But Who’s Counting?

This stinks!

A government worker in Washington was reprimanded in a four-page letter because of his bad habit of passing gas all day long in the office. His fellow workers were not amused and they complained to management.

Unlike the guy a while back who turned around and farted in the direction of an arresting officer – that guy was charged for that delightful little action – the office worker didn’t intentionally stink up the joint. He has a medical condition. But that didn’t make the odour any less offensive and so he was in big doodoo, so to speak.

But here’s what gets me. A tight-assed (too bad the office worker wasn’t the same) busybody manager actually went around counting and documenting his employee’s farts. In the four-page letter the manager wrote, a chart accompanied the description of the instances of gas passing, a Fart Chart, if you will. The poor guy blew it out his shorts 60 times over a few months, including nine times on one sad day in September.

So, he was reprimanded for creating a hostile work environment.

OK, a problem this is, I get that. But see this from another angle. There is a human being in this world who, in part, earns his paycheque by going around tabulating farts. When this manager was a kid, he told the teacher on everybody, didn’t he? And now he counts farts for a living.

We all have our mission. God put us here for a reason. Our job is to discover that vocation and follow it.

This manager discovered he had a talent for sniffing out farts and he has apparently made it his goal to wipe out (?) foul-smelling rear ends wherever they may be encountered.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the manager is a secret farter himself. When the manager’s boss found out about the reprimand he had given out, it was retracted, proof I think that the manager needs to learn how to apply the Principle of Benign Neglect and let his staff sort out their problems on their own.

Ya, the farty guy needs to somehow get himself under control but I’d rather spend a day with him than an hour with the guy who counts his farts. Now that guy is the real asshole!

©2016 Jim Hagarty

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.