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f 4 weekender saturday may 10 1997 st saturday may 10 1997 vol 13 no 19 the tribune com merit op inions send your letters to the editor to the address below editorial grill candidates seeking your vote as we approach the june 2 federal election its time for voters to start getting interested in their local candi dates much as many people would prefer not to have to think about politics and politicians this is our only chance in the next four years to have a say in the future of our government and our country politicians are human beings and they can be good bad and sometimes even dangerous one need look no further than the province of quebec and the revelation that parti quebecois premier jacques parizeau would have unilaterally taken his province out of canada on the basis of the narrowest of ves side votes in the 1995 referendum one person especially a politician should not be allowed to indulge in such megalomania at the expense of taxpayers it has often been said that if the best person in each riding were elected to the house of commons party affiliation being irrelevant then we would have an excellent government full of principled and freethink ing individuals unfortunately far too many people blindly vote by party or whichever leaders television commercials they like best this is no way select a government an electorate gets the government it deserves some of the rogues who have been voted to public office over the years is simply amazing this election voters have a right to ask a number of hard questions of the candidates who come knocking on their doors dont simply take the literature and let the candidate or the person representing the candidate run on down to the next door ask this person some ques tions find out where they stand on the issues that are important to you also remind the person seeking your vote that you want them to work for you afterall its your money thats paying them bad truckers far outnumbered dear editor just in time the following was penned in response to the many letters in the local papers lately about trucks and truckers big business cried just in time is what we need for delivery purposes the retail outlet closed their warehouse just in time to downsize and save on expenses a new truck fleet was born just in time to replace the laid off ware house people the manufacturer closed and demolished his ware house just in time to save his company enormous amounts of property tax a new truck stop was built just in time to letters accommodate the new mobile warehousing of the trucking industry big business lobbied just in time for the heav iest loads in north ameri ca a trucker jumped on his brakes jeopardizing his personal safety just in time to avoid hitting the car who cut in 1 0 feet in front of him in heavy traf fic business lobbied just in time for multiple trailers the trucker died in the wreckage of his jackknifed tractor trailer after slam ming on his brakes just in time to save the lives of please see page 10 jr j mice wffi aif v f v n my ups and downs on the job so whats the most boring job you ever had mine was inventory clerk for a steel manufacturing company in montreal i sat at a paperstrewn desk and processed ie transformed one huge mound of paper into many small mounds of paper what we called flimsies records of all the steel that had been sold by whom and on which day and for how much i did that eight hours a day five days a week for more months than i care to remember but whenever inventory clerking started to get to me i found consolation in the knowl edge that things could be worse i could have a really really boring job like oh say elevator attendant tjow there was the ultimate in boring jobs can you imagine standing in a little cage eight hours a day jerking a lever while hordes of strangers trooped on and off at every floor up and down up and down knowing exactly what you were going to see every time those cursed doors opened whether it was fourth floor plumbing and electrical or basement mens shoes and shoppers layaway no being an elevator jockey had to be the most boring job in the world or so i thought right up until i met max- ine quinn last week i didnt actually meet maxine i phoned her in her elevator in the conrad building in downtown cincin nati ohio maxines the one and only elevator opera tor in the conrad building she knows everybody who works there and which floor they work on and usually a good chunk of their personal life as well people just seem to open up to maxine when they step into her elevator but then maxines not your usual elevator operator and this is not your usual elevator either for one thing theres a portrait of elvis on the wall and a television setplaying in the comer and three chairs theres also a floor lamp an electric fan scads of family photos and maxine the comfortablelooking basic black arthur black grandmotherly boss of all she surveys in her sixfootbysixfoot domain maxine as likely as not will be talking on the phone when the elevator doors open she and her elevatorcumoneroom flat have become somewhat famous a national tabloid has done a feature story on her good morning america sent a camera crew to film maxine at work shes also been on national radio both in the us and in canada the kicker is maxines been operating elevators like this for the past 41 years fortyone years and she told me on the telephone that shes enjoyed every moment of it wellalmost there was that time the ele vator got stuck for three hours with maxine five large men and no air conditioning on a swelteringly hot august afternoon that wasnt much fun says maxine and there was that other time when she had to throw two guys off her elevator ordered them to get out in the lobby told them to use the stairs if they wanted to go into the conrad building they were using the fword recalls maxine i wont tolerate that kind of lan guage on my elevator other than that maxine says its been a ball i said come on maxine dont you get a little bored going up and down like a yoyo for 4 1 years maxine didnt appear to understand the question at first bored she said ive got my television and my telephone in here ive got friends on every floor of the build ing i meet new people every day and i get phone calls from all over the world even canada how could i get bored i had to admit she had me there stouffville tribune weekender patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief alan shackleton editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us letters policy the tribune welcomes your letters to the editor please keep letters to no more than 300 words note that letters may be edited for space libel spelling grammar while we endeavor to print as many letters as possible we regret that not all letters may be printed