No windows.....

Almost every job I have ever had, I have had no windows. I am not talking about computers, I am talking about the panes of glass that let the sunshine in. Or the gloom of a cloudy day. Or the haziness of a foggy day. I think you get the picture by now.

My first job, that wasn't an under the table dishwashing position, was frying chicken for Roy Rogers. Not the actual singer himself, but the food chain that was popular on the east coast. Some still exist along the Jersey turnpike, at least they did back in 2006 when I drove up through there. I only worked on weekends, and the frying room was in the back of the store (I don't wanna call a grease trap a restaurant). The room was longer than it was wider. I had a deep sink, a stainless steel table, and three fryers. The only window in that room was the one on the microwave that cooked the biscuits and potatoes. My illumination was fluorescent lights, about 6 of them.

My next job was at a Subway. I was a Sandwich Artist! I didn't have to go to any art school or anything, but was taught the fine intricacies of how to properly cut the bread, what went on the sandwhich in which order, and how to wrap it up special so nothing fell out. This place had a window for the customers to look through and point out the items they wanted for their sandwich, and also two huge bay windows out front, but the way the counter was set up, I couldn't look out the window. On a slow moment I could catch a quick glimpse of the parking lot and see if it was raining or not. And again, the illumination was fluorescent.

Moving along to Nicolettis! Nicolettis is a long standing tradition for people of SOMD. As kids, it was the place to go after school dances for some pizza, a sub, or one of the many other items we had, including a salad bar. As an adult, we meet up there when we are back home and order our old favorites and reminisce about the good ol days. My initial job there was as a dish washer/busboy. So, as you can probably imagine, no windows. Just me, stainless steel tables and sinks, and a pile of bus bins and washing trays. I would get to run out and bus a table and look out into the outside world for a few moments, but most of my day was spent scraping off plates of uneaten food and loading them onto the washing trays. One of the perks of the job was bussing a table with a half full pitcher of beer! I would have my drink glass back there and fill it up and go. No need to worry about the boss because he NEVER came into the dishwashing area. Who worries about us? There was once again fluorescent lights, but there were only two very small ones, and it was always dark and gloomy in the dishwashing area.

When I joined the Marine Corps, I thought to myself, "This is it! No more windowless jobs! I am gonna see the country and the world, and it will be spectacular!" Never was I more wrong, ever in my life! Of course boot camp, we spent a lot of time outside, but my first duty station was spent working in a warehouse that had all the windows boarded up! 3 years of this and I thought, "Ok, new place coming, gotta have some windows." Wrong. Cinder block building in a cage. Next duty station, the building engineers put the windows at the top of 12 foot walls, so that did no good. Okinawa, Japan. Another warehouse. Parris Island was a breath of fresh air, literally! I was outside so much, it almost made up for all those years of walls. Then off to NC again, back to cinderblock walls and, you guessed it, just like everywhere else, fluorescent lights...... My current job has taken me to, once again, 4 windowless walls and fluorescent lights.

Some of you may be saying, "Well, easy fix! Get off your ass and walk outside!" It is an easy fix. And I try to do it as much as possible. But, just like most people, I have always had bosses, and they wonder, "Where did Crandall get off to? Is he screwing off somewhere? Is he taking ANOTHER dump? Why is he never at his desk? When in all actuality, I am always at my desk, getting the life drained from me by fluorescent lighting.

I typed in the words 'No Windows' into Google to see what I could find. Maybe a song written about it, maybe someone who felt the same and had already blogged about it. Nope. The overwhelming response had to do with the Microsoft Corporation and their Windows program. But on page 3 or 4, something weird came up. There was a link to a video claiming that one of the planes that flew into the World Trade Center in 2001 had no windows on it. Really? No windows, and what looked like a bomb strapped to the bottom of it. Another theory was that it had the shape of a military plane and was just painted to look like a commercial plane, but someone forgot the windows. I found this a little disturbing.

I would hate to think that someone in our Government would have conspired to make this whole mess of 9/11 up, just for the sake of starting a war and going after oil, or whatever else someone can come up with as to why we are in the situation we are in right now in the world. If someone did paint up a military plane to look like a commercial jetliner, where did the plane go that was supposed to be flying that day, and more importantly, where are the passengers, pilots and flight attendants? Are they being held prisoner in a warehouse somewhere? Or in a cinderblock building, with no windows, and the only thing for lighting is fluorescent bulbs, slowly killing them by sucking the life out of them?