{"id":891,"date":"2022-08-30T15:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T15:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/?p=891"},"modified":"2026-06-29T14:05:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:05:53","slug":"the-battle-of-chrysler-farm-not-about-the-battle-of-chrysler-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/?p=891","title":{"rendered":"The Battle of Chrysler Farm (not about the Battle of Chrysler Farm)"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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See this place above? That’s the Visitor Center at the Battle of Chrysler Farm Historic Site at 13740 County Road 2, Morrisburg, Ontario<\/span>, Canada<\/a> and have I got a small story for you!<\/p>\n

This story happened 10 years ago, today! I took a day trip over to Morrisburg but I knew I didn’t want to pay the full admission price to Upper Canada Village<\/a>, especially since I set out mid-afternoon. That’s OK since the gift shop is technically outside<\/i> of the admission area, and they sell their famous fresh bread in the shop. That’s 2 bonuses! Plus I was intending on visiting the garden and historical site area that is free just next door. I think Upper Canada Village had just installed paid parking so parking for the historical site was free and literally right in the same field.
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I did have a nice stroll up to the gardens, which is just in front of the tree line, in the center of this photo above.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/div>\n

(The view back to the historical site from the Rose Garden.)<\/p>\n

I wandered back and around the hill a bit but there were (as ALWAYS) aggressive Canadian geese around, so I had to give them a wide berth or they would honk and chase me.<\/p>\n

So going up to the visitor center, I thought it was curious that the front door was open.<\/p>\n

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(This is the view from inside of the Visitor’s Center back out the front door.)<\/div>\n
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The door was sort of stuck open, or maybe propped. I thought it was big enough to get a goose through so whoever is inside must be living dangerously.  But it was also open enough for me to slip inside without touching it. So I did.<\/p>\n

There was the entry desk, a computer, an open water bottle, and not seen in this photo, some keys. But no person.<\/p>\n

I’ve been here before so I know that the visitor center is basically 2 rooms. This anteroom that is long and narrow with artifacts in cases and then a larger room with a rudimentary fiber-optic display that re-enacts the battle.<\/p>\n

But I could not hear anything. I walked down the room, looking at the cases; old guns, uniforms, that sort of thing. I remember seeing significant cob webs at the far end. Still, no one.<\/p>\n

At the end, I turned on my heel to enter the other room. Immediately I saw a few dressed up mannequins (British solders), and the display area and wooden benches. It was closed in.<\/p>\n

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Then I saw her.<\/p>\n

She was laying on her back one of the wooden benches– out of sight in my photo above– and she was sleeping; totally out. She didn’t stir.<\/p>\n

It was one of those moments where you calculate all of the possible excuses you could make in under 2 seconds for how I got into the visitor’s center without her hearing (uhm, open goose door? I’m alone so not talking? I’m a creep?) I opted for Plan Z: I was never here and I’m outta here; just to get out<\/i> without waking her now<\/i>.<\/p>\n

But first, I had one other emotion wash over me.<\/p>\n

I was mad.<\/b><\/p>\n

I was mad that she was obviously sleeping on the job.<\/p>\n

I justified that she had a computer, and I guess from the photo I took, cookies and water. Since I worked at an online university, I thought “You could be going to college right now, not sleeping away your summer job!”<\/p>\n

I managed to walk out doing that kind of walk when you want to be silent, letting your foot roll on to and off of the floor evenly.<\/p>\n

I slipped back out the goose hatch and eventually left the site to go home. I thought about writing something up and posting it on Facebook, but I knew if I said anything, she’d be fired. The risk to the visitor’s center and to herself personally was way too high; her employment would not survive. It’s clear to me that she was a summer worker, just pulling a paycheck.<\/p>\n

It’s 10 years since that happened and I was thinking about that story.  It dawned on me. <\/p>\n

I have no right to be angry.<\/b> I’m ashamed to say that I had a job once that was so lax that I could snooze while I was on the clock. The situation was that the work was normally significant and constant. But we had changed a procedure and my workload dropped off. My boss didn’t notice and still expected me to be just as busy. Part of my job required me to go offsite for a full morning 3x a week. I simply didn’t need to be gone for that long— but, instead of doing my work and coming back, I stayed out and snoozed in my car in parking spot.<\/p>\n

It was medium-quality hooky; not top notch hooky because doing it was stupid. Top notch would be not working for a GD good reason, like I did when I sneaked away for my final dissertation residency and didn’t tell anyone at my online job for a day. I just kept my head really low and checked email constantly.<\/p>\n

So I’ve been where she was. She was bored– I can see that now. And what she decided to do with her time was her business. I get that the Visitor’s Center could only be interesting so much <\/i>and then it was boring. <\/p>\n

Still, I wish she had made better choices. <\/b> And that poor place, it looks closed now…I don’t see any listing of the Visitor Center being open.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/div>\n
The Visitor Center, current time (2022).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Oh, it’s a shame, but…the place was in decay.<\/p>\n

The entire site is ripe for a nice AR history overlay…Standing on the site and looking around, one can think of the battle happening here and the strategic movement of troops to different places.<\/p>\n

For the record, as a boss, I would advise the folks working for me that they were welcome to try playing hooky, but the key is to NOT GET CAUGHT.<\/i>  If I catch them, it’s not hooky anymore.<\/p>\n

I hope that young lady has gone off to fantastical great things in her life. I change my anger now to a blessing for her. I hope she’s off somewhere chomping on some yummy bread, remembering that summer 10 years ago when she worked in a run-down Visitor’s Center, but at least she could get in a snooze on those hard wooden benches. You needed a nap before out running the geese.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/div>\n

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<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n See this place above? That’s the Visitor Center at the Battle of Chrysler Farm Historic Site at 13740 County Road…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “The Battle of Chrysler Farm (not about the Battle of Chrysler Farm)”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365,17,369,20,368,367,21,366,364],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-365","category-leadership","category-playing-hooky","category-remote","category-sleeping-on-the-job","category-story","category-team","category-the-battle-of-chrysler-farm","category-visitors-center","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}