We had a pretty intense blizzard on Wednesday, complete with thunder and power outages and downed trees all over the place. I had made the decision to close down business for the day (first time ever). It seemed best for people to stay off the roads, stay home and then, of course there was lots of shoveling to do, fallen tree branches to clear out of the streets and hot chocolate to drink :)
Thursday morning found the roads passable, although, in my opinion, too many people were just rushing out to get back to “business as usual” – lots of cars riding on the street with huge piles of snow still on top of their cars that they had not finished clearing off. You know the ones that speed down the street and the chunks of snow and ice fly off the tops of their cars and land on whatever is behind them, they don’t care. Ever been hit by one of these chunks of snow? I have. Why is there no law against this? Well, perhaps if we just accepted that things take longer when we are buried under a foot of snow in the dead of winter, if we weren’t so pressured to get everything done and get the kids to daycare and get to work, maybe we could take the time to properly shovel our damn sidewalks, maybe even help our neighbors shovel theirs. Perhaps if we were more relaxed, fights wouldn’t breakout over parking spot rights.
So it was slow going yesterday. I could see a lot of frustration and not as many smiles as I would like to see on the road as I made my way through downtown, dropping off a couple of packages and then over to a scheduled meeting at Equal Exchange’s new secret coffee-trike headquarters.

We are very excited to hear the the first mobile café will be stationed at the new Charles/MGH T station starting next week!

On my way back, it was turning into evening and I was coming down East Berkeley St in the Back Bay. I stopped at a light in front of the Stanhope Grill in the Back Bay hotel. There was a concierge standing on the corner, trying to hail a taxi. He looked at me and remarked at how he thought it was a too little cold to be riding a bike. I looked at him: no hat, no gloves, no overcoat, standing on the corner of one of the windiest intersections in Boston – I said “I’m actually pretty warm riding, I would rather keep moving than be standing still – Where is your hat, man?” He said, “Yeah, they don’t let us wear hats”. My light turned green, I wished him well and rode off. I was a half a block away before I realized what he had just said. He is not allowed to wear a hat? His employer DOES NOT ALLOW him to wear a hat to keep warm in the winter while he is standing outside working in 20 degree weather? As I turned on to Saint James, I really wanted to go back and tell that guy, let him know that if he was cold, he should put on a damn hat and no one can tell him not to. No one can tell him not to.

I don’t know why this bothered me so much.
Maybe it is that when I was younger, I remember having to make small concessions like that all the time, always having that internal debate about whether I should stand up for myself or just obey. It starts in school i guess. Where you start coming up against these authoritarian rules that just seem completely arbitrary and nonsensical – and you are sort of taught to put your own thoughts about what is best aside. But in reality, most of these little concessions are not just contrary to your personal individual wishes and desire – It is not selfish to want to wear a hat when it’s cold outside. I mean, seriously, is it up to The Doyle Collection, a multinational corporation, to decide how their employees should keep warm in the cold? Do they have the best interests of their employees at heart? First it’s hats then what’s next? What do you think?