Stupidity (Part VI)

Having sex on the job

A Swedish municipality may allow its workers to go home and have sex with their spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends while during their time on the job for an hour each week. They will also be paid for that hour.

This idea was brought to the district of Övertorneå thanks to Per-Erik Muskos, a councillor in that Swedish district which is located a short distance to the south of the Arctic Circle and home to under 2,000 people.

Muskos took his idea to the council because he’s worried about the declining population and low birth rate in the region and feels that allowing council staff to go home and have sex with their wives or whomever which could result in an eventual increase in the district’s population.

The council already offers staff an hour a week in which to exercise, as a wellness measure. Musko argues sex could also have positive health benefits for the council and its workers, especially busy couples who might otherwise struggle to find time to have sex with their spouses. Singles would also be allowed to indulge also.

According to this twit, his idea would just be a cherry on top of a work environment that's already pretty sweet in Sweden, where full-time workers take plenty of fika coffee breaks and spend the third-least amount of time working per year, after workers in Finland and France. The OECD Better Life Index pegs the annual free-time breaks total at just 1,612 hours per year, compared to 1,790 in the U.S.

 
This twit’s  suggestion is one of the stupidest ideas ever proposed. Let me explain.     

The couples don’t need to have sex during their work shift since they can have it after work, providing that they are home at the same time.  And suggesting that boyfriends and girlfriends should copulate for the purpose of having a baby is ludicrous. The boyfriend many not wish to be saddled with supporting a baby with a woman who isn’t his spouse.                         

Further, suppose the men and women aren’t in the mood to having sex in the middle of the day. Do they have to remain at work? If they are smart, they will spend that particular hour doing something else. And what would be really interesting is; what happens after the woman is pregnant? Does the weekly-one hour freebie end for the couple?  Suppose the couple doesn’t want a child or if they do, they want to wait a while?  Does their freebie also end?  And equally important; suppose a man or woman who are single and unattached have no intentions of having a baby? And what about older couples who because of the women’s ages, can’t have a baby?  Are these people to be denied the one-hour freebies what younger couples are receiving by virtue of the older couple’s ages?

WestJet refused a cello to be in the cabin on a Vancouver flight.

Juilliard School cellist Nathan Chan says he has never had a problem flying with his cello— until he bought two tickets for a flight in WestJet in January 2016. Cellist Nathan Chan said he was traveling home to New York after visiting family in Vancouver for the holidays when his journey quickly hit a sour note.

He said that WestJet refused to allow his cello in the cabin during a flight from Vancouver to Toronto even though he paid the same fare for an extra seat for his instrument.

The Juilliard School cellist says WestJet’s baggage policy is out of tune with the needs of musical travellers after the airline refused to allow his cello in the cabin, even though he bought an extra seat for the instrument.

The young musician said he booked his airline ticket through American Airlines, but discovered that his trip, which had a stopover in Toronto, included a flight that was operated by WestJet, a Canadian airline

Nathan Chan says other airlines have always allowed him to secure his cello into an extra seat using a seatbelt extender.

“I’ve didn’t really anticipate any difficulties because I’ve never had any problems with American Airlines. But when I reached the airport, I attempted to check in and I was told that WestJet  doesn’t allow cellos on board because they don’t have a special restraint system for them.”

He said the WestJet employee told him he would have to forfeit the US $250 ticket that he had already purchased for his cello and check the cello in the airplane's cargo hold.

For Chan, that wasn't even a remote possibility. The fragility of his antique cello and bows, which together cost about $140,000 which meant that storing it in an area that isn’t temperature controlled could be very harmful to the instrument and the bows. That of course was a presumption on his part.

He later said to the media, “I was really stuck in a big predicament. The whole point of me purchasing a seat for the cello was to ensure the safety of the musical instrument.”

Fortunately for Chan, his family in Vancouver was able to return to the airport and keep the cello for him while he travelled to New York alone. His sister, who is also studying in New York, later brought the cello with her on another flight with a different airline, at a cost of nearly $1,000.

Chan said, “What was extremely ironic was that my flight was full, and the seat that I had purchased for the cello was empty. A regular human being could have sat in it but because of the policy, it was just wasted.”

A frustrated Chan described the WestJet's policy as “bizarre,” adding that he travels at least once a month for performances and has never encountered any problems from airlines not allowing him to bring the instrument as carry-on luggage. He shouldn’t have presumed that all airlines would permit him to being his cello as carryon luggage.

On other airlines, Chan said he requests a seatbelt extender and secures the cello in the window seat. He then sits in the centre seat to avoid the instrument blocking anyone in an emergency situation.

“That’s the way I’ve done it thousands and thousands of times,” he said. “But for some reason, WestJet has this particular policy that is very different from others.” (thousands and thousands of times—there is an exaggeration if there ever was one)

He said he hopes speaking out about his experience helps inform other musicians about WestJet’s baggage rules, and hopefully encourages the airline to reconsider its policy.

This isn't the first time WestJet has refused to allow a passenger to bring a cello as carry-on luggage. In 2012, renowned American cellist Paul Katz wrote in the Boston Globe about his experience flying WestJet and being forced to check his antique instrument in the plane’s cargo hold which he said survived the trip without any damage. 

In an email, WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer said the airline has no immediate plans to change the policy.

While the airline regrets that Chan did not have a positive experience on his flight, Palmer said WestJet is not licensed to carry anything in its seats that requires a specialized strap or other device to attach it to the seat.

In my opinion, no airline should permit someone to purchase a seat for any instrument or another object. Even pets are placed in the cargo hold of a plane.  First of all, it denies someone else a seat on the flight. But there is a more important reason for WestJet’s policy. 

In 2013, I and my family were flying home from Florida on a plane that was going to have a brief stopover at the Atlanta Airport. When it reached the runway, it hit the pavement so hard; the engine at the rear of the plane caught fire. When the plane reached the terminal, the captain announced that we were not to take our carryon luggage with us for obvious reasons since we were to exit the plane as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for me.  my right arm was previously broken and for this reason, I couldn’t release my seatbelt. My wife who had been sitting next to me got up to reach for my seatbelt but the passengers were moving so fast thereby forcing her away from our seats.  Subsequently, I was the only one left in the plane as the smoke began to engulf me. A stewardess went back into the plane and dragged me out of the plane.

I mention this incident in my life because if the same crash incident occurred when person had his cello next to him and he chose to carry it with him while running up the aisle and tripped, those behind him would fall on him and his instrument and as such, he and the others behind him would be trapped and subsequently perish.

Palmer said that WestJet’s website states that passengers may not buy seats for musical instruments. If that is so, then he feels that he should be given a refund but only if the person who gave him the ticket for the extra seat knew that it was for a cello and not for a human being. 

Now Chan is trying to get a refund from American Airlines for the extra ticket he bought, but a month later, he said he was still waiting.

Chan should not have presumed that because other airlines would permit him to purchase a seat for his cello, that Westjet would do the same thing. He should have asked first before he purchased the seat. Because he didn’t make that enquiry, the seat remained empty during that flight. The airline might have made it available to another person who wanted to be on that particular flight. If that is so, then in my opinion, Chan is not entitled to a refund.

Chan’s act was one of stupidity and in his case; it was his cultivation of ignorance.