, and showed them the lack of goosebumps or discomfort. I even splashed my hands in the moat outside the front door a bit for show. ;)

Oh, did I mention that at worst it was -5C? Practically a sauna!

They think I'm nuts of course. But let me tell you, if you're sitting next to me or cuddling and you're cold, I'm your talking space heater, baby!

Speaking of the Polish guy, he's been slacking the worst lately out of anybody at our two respective companies. So I asked him about it.

His job description, by the way, is simple: while the guy that's on twelve hours does the occasional exterior patrol on a bike (that was the Indian guy I found freezing outside) and does the interiors of the several large buildings in the area, his job is to simply ride his bike around outside and provide a presence. That's it.

I've heard that he's supposed to be out for an hour, then can come back for 5-10 minutes and update his report, and then go back out again. I'd be more inclined (not that it has anything to do with me, as he's in a different security company) to say that he rides around continuously for 45 minutes and then can relax for 15 minutes out of each other. Whatever.

Well, he does patrols that last fifteen minutes. At the most. Often much less. Then he sits around on the floor in the windows of my foyer and sleeps.

Now, I can't sleep because I need to be able to listen to the one building I'm stationed in. To hear banging or breaking glass or whatever. Plus, I technically get no breaks. Even when I eat I'm on duty. Fair enough.

But the guys in that other company do get breaks. So in my opinion they can do whatever they want with them, including sleep. Makes sense, if that's what they want to do.

But not in the window of my building. Because one guy in a yellow jacket looks the same as another. And do you think I want the hundreds of people I'm responsible for catching sight of that as they drive by and thinking that it's me who's asleep at the switch?

However, that dude is slacking. He does maybe five patrols in an eight hour shift. Giving him a little charity and saying he does it for fifteen minutes each time, that's 75 minutes out of a 480 minute shift that he's working. The rest of the time he's sleeping or talking to his girlfriend on the phone or just basically doing nothing. What is he getting paid for?

I've tried to nudge him to doing his job (he's young, so I thought that maybe he just didn't understand that he's supposed to do it on his own). So has the other guy, but more forcefully. Neither of us is responsible for him though.

But he won't do anything. Or, rather, he'll say "I'll go in a minute." and an hour goes by while he sleeps in my window, or behind the sign, or laying flat on the floor.

So a little after 0600, after the other guy had finished his twelve hour shift, I went out to this guy and asked him what the deal was. "What do you mean? I patrol!" he said.

I said "You've been on for six hours and patrolled four times. Are you telling me that his company to patrol> is getting their money's worth? You're supposed to be preventing problems before they happen by being out and visible, not blasting around at high speed for a few minutes every couple of hours."

I then went on to say "You know, the VP of the management company that hired your company talks to me semi-frequently and we're on good terms (true - when I used to clean carpets and do flood and fire restoration I'd have to deal with such people all the time, so such relationships are second nature to me) and occasionally he asks me how you guys made out the night before. What do you expect me to tell him if he asks something specific about you?"

So the kid pulled the merest bit of attitude and said "You'll have to tell him whatever you tell him."

I said "Come on now. You want to be a cop. Are you telling me that you want to have on your resume that you were fired from the only security-related job you've ever had because you couldn't even manage patroling? How lame do you think that's going to make you look?"

He didn't seem to have much to say, he was just saying "True" and stuffing his hands in his pockets (another no-no, as that doesn't make you look ready when you're in security. Plus he's got a bike jacket on and the pockets are up high, so he looks like he's made wings to do the chicken dance) and just generally being unhappy.

So I asked him "So is something wrong? You know you're not doing your job and you used to do more. You wouldn't accept a dip in your paycheque, so what's the deal?"

Finally he said "The other guys don't do much, so I do the same."

Oh HO!

"Your job is completely unrelated to theirs. Regardless of whether they do their job or not, you're not doing yours. Does that make sense to you? You know what the other guys in my company are like - if I aped them I'd be sleeping in front of the tv and never patrolling, but have you ever seen me fail to go patrolling? And besides, the two other guys you work with have different job descriptions than you."

"True. But I feel like I'm being screwed over when they don't do their job."

"How can you? It doesn't affect you in the least. But you're highly visible in your absence, should one of your field support guys or mobile guys drive through checking up (and they do - most security companies do that and I've seen it happen with their company on this site personally), and if the property manager liason checks up on you guys (which I've also seen him do) he's going to find you sitting here rather than out on patrol."

"You're right - I won't sit in the window anymore then."

ARRRRRRRRRGH!

"That's not the problem dude, it's that you're supposed to be out moving around on your bike for the majority of your shift, but as it is you're out there barely 15% of the time. People notice it."

He finally seemed to relent, so when I get to work tonight I'm going to tell his partner not to push him at all and see what he does.

I genuinely like him, but he is being lazy as hell. And Christ, stop sleeping in my building where employees can stumble across you! You've got a little storeroom on one of the parking levels where you keep your stuff, go sleep down there if you must. Or I'm just going to change your access card and simply not let you inside anymore. I've got my own image to maintain, and while I do my job, you can still bring me down with your behavior.

Bah. :P

Just before I went off shift this morning a couple of guys were out front trying to use the intercom/phone. It's so rare when I see anybody using it (especially once the exterior doors unlock themselves) and no wonder, since I've never seen anybody successfully get anybody on it. So they came in and talked to the lazy guy, who (being a bit unsure of himself when dealing with people) turned them over to me. As I was still forming the smile I adopt when talking to strangers in my building, one of them sticks out his hand and says "Well I know this guy! We went to high school together!". And he was right.

He's a year younger then me, and we had a couple of classes back in junior high. Those ones like Computers 9/10 in the days before they figured out what the hell to do with those AppleII GS's (boat anchors). That was in 1987. And what does he say?

"My God man, you haven't aged a day!"

This is what I get for neglecting to cut my hair for a couple of months I guess. :P

On the way home, deciding I was just too tired (sleepy) to climb the hill to my place for 25 minutes after I got off the SkyTrain, I hopped a bus. And the driver was shouting into her cell phone about how rude people were all the while swearing and such as people brought their little kids onto the bus and sat down. On and on she went. Most of us were smiling at the strangeness of it all, but I wondered how well she could drive the bus with one hand holding the phone to her ear and the other gesturing at the air for emphasis.

Fortunately, I made it home. :)

If anybody can come up with a way for me to tell stories without saying "the Indian" and "the Polish guy" and such, without using their real names and maintaining continuity, let me know. :P

Oh, and I see that Canada has doubled its contribution to the relief efforts in the aftermath of the tsunami ($80 million) and deployed the DART. Bravo!

We can afford to tighten our belts a bit.