The jobs I'd like aren't hiring or aren't paying much. The jobs I'd classify as soul-crushing or utter wastes of time are the former and the latter.
However, in a grand showing of the universe's far-reaching wisdom, I saw the greatest job in the city two nights this week as we sat embroiled in gridlock trying to leave Twins games in "downtown" Minneapolis.
As cars sit and idle, locked in the same spot for three and four traffic signal cycles, I pondered what could be holding things up. "There'd better be a fatality," I'd say and for the first time, kind of meant it.Like the opening scene of Office Space there were old men and tree sloths powering down the sidewalks faster than the progress made by the cars waiting patiently (and not so patiently) to move ahead and reach the highway five or six blocks from the main parking lots.
I think you could explain string theory to a classroom of second graders faster than it takes cars to clear the area the past two nights we've been there. In my disgust, I mumbled something about there not being anything better for the cops to do in this town, why not traffic enforcement and then it hit me a block from the highway.
There were cops on the job and they were doing nothing about the gridlock.
Instead of fanning out and waving cars through intersections, relieving some of the pressure and allowing local traffic to move along quickly to clear a path to the expressway, they were sitting around, repeatedly sticking their thumbs in their asses, pulling them out and sticking them back in.
While one stood on the little island that hold the existing traffic signal, the other was on the sidewalk wandering about in small circles. A half block from the on-ramps, two cops milled around in a gas station parking lot, doing (you guessed it) nothing at all.
These people have come to be known in my angry little world as the Minneapolis Department of Traffic Confirmation. It seems they are paid to stand and watch as traffic snarls to a standstill and just be there to confirm the fact that yes, the traffic flow leaving the Metrodome is all jacked up.
It's frustrating enough when the city isn't doing anything about a shockingly obvious problem. It borders on barely contained homicidal tendancies when you get to the end of the line and find four people doing nothing to help with the situation.
As I'm quickly learning - Minnesota and its residents are fucking worthless.
(Photo from lasiceyecenter.com)
1 comment:
That last line was a bit harsh, no? You could specify that Minnesota Cops are worthless, but please don't generalize all Minnesotans.
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