Saturday, October 12, 2013

Why Not Work For Free?

I was disappointed to learn Texas hasn't offered to reopen national parks like Guadalupe or Big Bend. These remote locations basically weed out any casual visitors so that only a responsible person would bother driving 4-10 hours across the desert to walk around in mesquite brush. The Texan approach is usually intentionally independent. The Alamo, for example, is open because it's staffed mostly by volunteer "Daughters of The Republic of Texas". It's not a National Park and it would be hard to close something down that is in the middle of San Antonio. Speaking of character, the women who welcome you to the Alamo would laugh in the face of a national park ranger if he said it was closed due to a government food fight. They are already working for free so it doesn't concern them.

This fiscal crisis finally shines the light on those who act and the pundits. I feel that the national parks are too important to close...and if I ever fulfill my dream of being an interpretive park ranger it's not going to be on the condition I get paid for my time. The reason I could work through a government shut down is because of the other days when they paid me. This is that rainy day your mom warned you about. If I had to clean the toilets and empty trash bags you think I'm not going to do that because I won't get paid for my work? If it means keeping the parks open then I see it as a responsibility, like teachers who pay out of pocket for school supplies for their students. If you want easy days of long lunches then go work for Monsanto who never take a day off from getting paid. Otherwise, you take the job that you would do for free. Too much top down management in this pseudo democracy.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.