Management Kills

Because my military occupational specialty had been a radio operator I didn’t have a lot of occupational training. Once discharged from the Marines I had to take whatever job came around.

That bit of desperation got me employed by a small freight hauling company. They were relatively broke and would take just about any untrained driver. My assignment was to make in town freight deliveries just about anywhere around Albuquerque.

Unloading trailers by hand was kind of easy going because the Marines had made me get into fairly good shape. I could carry them heavy boxes upstairs and get the freight paperwork signed without much effort.

It’s just that in some spots the freight was really hard to handle and whoever was in charge there would give me a hard time. It was while making those kinds of deliveries that I started noticing how the manager tender to be overweight and not physically fit at all. I started figuring that all the folk who did nothing but sit behind some desk were in such bad shape it was killing them.

That last bit of logic was what had started me jogging three miles every other day on my own. It got to where I could laugh at all them long haul truckers who were too fat to get into their trucks without a lot of effort. You could see some of those guys which had to push the driver’s seat as far back as it would go and still have their gut rub against the steering wheel.

Unfortunatelymy theory about how management kills almost came true. One of my brother in-laws had reached a position of high management with a lumber company he had been working with for years. That caused his blood pressure to get very high. He almost had a heart attack last summer. My wife had to go through that with a lot of love for her older brother. We were all relieved when his quick trip to the hospital spared him from anything seriously hitting.

He had been quickly released and was able to get back to work without any problem. It’s just that bit of good luck hasn’t held very long. My wife just got word about him having to go back to the hospital. Only this time his medical problem is a little more serious and a lot longer lasting.

The doctors have proclaimed that he now has a grand mall seizure disorder. Since he has had to stick in the hospital so long to have this physical problem discovered my brother in-law has lost his job, home and automobile. My wife is so concerned about his survival she and her other two brothers are going to move him all the way up the Texas Panhandle to our home. That way he can see how I’ve dealt with this physical problem for years. He can also observe how jogging allowed me to stay on active duty after my own head injury and how that has kept me from actually having a seizure no matter what my dilantin level is.

At least while no longer a manager he has a lot higher chance of surviving longer.