"Looking good" just part of the job for some

Monday is my “Saturday,” so I have the opportunity to encounter some of the irregularities of the work-a-day world. I happened to walk past one of those Vision Quest fitness clubs in Kent around 10 am. Not surprisingly there were toned white men and women working the treadmills right inside the front windows, so that they could present their arrogant, conceited selves to the rest of the world. That some of passersby may be in common labor pool or are jobless only exacerbates the image of a society that in many respects is completely contrary to ethical constructs.

I ask myself: Do these people—and those who show-off running in the middle of the work day in their skintight running or biking outfits—actually have real jobs? Do they just sit around in an office talking to other people sitting in an office, playing games with words and numbers, while it is the invisible people who actually make things happen? Is it part of the “job,” when they exhausted from talking, or their egos become too bloated, that they must take a “breather” by going out for a jog? Is it part of the “job” to “look good,” in which case these people—likely being paid on salary rather than hourly—are allowed to “arrange” their “workday” around their personal “requirements? Is it spending time at the fitness club considered “work” because they need to stay “fit” so they can work-off the office fat while they flap their jaws? And doesn’t it seem that the more money they make, the more time they have for this kind of thing?

Not all office workers are afforded such perks of course; these are usually only permitted for the ones “upstairs.” Still, no matter where they lie on the graph, they all still exist in a universe apart from the rest of us. You can always see this during the holidays, when they somehow seem to have plenty of time for kid’s stuff, like decorations, parties, card-giving and whatnot. I suspect they even get paid double time for working Thanksgiving.