It’s summer! I think. You’re never sure when the last snow’s gonna fly in Chicago, but by June it’s safe to say goodbye to winter.
How else do I know it’s summer? Because I smell it.
A solid wall of lilacs is blooming along southbound Tri-State Tollway plaza 35. Their scent and beauty temporarily blots out rush hour ugliness as traffic begins backing up where I-88 merges into I-294 just south of Cermak Road. God bless whoever came up with that idea; and thank you to the men and women who flirt with death to care for those bushes. I hope those groundskeepers work for the Illinois Tollway and not a contractor.
It’s unseasonably windy, so public works crews across Chicagoland are scouring the streets for fallen tree branches and other vegetative debris. If there’s a public tree you know is on its last legs, please please take it down. The last thing you need is a freak accident that destroys private property or, worse, hurts or kills a resident. Yes, it’s happened.
The next-to-last thing you need is an injured employee, and there are so many ways for them to get hurt besides working in and next to traffic. In honor of National Safety Month, here’s how to protect water and wastewater treatment plant workers (here’s how Veolia does it) and sewer crews (here’s the scoop on confined space permits), people who mix and spray pesticides, and anyone jumping in and out of and/or dodging around solid waste trucks to collect garbage and recyclables.
Who am I forgetting? Oh, yeah: you. People living in the U.S. work more than employees in any other industrialized nation. You may not think you’re stressed out, but neither did this California public works manager who suffered a stroke at age 53.
And finally, if you filled out our salary survey questionnaire this year, thank you. Click here to view the results.
