13 posts tagged “a day in the life of”
It's been a struggle at work. In the midst of all this financial turmoil, people often come up to me and ask if the business is affected adversely by all the doom and gloom in the markets. The truth of it is that it isn't because of the markets that we're suffering right now. My boss has for one reason or another decided to abandon the tried and tested way of trading that we've been employing somewhat successfully in the last few months, and try some other new methods which seem to be promising but of which I know cannot possibly deliver the kinds of profits that he's hoping for. And I've spoken to him about my concerns, but he has chosen to ignore them. Call it greed, foolishness, hubris. I don't know. I've got a feeling that somehow my days are numbered at this place.
No. Not me. My dad. He sent me this little comment in an e-mail recently. I find it absolutely hilarious.
"I sent you an address on e-harmony, it is a web site why they give good marriage advise based on Christian principles and lately I found out that it also provide young people to make new friends and also the possibility of matching them if chemistry do occur, so may be you can log in to register your self and find new friends from all over the world."
Not too long ago my dad discovered the wonders of the internet. Previously he only used it for e-mails and probably checked it two or three times a day. Then he got broadband and it just opened up a whole new world of cyber possibilities to him. First of all, he decided to install CCTV cameras in every room of his office so that he could spy on his employees while he is travelling. He even upgraded our broadband quota here from 8GB to 20GB because he couldn't spy properly. No joke. Not too long after, he wanted to pawn off the monthly broadband charges onto me since I just started working. Uh, no, you spy, you pay. Then he decided that he wanted us all in Perth to use webcams and Skype to have a fuller communications experience with them in Kuching. Of course in between that he had discovered MSN Messenger as well so he could keep track of how often me and my brothers were online and also to find out exactly how we have spent our time during the day. Needless to say he was quickly blocked from my list. And now he's discovered online dating sites. Ah, the beauty of modern technology. It's a good thing the younger generation is always a few steps ahead.
Pa... Pa... I don't need an online dating site to meet the ladies. I've already exhausted that avenue and now no reputable online dating site will accept my registration. I've also tried speed dating, group dating, replying to personal ads in the paper and Chinese/Russian/Indian mail order brides. Why, the only thing I haven't tried is actually meeting someone in a normal social setting and getting to know that person over a prolonged period of time and letting the chemistry occur naturally. I know, sounds so outlandish and new-ageish but you got to roll with the times my main father man.
First of all, apologies to the many, many people who have checked and rechecked my blog anticipating the next scintillating entry by yours truly only to be utterly and thoroughly disappointed at my lack of new exciting and entertaining material. I've been rather preoccupied with this little thing called life recently. Fortunately for you, my captive audience, that little flight of fancy has ended and I am yet again trapped in front of this little glowing screen to recount how I have spent my days in the past week or so.
Recently, I found myself hooked onto a little thing I like to call... gambling ridiculous amounts of money away on cards. Boredom is a funny thing. It can cause you to feel extremely sluggish and lazy to do anything at all. It can also drive you to do increasingly stupid things in pursuit of non-boredom. It can even cause you to feel extremely sluggish and lazy to do anything at all except to do increasingly stupid things in pursuit of non-boredom. It was in the third situation I found myself one afternoon, having finished all of my work for the week. I did not want to engage my mind in anything remotely requiring me to think with the logical and analytical part of my brain, so my usual favorites of chess and scrabble were out. So I hopped onto the bandwagon of the increasingly popular texas hold'em poker phenomenon. I started out innocently enough, ruthlessly beating the pants of amateur poker players for large amounts of pretend money. Then, having convinced myself that I was a pro worthy of taking on the world's best, I decided to make a foray into the dark and seedy world of... online poker rooms playing for real money (gasp). Soon I found myself in high stakes games of 1c small blinds and 2c big blinds. The pace was fast. The competition was ruthless. The bets were... tiny. And I was losing copious amounts of cents per minute. So I decided to up the stakes in a bid to regain all the cents I had lost. And I started winning. Winning big. Soon I found myself with a profit of more than 150%. Surely I possessed poker playing abilities far greater than the world had ever seen. Surely I should write my resignation letter now and live the rest of my life cleaning out the bank accounts of the also rans of the online poker gaming community. Then, as quickly as I won all that money, I started losing it until I even lost all the money I put up in the first place. Surely now the disciplined and level headed Thad would throw in the towel and call it a day. Nope. I had checked all that logic and analytical mindedness at the door remember? Of course what else would any idiot do but to bet more money to try to recoup those losses? And me being THE idiot par excellence decided to do just that. Needless to say $500.00 later I regained all my logic and analytical skills and a good dose of remorse with it too (in case it is unclear, it is not a $500.00 gain - it is a $500.00 loss. Do feel free to comment on what a waste of money that was and what 101 better ways that money could have been spent). Although, in retrospect now had I punted with another $500.00 it could have been double or nothing. Hm... what's the site again?
Of course, to many people out there $500.00 is no laughing matter. It could be the difference between a good credit rating and a tarnished one. It could be the difference between having a roof over their head or a night on the street. It could even be the difference between life and death. It's a good thing that I can afford to lose it though, although I wouldn't advise anyone reading this to take such a flippant attitude towards $500.00 unless you are an engineer earning excessive amounts of money. In that case it really isn't such a big deal at all.
It's Tuesday today! Which means there is only two days of work before I fly back to Perth for my weeklong break. This working fortnight has been a real challenge for me, to be totally honest I didn't want to be here at all. I started counting the days till I leave from day one, which is really bad cos I just tend to drag my feet at work. I've become really good at my job actually, these days I can do my job quickly and with the minimum of fuss which I'm proud of myself for. And I know my superiors are happy with my performance too. I do feel that I'm just cruising a bit here, starting to stagnate, getting into my little comfort zone. I don't know why, but I just have this thing in me that makes me dissatisfied whenever I feel like I'm not being challenged. It's a good thing, since I was a child I've always been curious and I love asking questions and learning about how people and things tick, but I've got to learn to just chill out sometimes and not just keep pushing and pushing myself. It's a work in progress.
Having these big blocks of time during the day during which I do absolutely nothing work related has given my mind much freedom to think and reflect on a lot of things. I just hate it when my days are absolutely packed to the point where I don't have the space in time to think. One of my favorite pasttimes is sitting down at my desk or lying on my bed and just thinking about stuff. I get so much done this way. If I don't get my regular thinking time I start to lose perspective and get bogged down by everything that happens around me. It just feels like I'm reacting to situations instead of proactively making things happen. I hate the feeling of just being carried along by the prevailing currents, which is why every now and again I will stand up and question the status quo and try to go against the grain. I have to say, it's my best and worst characteristic. I guess the defining factor is whether I have the wisdom to gauge when the time is to challenge and when the time is to follow. Another work in progress.
Some of you readers who have known me for some time now will know that when I was a teenager (I'm no longer one fortunately/unfortunately) I had the worst cutting tongue. If you think it's bad now... you haven't known me long enough. I used to get immense pleasure from making someone look stupid/making fun of someone with words, I've always been good with words thanks to my parents' endless supply of books for me to read since I was a wee child. I was full of sarcastic & smart-arsed comments and I wasn't afraid to let them fly at every opportunity. I wasn't a pleasant person to talk to in those days. Then there was one night in youth meeting that I remember quite vividly, we were having some worship time and I heard God speak into my heart, "Thad, I want you to be an encourager". And I remember thinking, yeah right, that is so far from what I am right now. But true enough, by and by, somehow this smart mouthed tearer down of people became a person who cares about others and puts in a few words now and then to build them up. And that was all God.
Sadly, I missed out on the latest monthly award. But, as you can see, this person trumps me big time.
Dear Mr. International Terrorist Cell Master,
Following the non-appearance of your jihad soldiers at 0800 yesterday morning at our pre-arranged rendezvous location, my plans to strike and eliminate certain key members of our oppressors lie in ruin. Following decades of ruthless dictatorship and blatant lies to the innocent construction workers of our tiny nation, we were afforded this one-off opportunity to take out these infidels with one surgical assault on their secret hiding place. However, due to your inept organisation we have now lost this chance to end the suffering of our peoples forever. In addition, I will bill to your account these 4 foot wooden stakes we had purchased to impale and display their decapitated heads as a reminder for future generations against the mistreatment of our peoples and our forefathers. You have truly destroyed the dreams of generations of innocent construction workers.
Had your jihad soldiers arrived at the pre-arranged time and place, it would have been as simple as planting plastic explosives on the 2 foot thick lead enty access lock, storming and eliminating the guards in the midst of the confusion and then taking captive these infidels for further 'questioning' at our underground headquarters. Suffice to say they would have a very painful anatomy lesson... the parts of their body that they can and cannot survive with, and the pain associated with removing each of these slowly... with a blunt weapon. This would, in our eyes, be a fitting repayment for the slow and painful process they have put us through in the normally swift undertaking of road construction.
However, you failed miserably despite all of your assurances to the contrary. We had long held the opinion that rogue elite soldiers from secret para-military-para-government-para-intelligence organisations provided far superior service compared to you rabble, but you convinced us with your 50% off vouchers and free demonstrations of your destructive capabilities in democratic countries. So we went along with your organisation against our better judgement only to be proved right by your no show yesterday. Now even the most ineffective of secret para-military-para-government-para-intelligence organisations wish to have nothing to do with us upon discovering our association with your ramshackle group of so called 'professionals'. We are the laughing stock of the entire contracting federation, doomed to yet more generations of slavery and drudgery.
In line with the conditions of our agreement, we have no choice now but to engage the services of the ex-Afgan-ex-Iraqi-ex-Pakistani-ex-Iranian defected logistics agents. They are extremely costly to hire, however at the very least, they managed to demonstrate advanced planning and foresight in transporting and removing what is known to the Western world as WMD from the now US colony of Iraq to the secret offshore location of Hawaii. We will acquire these weapons of mass destruction and unleash them upon these invertebrates once we have demobilised to a safe distance from ground zero. We will also be passing on the costs to you for our week-long meeting with these ex-Afgan-ex-Iraqi-ex-Pakistani-ex-Iranian defected logistics agents in Hawaii. We trust that you will not divulge this information to anyone prior to the execution of this plan B. We do not wish to be forced to unleash the sick and twisted form of biological warfare known only by the top secret code name of 'Mardi Gras' upon your extremely fundamentalist home nations.
Regards, Frustrated Engineer
At 8.30 a.m. this morning my project manager comes into the office and says to me, Thad, have a look at this photo and tell me if you can see the man at work sign. Can you?
Apparently someone's giving us problems cos someone can't see the man at work sign. But, being the fair-minded and non-age-discriminative person that I am, I didn't just want to jump to conclusions and just assume that that someone is having vision problems due to old age, I sent that photo to my boss in Perth to get his opinion.
I guess he's not as non-age-discriminative as me.
(note: if you're wondering who the old bat we're referring to is, check out my previous post about Mr. SS)
Haha... for all those people shocked at the sudden insane twist to my blog, I am not serious/sarcastic all the time. I do unchain the wild horses in my brain sometimes and they run freeee. Freeee. That's the only way I maintain my sanity. I can't believe the week ended up so hectic and busy in the office. It was such a nice and tranquil time that I was having in the beginning, I could actually hear the echoes in the vacant space where my brain is meant to be. Then Mr. Stupid Superintendent decides to start being much more difficult than he normally is. Let me explain.
Normally on a construction project, there is a client. And that client normally hires a consultant to act as a superintendent to the project, which is basically someone who is knowledgable in the field to act on behalf of the client, who normally knows jack squat. It's no different in this project, the only two problems being that the superintendent is TOO knowledgable and the client THINKS that they know more than jack squat. Client is wrong. Superintendent is a pain in the ass. I'll talk more about the superintendent first. Pretentious client later.
Mr. SS (Stupid Superintendent) (now I'm getting a bit insecure about my spelling I better go check that I got it right. It's weird how when you type a word over and over it starts to look strange. Yup it's correct) is 70 years and advancing and has been in the construction industry for a long long time. Long before they used computers. Long before they had GPS. Long before people used logic to make decisions. And in this modern day and age, he has yet to apply these technological advances still (especially the last one). The first day that he got on site, he wasn't wearing bright orange highly visible shit AND decided that it was a wise decision to walk unannounced between two 20 tonne equipment which were in operation at the time. Not a wise move, unless you want to be squished like a bug. Unfortunately for us, he wasn't. Our safety representative on site saw the above indescretion and reported it to the relevant authorities. And as you would expect, the relevant authorities were the same client who employed him. They promptly covered it up and SS got pissed off at the person who dobbed him in. He made it his personal mission to find every possible fault to get rid of the safety rep and now she's gone (refer to my previous post - re: my colleague leaving).
Next paragraph. He seems to take delight in ordering everybody and anybody in sight to do anyting and everything EXCEPT what we've been sent there to do, which is to build a road. Which is fine, except a month later when we bill him for all the extra work and he writes a note back saying he's rejecting it. No reason given whatsoever. Read the contract. Suckers. And he goes on ordering us to do more and more extras for him. Do you think we are going to get paid for those? I don't think sooo. Now it's come to the point where we're on a standoff with him. We're not going to do anymore extra works at all. He's not going to let us do the work that we're supposed to do. Unless we get it certified by Traffic Experts X. Ok you've done that, now check that it's ok with Soil Testers Y. Oh ok, good you've done that, now hop on one leg and sing the Australian national anthem. You get the picture.
You'd think the client would realise that this guy is a few french fries short of a happy meal (I can't remember where I got that saying from, but it's not original) but to our great dismay the client is backing SS 100%. The client also takes great pleasure in teaching us how road construction should be done. Seriously, if you've hired a SS to deal with your road works contractor, then you do not know how to do it. If not, then do it yourself. Don't pay us peanuts and make us jump through hoops before we can do any meaningful work here in your crap ass town. Because we're turning into monkeys. Angry viral monkeys like those in Outbreak. Once every couple of days, the client or one of his compadres comes waltzing through our site and goes out of his way to point out a tiny little mistake that we've done and demand that we rectify it immediately as per the contract bla bla bla omg the whole place is going to explode and people are going to die screaming and writhing if we don't because it's unsafe what if someone walks in and falls into a hole, you haven't closed off all access points to the hole so someone might just walk and not see it and fall in and die. Are you -bleep- ing kidding me? First of all no one is meant to come in without our authorisation. Period. They will be liable for their own injury AND to us as well for trespassing. Secondly, do you seriously think that people would not notice a hole in the ground? At night maybe. Which brings me to my third point. It is a construction site. We dig holes. We put things into holes. We fill up holes. Thats what we do. Any Tom, Dick or Harry will not be allowed to wander around our site. Period. If they do, refer to point one. The client is crazy. Period.
In conclusion, people wonder why an angry Asian male can run around an engineering building and open fire on the professors and other innocent bystanders with two handguns. My answer: he couldn't find a shotgun. And. He. Was. Probably. Going. Crazy. Angry. Crazy.
(disclaimer: for all those idiotic people out there who I know will take this entry seriously and have serious concerns about my mental health and worry that I may start mass murdering innocents and report me to the relevant authorities and God knows what kind of stupid naive knee jerk reaction that you probably will have, you obviously have missed the irony and dry wit that is plastered all over this post. oh, but how could you even entertain such thoughts of killing, how could you make comparisons with recent tragic events in we-all-know-where, don't you have a heart Thad, don't you conform to social norms of silence on sensitive issues and the status quo? I leave that question for you, my dear socially anxious reader, to ponder upon as I crouch silently outside your bedroom window... watching... waiting...)
Been sick the last couple of days, so haven't had the chance to post anything here. The night before I got sick, I stupidly left my phone in the office, so when I woke up the next morning I couldn't call in and let the project manager Ross know about it, in the end I had to send in an e-mail hoping that he got it. Well he didn't, and ended up coming to my room to check up on me, and apparently two other staff didn't come to work as well, so it was a bit of a drama. Ended up sleeping the whole morning, watching some daytime tv and surfing the internet a bit. Fell asleep at around 5 o'clock and woke up with a headache, one of those dull ones that just won't go away. Tried sleeping it off that night but kept waking up every two hours or so and it was still there, and it kept getting worse, so by the time morning came I couldn't even think properly, felt like there were all these random and weird thoughts running amok in my head. Of course I still didn't have my phone so I couldn't ring in again, and I half expected Ross to pop by to see if I was ok so I could catch a ride off him to see the doctor in town but that didn't happen so I just slept and slept and after some time it wasn't that bad anymore so I got up and watched more tv. Ross popped by after work and passed me my phone and asked me how I was doing, at that point the headaches were nearly gone but I felt like throwing up, so I let him know that I might pop in to see the doctor the next day (today). A few minutes after he left my nose started bleeding. I think this is the sickest I've been in quite some time, and it's an ongoing thing, I've been having headaches on and off since I started working up here. Got a bit worried that I might have to be flown back to Perth if things got worse but thank God everything was much better this morning.
Ross reckons that I'm not drinking enough water, and the headaches are from dehydration. He might well be right cos I leave the air-conditioning on all day and night in my room, and it's on most of the time in the office as well, so that hardly helps my hydration levels. That and I never had these headaches when I was in Perth before, so I've got to keep chugging H2O. It's absolutely no fun having the day off or being sick up here, there's absolutely nothing to do. If you don't have any meaningful tasks to keep you occupied up here, time goes extremely slowly, and having that headache meant that all the forms of entertainment that I brought up (books, computer games) were not a viable option. I'm not feeling that great still today, but at least I've got some panadol and some work to keep me occupied. I even went to help out with digging some trenches and using a jumping jack to pack all the soil down, so I'm quite pleased with myself. I think some of the guys are impressed too. Shows that I don't just sit in the office all day doing nothing. Being sick the last few days actually made me more concerned about my own health and fitness, I think I've taken that for granted for most my life. Need to exercise more and have better dietary habits...
Had a busy couple of days, the operations department manager from Perth office came up for a day-long visit to sort out some ongoing issues we're experiencing with the client. Preparing all the necessary paperwork and taking him on a tour of the three sites that we have going on here made the day fly by pretty quickly. Not to mention the meeting that we had with the client at the end dragged on until an hour after we're supposed to finish work. A rather tense experience that I'm not in a hurry to go through again anytime soon. All I'm going to say is, people who can't admit that they are wrong just rub me the wrong way.
On a far more interesting note (to me anyway), I had my performance review with the department manager and project manager yesterday. We went through a checklist of about 30 work related attributes and rated my performance on each one of them. Personally I felt that it was positive, with a lot of good ratings on interpersonal and character attributes and a lot of 'need to improve' ratings on technical and experiencial attributes, which is understandable since I've only been working in the field for three months. We talked a fair bit about what I want to achieve and also where my boss wants to see me develop as well, which helped me a lot in understanding what I am expected to do both short term and long term. Now that I've got a much clearer picture of what I'm mean to do and where I am headed, I don't feel as lost as earlier in the week before and work is much more meaningful to me now. It's really good. Also, it looks like I'm going to get a decent pay rise as well (fingers crossed). Things are just getting better and better. Got to give credit to God for that.
With everything that's been going on, I've hardly had the time to sit in front of the computer and surf idly, let alone blog. Be careful what you wish for...
