8 posts tagged “work stories”
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
Meh... I'm over it. More later.
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)
[Chorus]
I am going crazy
Just when I thought I said all I could say
I came up with more crazy stuff today
I am going crazy
All this work that I've got to do
I guess I gotta give part 2 of me going crazy
If I'm going crazy then I've got to blog it all
I'll chuck a sad if I get another phone call
All this work that I don't want to do
Instead I'll give you part two of me going crazy
[Verse 1]
Now this gon' be the hardest thing I think I ever had to do
Got me talkin' to myself askin' how I'm gon' get through
Handling all those people I gotta deal with, deal with
Scan all these documents and then email it
The first thing that came to mind was flu
Second thing was how do I convince them I'm sick and that it's true
Third thing was me wishin' that I never did what I did
Sign that AWA and get stuck in all this shit
[Chorus]
[Verse 2]
Stuck here for another ten days, tryna figure out
How I can restrain myself from breaking down and shout
-ing at all those idiots
But I need to stop bitchin', complainin'
Be a man and get it over with (over with)
I'm typing really fast
Forming all these words
Putting them together
They are starting to look weird
I open up Microsoft Outlook and click on new e-mail
Then attach all my work and send it with some CCs
[Chorus]
[Breakdown]
This by far is the craziest thing I think I've ever had to do
To tell you, my faithful readers
That I'm writing a song on my blog, about me going crazy
I hope you can imagine the words of this song as alternative lyrics
With the music of confessions part II by Usher
This ain't about my work
This ain't about my lack of sleep
It's about my sanity
Please
[Chorus]
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...)
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...
I know I've been sounding rather discontent of late. I'm over it now, this morning I woke up dragging my feet into the shower, and then dragging them out again to get dressed and then I decided if I'm going to be miserable I might as well get it over and done with, so I allowed myself to be totally and utterly unhappy for about a minute and then got on with things and I'm feeling much better now that I've gotten it out of my system. The person that suggested that to me is genius.
One of my colleagues is leaving the job. Well, this past week has seen a spate of unfortunate events. First off, my project manager was struck down with pancreatitis last week while on his time off, then one of the machine operators had to be flown to Perth to be checked out for heart palpitations, and another one is due to fly out tomorrow to have CAT scans done as well, and now the safety officer has been forced out by the client. We're having a farewell dinner for her tonight, which means lots of beer, red meat and the possibility of being served by scantily clad women. Well, there aren't scantily clad women there all the time, I've been lucky enough to avoid such an awkward situation the last time I went to the pub as apparently the last one went out but the new one hadn't arrived yet. It was fun the last time I went though, I discovered that I have an innate talent for darts, although it just might be that my colleagues had more to drink than me the last time around.
On a brighter note, my project manager has recovered and is back on the job for the first time today. He's the main guy getting things moving around here, so the boredom will soon dissipate and things will start ticking like clockwork again. His de facto partner is back as well, she's the person who cleans and organises everything around the office, and is a general cheery influence on all the staff. It's good to have them back, the job is much more pleasant to work on with them around and the job's going to get done much faster which means that I'll be able to get the hell out of this place much sooner. The people that we have to work with (or more specifically cater to their every whim and fancy) on the client's side are absolutely horrendous. They just have nothing better to do at all than to walk around the site and to pick up the tiniest things that they think we've done wrong and hold up our work until we perform the most ludicrous safety measures which consume unreasonable amounts of time. Seriously, you'd think that a 70 year old civil consultant and a 40 year old department manager would have better uses for their time than to walk up and down a 2 kilometre long site every other day inspecting every little nook and cranny for our mistakes. Damn, I hate it when stupid people are in charge.
