[PRCo] Re: signals

[John Swindler]

>Fred Schneider mentioned:
>
>I take it that those are the "official" lunch hours?  L&I was much more 
>rigid than PennDOT.

The only consistency is that it varied.  Planning bureaus and comptroller 
could be more rigid then L&I; and you and Dave probably had the ultimate in 
flex time.  A lot depends on whether management understands why they are 
being paid the big bucks to be managers.  There is a lot of truth in the 
Dilbert cartoon.

>I remember when L&I under Governor Thornburg had spotters in the lobby at 
>quitting time to take names of anyone who walked out early ... they even 
>tried to change all the working hours to one standard 8:30 to 5:00 to make 
>it easier to catch anyone walking out before five.  It didn't work.  The 
>governor at the time of the energy crisis championed alternate work hours 
>in order to enable use of public transport and car pools and that directive 
>was still on the books.  And the Harrisburg city wanted it to stay in 
>effect because of traffic congestion.
>

Are you referring to Governor's Office Administrative Circular # 74-107, 
dated August 27, 1974, title: Flexible Work Hours, which updated 
Administrative Circular # 74-2.   Interesting document.  I'll let you figure 
out why it had to be issued twice. (see your paragraph above)
(note for Derrick:  this reference brings topic back to public 
transportation. Because circular also applied to state offices in 
Pittsburgh, there is a PAT connection, however tenuous)

>Can you imagine the traffic jams in any state capital (other than perhaps 
>Carson City, Pierre, Cheyenne or Montpelier) if everyone in government left 
>their jobs at 5:00 PM?   And heaven forbid that the federal government 
>should ever have uniform work hours.  I can still remember the stories of 
>the riots and fires  in Washington DC back in the early 1960s.  I  forget 
>the exact year.  The Federal offices were all closed at 3 PM.  The traffic 
>was so abysmal that some people were unable to get home before 9 PM.   The 
>result was standard policy that even early outs for snow have staggered 
>hours.  I think the normal quitting time in Washington is stretched out 
>from 3 PM to 6 PM.
>


Which is why I normally don't leave early on early outs.  Did that once 
years ago and ended up sitting in Harrisburg traffic for about two hours.  
Best recent experience was on afternoon of Sept. 11th - it was nice, 
peaceful and quiet , and traffic was almost non-existent when I finally 
left.

Likewise, have you ever noticed what happens when an airplane lands and 
arrives at its gate terminal?  What does everyone do?? Well most people.  
Let's just say that rushing to be first to the checked baggage area isn't 
going to make the checked baggage appear any sooner.

And a final connection back to Pittsburgh - never could understand why I 
seemed to be one of the few customers that boarded on Smithfield the 42/38 
cars that turned short at Fourth Ave.  Most others seemed to take whatever 
came first.  At least that was a late 1960s impression.

There's a connection between these three - just can't figure it out.

John

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