'.: .Gilpin-Nash’ Ltd., ” ;threatened.. 4 - Friday, August 9, 1985 - North Shore News THE PERFECT SOLUTION A workaholi IT CREPT up on me. | honestly didn’t know it was happening. I'd always been a_ bit speedy, 1 guess. Talking too much. Too fast. A real motormouth. It was widely suspected I would grow up ’ to be a lawyer. Either that or a priest. » -Jt was close, I'll tell you. I . shudder.to think. Luckily, 1 blundered into an honest line of work. “But nobody would really , think of writing as being a . fit subject for a one-minute. ” organizer, would they? _. It. was ‘assumed that if a kid is . going. to write, he’s probably | soft in the maths section and basically lazy. A dreamer, ’ not a climber. Soaking up this common misconception, I went along for years thinking of myself as being--your.- fundamental |. slug, especially’: in .terms. of... paying “attention *to the ca~" reer path. .Just the truth. That’s all 1 ,. As we are all aware, the search -for truth ‘doesn’t - oe translate into what would be : - considered ' al “modern. adult : Canadian wage’, ‘scale, Le. - above the poverty line, if nox ’ the ' starvation line; unless ore: ‘happens: to- have “tenure - ve (and: even’ “then,” ho, ho) in’ From Poege 3 ’ the construction contract on the dam to B.C. Bridge and Dredging Co. : caused public - _- outrage was simply that B:C. “-/\ \. Bridge and. Dredging’s bid.’ . .was . about . $450,000. more What, than. the ‘lowest. - bid. by who tendered § $5,769,000 ‘for the (7) -. Gilpin- Nash, in| fact, t -take the GVWD board to court over _the matter. In essence, they- “argued _ that GVWD did not act in good , faith when awarding the contract and the board's resolution to. award the job to B.C. Bridge.and Dredging . .was, therefore, not legal. Even before. the contract scandal, there was the en- vironmental outcry from ecologists. : ‘They claimed that con- the philosophy department, or a certain critical mass of blue chip stocks to finance your diggings in. lost tem- ples, to say nothing of the air fare to Shangri-la. ’ All this aside, I was .shocked to the bone . the other day when 1 found -myself ' being accused of - ‘workaholism. That seems vaguely sinister. I can handle a tot of bizarre accusations, but that I work too much? Hey! But then I got thinking. I got thinking about the work ethic and how we. define work. I got thinking about the. meaning of unemploy- ment. And that made me wonder about employment. ° Of course J WORK at my. ‘trade, which is to soak up experience - and “points . of -view until I-can ‘arrive at a viewpoint of my own, then flog it to somebody in the ope that,it will be publish- “hed, whereupon: it will ignite a + spark ' “in“some. child; :some- where, ‘who will go on to save the world just in the nick of time, It’s a heavy _ burden, I can tell you. This: means reading all - * sorts of odd articles and’ books, even other people’s ‘columns, - Programs and shows, talking Li | jeveland Dam ‘has: history | of controversy” structing such a mass sive (97-metre high) dam on‘the Capilano River would devastate the area’s fishing. And ‘then there was the “matter of just how. much taxpayers would have to pay out for the:concrete plug. on the Capilano River.. Originally the dam was projected to cost about $6 “million. Then the. price tag crept up to $7. million. In early 1952, the dam’s cost was reported i in the local | press as being $8 million; followed by $8.5 million, and the pattern‘of megapro- ject. price escalation gained ‘momentum, “When completed in November 1954, Cleveland Dam’s price tag was $10.5 million. A paltry sum in to- day’s terms, but the cost of the dam had almost doubled from initial estimates to completion. watching weird. ~ to, um, interesting people, and sometimes even actually going to the trouble of going to a faraway place or two to see for oneself what madriess truly lurks there. Also, you have to pack all this raw stuff of life into a syntactical snowball, and try to cream somebody else’s psyche. Then there’s your spelling ... and, ahem, the typos. > “ It’s work-but is.it REAL work? :That’s the question, Sometimes, for sure! Ernest Hemingway had a ‘- number. . 24; ’ phrase to describe the terror a blank piece of paper could conjure in a writer’s heart as he rolled it into his typewrit- er or lifted his pen, especial- ly a writer with a deadline. He called it ‘facing the white bull.’’ Well, in the era of word processors, I call it “facing the radioactive green bull.”’ (They tell me it’s NOT ra- ic’s cu about it, but in the mean- time let me first plead guilty, after thinking about it, to workaholism, and then offer a plea for Jeniency. Sure. It’s true. 1 LIKE _ working. It’s. grown on me, especially this particular line of work.. f mean, | COULD have been a lawyer, etc. And yes, the discovery that cash flow relates to work done | strictly personal by Bob Hunter dioactive, but allow a bit of poetic license, eh?) I know, you work -hard, too, and we shoud all get together and have a good cry PRICES THAT WILL BLIND YOU! The final weekend of our Parking Lot Sale 50% Off Premade Custom Draperies 75% Off Premade 1” Blinds & Roller Blinds Saturday Aug. 10th 10-5 rain or shine [AX@Al DAY Custom Draperies & Blinds 1313 Powell St Van 254-O861 (maybe. the greatest discovery of all time), affects me as much as it does ed. Sp ecial Notice — te Party Line | Customers im oe North Vancouver and Deep Cove. Effective Saturday, August 10th, there will: be : a change inthe patty e dialing codes in your areas. Party line customers ‘in North Vancouver and peso. ‘Cove whose (elephon number begins with. 980,. 984, 985, 986, 988. and 929 will‘now. have. to. dia! “9209-XX instead of “119 xx" before calling another ‘Party’ Ss telephone Adjustments to our central office telephone equipment have mad hese! changes necessary. a we, For further reference, it would be a-gocd idea to ‘make not of. this change in the opening pages of your telephone directory. : BC. TEL A member of Telecom Canada anyone else who ever notic-_ . "You t00,, sis, Having adm te r much, can anyone tell me‘the solu- tion? Because, if you can't, I can. The solution’ is to eradicate absolutely everything . that .: somebody copy, that ariybody would erevant so that nobody-e do any work ever again; tke robots will do'the actual labour. Do that arid yi i the causes of workatiolism. It’s amazing,” isn’t. it?. One of those ideas,” like. the egg that Colimbus”’ ‘cracked slightly when he stood jit-on end, or. the apple Newton watched. go. kerthunk: At :a single “blow, © “we . could eliminate . workaholism - ‘for all time! ; Gives you: back ‘ your faith, doesn’t it? Over.to you, bro.