An absentee Spring is getting the boot

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2018 (2762 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

To: Spring

From: Management

Re: Where the (bad word) are you?

Dear Spring: There is no easy way to say this, Spring, so we are just going to blurt it out — YOU’RE FIRED!

Do not get us wrong, Spring. It’s not that we are dissatisfied with your work this year. The problem is we have not seen ANY of your work due to the fact that, for reasons unknown to us, you have refused to report for work at all.

We have tried to be patient with you, Spring, but enough is enough. You have left us with no option but to dismiss you for dereliction of duty.

This hurts us more than it hurts you, because we are the ones who are still being forced to wear our parkas and snowmobile suits at a time when we should be listening to the Beach Boys on the car radio with the windows rolled down.

When you were hired, you were made fully aware of the work schedule in this region, by which we mean after summer comes fall, which is followed by winter, which is then followed (with the exception of this year) by yourself.

A quick glance at our calendar tells us that your first day on the job was scheduled for three weeks ago on March 20, the day the March Equinox rolled into town to herald the arrival of… you.

Everyone was looking forward to seeing you again, Spring. We even baked a cake, but that ended up being consumed by the crew in accounts receivable because, as we mentioned earlier, you never bothered to show up.

We have reviewed the matter with our lawyers and your failure to report for duty is a clear violation of the terms of your contract, wherein you are obligated to bring us gentle breezes, April showers and a sense of renewal and rebirth.

Instead, thanks to your total lack of dedication, Spring, the good people in this community have been forced to endure temperatures well below normal, along with the sort of icy winds that reach inside of our fleece-lined jackets and rip out our still-beating hearts.

You probably don’t care, but our annual “Welcome to Spring Barbecue” was a complete disaster because, instead of sniffing lovely spring flowers, several employees ended up in hospital after getting beaned by low-hanging icicles. Without you, there is no spring cleaning, no spring break.

Forgive us for getting a little emotional here, but our feelings are best expressed by the following poem that was just composed by the staff in human resources and goes something like this: “Spring has sprung / The grass has riz / We wonder where the birdies is / Well, they are (bad word) frozen to the power lines because you never bothered to show up for work.”

While you have apparently abandoned your employers here in Winnipeg, your colleague, Winter, has been a real team player, sticking around late every day, working all the overtime hours we can throw at him.

If Winter had not agreed to stick around, Spring, we would have been left out in the cold, which we were anyway, because cold is pretty much the only thing Winter does.

Take a look at today’s forecast and you’ll see what we’re talking about. Instead of the normal high of around 9 C, we are looking at a mind-numbing high of 1 C during the day, dropping to -5 C in the evening with a (gasp!) 70 per cent chance of flurries.

Does that sound like spring to you, Spring? No, it doesn’t. But that’s what we get when you decide not to show up for work, leaving Winter to fill in for you. And the rest of the week looks worse in the sense that the nighttime lows will hover around a horrid -11 or -12 C.

But none of this is your concern now, Spring, because management has decided that this city can get along nicely without your seasonal services.

We have decided to simply extend Winter’s term of employment for an additional four months, because we know we can count on Winter to stick around and do its best for the citizens of Winnipeg, which will never boast of being a “Spring City,” if you catch our drift.

We don’t need Spring when we have the Winnipeg Jets, a team whose craft is best practised during the dead of winter, when icy winds rip through the streets and fill our cold little hearts with dreams of being the first Canadian city to capture the Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.

We had been looking forward to seeing you at tonight’s Winnipeg Whiteout Street Party, the big bash on Donald Street between Portage and Graham avenues they’ll be holding before and during every Jets home playoff game.

But your presence is no longer required, Spring, because Winter will be there and Jets fans know that Winter has their backs (along with their fingers, toes, ears and any other exposed body parts).

So good luck finding another job, Spring. Maybe you can get full-time work in Costa Rica. You should talk to Premier Brian Pallister about that.

You have probably heard by now that the Depew Police Department in upstate New York arrested Winter on loitering charges, writing on Facebook: “Dear Winter: You are hereby placed under arrest. You have the right to remain silent and out of sight, but apparently not the ability. Any further snow you produce will be held against you in a court of law.”

In Winnipeg, we are giving Winter the key to the city and we are seriously considering asking the police department to arrest you on sight. The only problem, Spring, is nobody knows what you look like.

We have already cleaned out your desk.

Sincerely,

Management

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca