Nailing things...
I bought a pneumatic nail gun the other day. Not one of the weenie ass brad nailers like you see on The New Yankee Workshop for building cute cabinets. (I already have one of those.) I’m talking full blown, three inch framing nail, nailer. The kind you sink into studs. It was a present to myself.
I bought it because we got our team award the other day at work. Most of you would refer to this item, “The Team Award”, as a bonus. But I work for a Fortune 500 company. We are part of the Dow Jones Average. We are admired. We have study groups that figure out good PC names for bonuses. Somewhere along the line they came up with the name: “Team Award.” I’m not sure why they call it that. It’s a just a bonus that we get every year that’s a percentage of our base salary. Now, the study group, we’ll call them the Board of Directors –which is really a bunch of the CEO’s buddies. (Other CEO’s from other company’s that he’s on the board of.), figure out the bonus pay out. It’s not a straight award/bonus, the CEO and his buddies come up with some new convoluted set of calculations to determine the amount every year. They set corporation goals, they develop plans, then at the end of the year, they pretend they didn’t do that. (Set the goals) They pretend that because at the end of the last four years they have realized they blew it, and we weren’t getting much money. Our CIO, (one of the CEO’s former buddies) said of this process once, “It always amazes me the a corporation can give away over a hundred million dollars a year to its employees and thoroughly piss them off in the process.” It was statements like that, that made him a former buddy. But anyway, your role on “the team”, determines on the percentage of your base salary you get out of this award. We call this, the “at risk” component of our compensation. --HR came up with that wording. It would appear some members of the team have more at risk than others. The CEO gets like 75 percent. The next highest is forty-five. The lowest is ten percent. (I’m medium important I’m somewhere between 75 and 10 percent) But with the CEO’s compensation so at risk you can see why he and his buddies pretend they didn’t come up with this criteria when they blow it. Well, anyway this year they finally came up with a formula were we got all the money for the first time in a few years. They were so impressed with getting right, they decided to keep the same criteria for next year. (This also gave them more time to go golfing after the board meeting.) So now that the CEO and his buddies finally nailed it, and I got some money, I was feeling pretty good and bought a pneumatic nailer to celebrate.
There is a lot to be said for a pneumatic nail gun. I could discuss the virtues of being able to instantly nail some stud in my new bathroom. Well, the one under construction. I could mention how I can now nail things as often as I want with out the aid of another person. (It’s like self gratification.) But that’s not really why I bought the nail gun. I bought it cause I’m a guy, I had a little extra money and I didn’t have to discuss it with anyone. –And now I’m doing what most guys only fantasize about: I’m nailing anything that comes within nailing distance of me and my gun. It’s heaven.
I bring this all up because I saw “The Passion of Christ” the other night. Christ was a carpenter you know. He went to heaven you know. But its funny, a guy who spent ninety percent of his life working with nails and wood hardly gets any of that mentioned in the memoirs of his life. If he had invented the pneumatic nail gun, which is my key to heaven , do you think that would be his big claim to fame? Course, nail guns are really kind of evil. They make mass production of homes possible, which leads to the factory looking tract homes, in Berkeley, those are considered evil. But nail guns nail perfectly every time with a single click and swoosh. No bent nails, no dented wood, no cussing. Cussing is evil. Elimination of cussing is good. Christ didn't cuss. (That's the urban ledgend. Have you ever met a capenter that didn't cuss?) Christ was a carpenter. Carpenters built most of the houses in Berkeley in the days before pneumatic nail guns. They were Christ like. Not evil worshipers of modern devices like I am. –And certainly not a person who would try and nail studs, like those guys who are getting married in SF do. But that’s a different kind of nailing and a different kind of stud. I wonder if Christ would cuss about that?
Strangely enough, I was thinking about that kind of nailing last night when I was running my nail gun. See there is a whole dogma of thought that the only time Christ ever got nailed, was when he was nailed to the Cross. That dogma holds that he was a bachelor and never had sex. In some respects that could be why he didn’t defend himself at the trial. I mean if you had gotten to thirty -three and had never had sex or gotten anyone to marry you, especially in a time of arranged marriages, and you couldn't even cuss about it, wouldn’t you sort of give up and commit suicide?
Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch. No lighting bolts have hit though. But there are a lot of people that would say I’m out on a limb here. But I’ve actually had seminary graduates tell me there is a good body of evidence that Jesus did more than just nail wood. Some have even claimed there is evidence he nailed few of his disciples. Both men and women. Yah, there were women disciples. Hopefully no fundamentalists or people who live in Texas are reading right now, cause, they’ll want me nailed. They’d nail me because they like to believe that if you are not married at 33, you shouldn’t be getting nailed. For that matter you should have never been nailed. –And you shouldn’t be thinking of nailing. This is mostly because, they can’t bring themselves to get or be nailed. They have a lot of nailing problems. Mostly they can’t nail down what it is that bothers them about the people who are getting nailed. Well, it’s a sin. But hey, we all know Christ committed suicide for our sins. (And people it was suicide, cause he was the living God, and he had to do was snap his fingers --after he removed the nails-- and put and end to it.) So what’s the problem? Christ gave us free license to go out an nail things.
But back to my trivial point here today. I highly recommend that every guy buy a pneumatic nail gun. For one thing as your mind clears because of the ease with which can mate studs now when building a new framework around you, your thoughts can wander. You can contemplate how easy nailing has gotten in the modern world. How much tools have become a labor saving device. How carpenters have it so much easier now than in the days of Christ. Now that we have nailing devices we can focus our attention more on nailing other things that are presented to us. Maybe I should buy our CEO and the Board a set of nail guns so they can clear their minds and quickly nail good strategies. Maybe I should buy every thirty-three year old guy who doesn’t get nailed a gun so he can nail things.
At $200 dollars a pop its about the same price as 60 minutes of therapy. –And I guarantee they’ll feel better after just one session of working with nailer. Why, I could lower the suicide rate with pneumatic nailers. Christ said Peter had the key to his kingdom. But I think it was Porter-Wagner!
Yes, I’m ducking lighting bolts as you read.
I bought it because we got our team award the other day at work. Most of you would refer to this item, “The Team Award”, as a bonus. But I work for a Fortune 500 company. We are part of the Dow Jones Average. We are admired. We have study groups that figure out good PC names for bonuses. Somewhere along the line they came up with the name: “Team Award.” I’m not sure why they call it that. It’s a just a bonus that we get every year that’s a percentage of our base salary. Now, the study group, we’ll call them the Board of Directors –which is really a bunch of the CEO’s buddies. (Other CEO’s from other company’s that he’s on the board of.), figure out the bonus pay out. It’s not a straight award/bonus, the CEO and his buddies come up with some new convoluted set of calculations to determine the amount every year. They set corporation goals, they develop plans, then at the end of the year, they pretend they didn’t do that. (Set the goals) They pretend that because at the end of the last four years they have realized they blew it, and we weren’t getting much money. Our CIO, (one of the CEO’s former buddies) said of this process once, “It always amazes me the a corporation can give away over a hundred million dollars a year to its employees and thoroughly piss them off in the process.” It was statements like that, that made him a former buddy. But anyway, your role on “the team”, determines on the percentage of your base salary you get out of this award. We call this, the “at risk” component of our compensation. --HR came up with that wording. It would appear some members of the team have more at risk than others. The CEO gets like 75 percent. The next highest is forty-five. The lowest is ten percent. (I’m medium important I’m somewhere between 75 and 10 percent) But with the CEO’s compensation so at risk you can see why he and his buddies pretend they didn’t come up with this criteria when they blow it. Well, anyway this year they finally came up with a formula were we got all the money for the first time in a few years. They were so impressed with getting right, they decided to keep the same criteria for next year. (This also gave them more time to go golfing after the board meeting.) So now that the CEO and his buddies finally nailed it, and I got some money, I was feeling pretty good and bought a pneumatic nailer to celebrate.
There is a lot to be said for a pneumatic nail gun. I could discuss the virtues of being able to instantly nail some stud in my new bathroom. Well, the one under construction. I could mention how I can now nail things as often as I want with out the aid of another person. (It’s like self gratification.) But that’s not really why I bought the nail gun. I bought it cause I’m a guy, I had a little extra money and I didn’t have to discuss it with anyone. –And now I’m doing what most guys only fantasize about: I’m nailing anything that comes within nailing distance of me and my gun. It’s heaven.
I bring this all up because I saw “The Passion of Christ” the other night. Christ was a carpenter you know. He went to heaven you know. But its funny, a guy who spent ninety percent of his life working with nails and wood hardly gets any of that mentioned in the memoirs of his life. If he had invented the pneumatic nail gun, which is my key to heaven , do you think that would be his big claim to fame? Course, nail guns are really kind of evil. They make mass production of homes possible, which leads to the factory looking tract homes, in Berkeley, those are considered evil. But nail guns nail perfectly every time with a single click and swoosh. No bent nails, no dented wood, no cussing. Cussing is evil. Elimination of cussing is good. Christ didn't cuss. (That's the urban ledgend. Have you ever met a capenter that didn't cuss?) Christ was a carpenter. Carpenters built most of the houses in Berkeley in the days before pneumatic nail guns. They were Christ like. Not evil worshipers of modern devices like I am. –And certainly not a person who would try and nail studs, like those guys who are getting married in SF do. But that’s a different kind of nailing and a different kind of stud. I wonder if Christ would cuss about that?
Strangely enough, I was thinking about that kind of nailing last night when I was running my nail gun. See there is a whole dogma of thought that the only time Christ ever got nailed, was when he was nailed to the Cross. That dogma holds that he was a bachelor and never had sex. In some respects that could be why he didn’t defend himself at the trial. I mean if you had gotten to thirty -three and had never had sex or gotten anyone to marry you, especially in a time of arranged marriages, and you couldn't even cuss about it, wouldn’t you sort of give up and commit suicide?
Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch. No lighting bolts have hit though. But there are a lot of people that would say I’m out on a limb here. But I’ve actually had seminary graduates tell me there is a good body of evidence that Jesus did more than just nail wood. Some have even claimed there is evidence he nailed few of his disciples. Both men and women. Yah, there were women disciples. Hopefully no fundamentalists or people who live in Texas are reading right now, cause, they’ll want me nailed. They’d nail me because they like to believe that if you are not married at 33, you shouldn’t be getting nailed. For that matter you should have never been nailed. –And you shouldn’t be thinking of nailing. This is mostly because, they can’t bring themselves to get or be nailed. They have a lot of nailing problems. Mostly they can’t nail down what it is that bothers them about the people who are getting nailed. Well, it’s a sin. But hey, we all know Christ committed suicide for our sins. (And people it was suicide, cause he was the living God, and he had to do was snap his fingers --after he removed the nails-- and put and end to it.) So what’s the problem? Christ gave us free license to go out an nail things.
But back to my trivial point here today. I highly recommend that every guy buy a pneumatic nail gun. For one thing as your mind clears because of the ease with which can mate studs now when building a new framework around you, your thoughts can wander. You can contemplate how easy nailing has gotten in the modern world. How much tools have become a labor saving device. How carpenters have it so much easier now than in the days of Christ. Now that we have nailing devices we can focus our attention more on nailing other things that are presented to us. Maybe I should buy our CEO and the Board a set of nail guns so they can clear their minds and quickly nail good strategies. Maybe I should buy every thirty-three year old guy who doesn’t get nailed a gun so he can nail things.
At $200 dollars a pop its about the same price as 60 minutes of therapy. –And I guarantee they’ll feel better after just one session of working with nailer. Why, I could lower the suicide rate with pneumatic nailers. Christ said Peter had the key to his kingdom. But I think it was Porter-Wagner!
Yes, I’m ducking lighting bolts as you read.
posted by Stan at 11:31 PM
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