Work Stories: Episode 61: Road Trip

Previously on Work Stories, I wrote about the audio equipment at the New Year’s concerts being set up and the first song that got played.  It wasn’t too much of a story, but I liked writing it so I gave it to you guys.  This week I have another story for you.  I don’t know how it will end up.  It could be good or it could be bad.  Who knows?  It’ll probably be bad.  Oh well.

This one happened this week on the way to work.  Yes, it’s a Work Story that doesn’t take place at work.  I’ve written Work Stories like this before.  If this is your first time reading a Work Story, I’ll explain myself.  When I choose what to write about for the Work Stories, I pick between things that happened at work, things that happened on the way to work, and things that happened on the way home from work.  Why all three and not only the things that happened at work?  If it weren’t for work, I wouldn’t have been where I was at the time.  It’s because of work that I was there.  That’s why I include travelling in the Work Stories.

So the Work Story that I’m about to write about took place on the way to work this week.  It’s not an exciting story, but when are the Work Stories exciting?  Maybe one in five is exciting.  This is one of the ones that isn’t.  Deal with it.  I’m going to write it out anyway.

The directions for me to get from my house to work are pretty simple.   I go up a hill, turn, go down a hill, go around a bend, and turn.  That’s it.  It takes about five minutes to drive it.  That is assuming that I don’t hit only red lights along the way.  If I hit all red lights, it could double the amount of time that it takes to get to work.  That doesn’t matter though.  You don’t need to know how long it takes me to get to work.

When I got to the top of the hill I made the turn with ease.  Then, in front of me, was some crazy driver in a jeep.  They switched lanes without their blinker right in front of me.  They sped up and slowed down at random intervals.  They would speed up to a red light and slam on the breaks.  And they would pull right up behind a car that was turning and violently swerve around it from directly behind it.  I was following them almost the entire way to work.

That’s when we rounded the bend and I saw it.  At this point, the Jeep becomes irrelevant.  The road in front of me is closed off.  Why, I’m not quite sure.  The Jeep makes a three point turn while I go down one of the side streets.  I’m wondering why the street was closed off.  I saw a couple of police cars, but I was too far to see what had happened.  I took a one block detour and headed down the road to work.

When I got to work, I asked the people who were on what had happened.  I was informed that the previous night, there had been a fire at one of the gift shops on that stretch of street.  The fire had been bad enough to collapse the building.  Luckily, it was the only building on fire.  The buildings are tightly packed in the area.  It’s pretty lucky that the whole side of the street wasn’t taken out by the fire.  Only one building went down in the fire.  It was enough to close off the street.

When I left work, the street was open.  I drove by and saw that there was a building missing.  It’s going to look strange for a while.  I don’t miss the building, but it’s been a part of that side of the street for a long time.  The emptiness of that lot is going to take some getting used to.  Not because of any emotional connection, but because of the familiarity.

That’s the Work Story for this week.  Like I said, it probably wouldn’t be great.  It’s not great.  It’s a Work Story though.  It gives you some insight into my world, and it gives me a little bit of a release.  So there’s that.  It’s the reason that the Work Stories exist in the first place.  It’s for me to share my experiences with you.  It’s for you to learn a little bit about my working life.  It’s for the writer and reader to connect, however small that connection may be.  I think I succeeded in that much.  For that, I am happy.  I’ll be back again next week to give you all a little bit more about what my work is like.  Be sure to come back next week.  I like having you guys and gals read this.

Until then, people are afraid of what they don't understand.