We're starting a new wellness campaign at the workplace. It's called "Working On Wellness" or W.O.W. for short. This is fine. I'm glad to do it, especially after gorging on the Twinkie Twinpack of conviction and disgust while at the Southern Baptist Convention and seeing all the morbidly obese people calling themselves Baptist (and while watching my own midsection steadily expand through the years of being behind a desk, having dysfunctional eating schedules, and a basically sedintary life). What's not fine is the need to hype these programs with cutesy names and slogans like "hop aboard the wellness express!" We are to "get our tickets validated," "ride the rails of fitness," and other Amtrak-sponsored silliness. I know I'm pragmatic to a fault, but I just don't need my wellness efforts to be "fun," I need them to be effective.
Toward that end, I signed up for the preliminary stress test they're putting us all through. Now it's not called a stress test. It's called "an evaluation meeting." From what I've been told, what it really is, is an exercise in humility. They say it will take 15 minutes, but I've not heard of anyone making it out in less than an hour. You run a mile, do push-ups and sit-ups, test for flexibility and body fat (although not at the same time, as I understand it), and then take all your vitals. I thought I had missed the time to sign up, being out of the office at the sign up time, so I called in asking to be signed up if there were any openings. Upon closer review of my email, the signup was ongoing. So now, I just appear to be the laziest guy in the building because I couldn't even come by to sign up, having called in the request. Once I figured that out, I decided to actually go do it myself. But while I was at it, and out and about in the building, I may as well get some coffee.
At the coffee station, there were no large cups...and I really wanted a large cup of coffee. So instead, I settled for two small cups. So I have two fistfuls of coffee when I go sign up. The lady behind the counter asks the Engvallian question, "getting some coffee for someone?" To which I reply, "no, there actually both mine....they didn't have any large cups." She actually shook her head in pity.
I think they're going to put me in the "fixer-upper" team.
July 1, 2004 2:11 PM