A good friend of mine had his bachelor party at the local go-karting place. To see who can go the fastest in one lap: a great way to get the competitive spirits out. It’s been a long time since I’ve last sat in a go-kart. Back then the cars were powered by gasoline lawn-mower style engines. Nowadays the karts are all electric. It’s for the better, honestly: petrol fumes are some of the worst things to breathe in.
Other than the change to electric motivation, the karts are largely the same as I remembered. No adjustments possible to the seat and wheel (I wish for a closer wheel), and purely manual steering. My arms definitely got a workout from thrashing the car through the bends. There were eight of us in the group, and I ended up placing second fastest. Even though I had a weight penalty! The smaller of the guys have a weight advantage, I would say. The person in first place is lighter than me, I am sure of it!
Jokes of a sore loser aside, it was a fun morning at the track. I did notice however that there weren’t that many people staffing the place. There were only two guys manning the whole of the track area. And from the first race onwards, I did not see them stop for one second. Federally-mandated breaks every four hours? That’s hilarious. There would be lots of impatient customers if the workers paused just to use the restroom. Would they even eat lunch at all?
It’s a hard life our there for people in the service industry. We have a duty to be kind to them, especially during this period of great staffing shortage.
It puts into perspective how grateful I am to have a job where for most part I simply sit in a front of a computer. Tapping on the keyboard is the extent of any hard labor. I can use the restroom whenever I want, and I can leisurely eat lunch with not much of a time limit. As much as it would be nice to get paid more, it’s important to keep in mind how lucky I already have it.
Hammer time.