Frenotx: *smirks* "Always" *Draws, opens, flips, and offers the knife, handle first*
Coworker: "Thanks!" *Turns, and uses knife to open a can of beans*
Frenotx :O
Coworker: *Returns the knife, horrible nicked blade and all.* "Thanks again, man"
Frenotx: *Sullenly looks down at the mauled blade, and makes a quiet whimper....*
I apologize in advance for the absurd length of this post. I couldn't type anything last night (My hands were really sore), so Wednesday and Thursday got lumped together. On top of that, a bunch of shit went down on both days.
Report from the Field, Wednesday
One of the the primary, ongoing complaints from UCSA about my crew's work is dust. What are we talking about? Dust. We're not talking about broken equipment. We're not talking about us destroying the experiments that these researchers pour their hearts and souls into. We're talking about dust. Dust. Now, I know we're supposed to be neat. I know we're supposed to put down drop cloths. But man, we're talking about dust! Why the hell is the relamping crew supposed to clean up every single speck of dust, when the custodians are going to be payed to clean it up less than 24 hours from now?!
With that in mind, you can imagine how I felt when the primary security escort called a meeting today. Oh great. More talk about dust. Much to my surprise, however, today's topic was not about barely-perceptible amounts of dirt. It was in fact about something far more dire.
As I said before, my team is currently working in the dental ward. Well, apparently one of the fixtures we worked on was not fully clipped back in place, and burst open in the middle of the day. This wouldn't normally be that big of a deal, but this particular fixture happen to be in one of the dental practice rooms. A practice room that was occupied by a doctor. A doctor who, at the time, had a drill in a patient's mouth. Yeah....
While I personally couldn't help but find this a little amusing, UCSA didn't seem to share my sentiments. Naturally, the facility (and the be-drilled patient) were rather displeased about this. The security escort tells us that they are SO displeased, that if there are any other complaints- any- then the project will be scrapped, and everyone will be sent home. Relamping is srs bsns.
After delivering this glum news, the security escort seemed to brighten up. My coworkers and I joke about this guy being either bipolar, a werewolf, or both, so know that when I say he "brightened up", I really mean it. With a big grin, he tells us that we have finally been approved to work on Fridays. Yippee hooray! Finally, when the project is on the very brink of cancellation, my crew and I can begin to work a full week! I'm still a bit skeptical about the whole thing, but excited none-the-less.
Anyways, with the meeting out of the way, my team got to work. I was assigned to the very promising-looking lecture hall. The sheer number of fixtures was a sight to look at, so I was pretty stoked to get going. Unfortunately, a closer look revealed that all of the fixtures were 2-lampers, and their lenses were extremely unreliable. At one point, one of then lenses actually fell on me as I was climbing up to it, and managed to preform a perfect judo-chop across my right shoulder. By the time I finished that room, I was starting to get rather flustered.
Thankfully, the security escort that was, well, escorting me seemed to notice this. The next area he sent me to was a bonifide gold mine. I was assigned an entire wing of the infamous dental practice rooms. While these rooms do require an increased amount of caution and attention to detail, the outrageous density of lamps more than makes up for it. Each of the little rooms has 3, 4-lamp fixtures in it. :) Seeing all of these lights seemed to thoroughly fire me back up, and put me into a veritable light-changing frenzy. Light's were practically flying out of my hands, and into the ceiling. To give you an idea of this madness, I was able to put in 98 lamps in less than 45 minutes.
Thanks to my end-of-the-night rampage, I was able to put in a total of 569 lamps- more than anyone else on the team. That brings my mvp count to 3. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I'm starting to thing that my good nights are not entirely a product of good luck. It's crazy, I know, but I think I'm finally starting to figure this relamping business out.
Report from the Field, Thursday
Crazy lab stuff of the day: the dental building was the last place I expected to get anything from. Today's find affirmed my belief that I am in fact relamping for umbrealla ella ella ay ay ay... corp. Get this: my security escort leads me to what looks like a maid's closet. When he opens it, it is a hallway instead of a closet. The two of us walk 5'-6' or so, then take a sharp right turn. Around this corner is windowless door with a single warning lable: Biohazard- Human cells. My sucurity escort opens the door and tells me, "All right man, just call me when you're done."
I walk through the door and find myself in what appears to be a mid-sized genetics lab (judging by the amount of gel electrophoresis machines). In the dental section. Ok... I start changing the lights. As I get towards the back, I find myself next to a large fume hood with a big-ass radiation symbol. Whatever. It wasn't on the door warning, but radiation ain't no thing.
I get to the end of the room, and find that there is infact a door to another lab area. I walk in there, and start relapming it. This room is chock full of computers and centrifuges. Ok. Centrifuges are used in genetic research. No big surprise here. As I finish up that room, I find yet another door. I walk through this, and find myself in an absolutely massive lab. The fuck? Why is this in a in the closet, of a closet, of a lab, that's in a closet? What's going on here?
Before I start relamping this area, I walk around and survey the room. Attached to this big-ass lab, there is another mid-sized lab in the back, several storage rooms, and a dark room. All in a broom closet. Why not.
I also notice that there is some fucked-up shit being stored on the main floor. In the center of the room, there is this big array of boxes and fridges. The boxes all turn out to be fire-proof, flammable material storage crates, and the fridges all turn out to be biohazardous material storage. Except one. The fridge in the very center was labeled to be a storage compartment for explosive biohazardous material. I don't even know...
Oh yeah, and the lab in the very back had a bunch of mice in it, and a huge array of microwaves. In the dental section. I didn't see a single fucking tooth in here, in this super-secret lab-within-a-lab-withing-a-lab-withing a broom closet. Umbrella corp... I think they're making boomer zombies or something.
Contrary to everyone's worst fears, the project has yet to be scrapped. There are a few people on this team who's work ethic is... lacking, and the rest of the crew was pretty confident that they'd end up screwing us. Thankfully, the questionable relampers have yet to make any utterly catastrophic mistakes. Sure they've broken a ton of lamps, but they haven't caused any more patients to get their faces drilled, or destroyed any million-dollar pieces of equipment.
With the exception of everyone's relief at finding we haven't been fired, the morning was pretty standard. My crew and I had already loaded the trucks up with supplies the previous night, so we were able to get straight to business. I started out back in the dental practice rooms, so I was able to get a good solid start.
Unfortunately, those rooms dried up pretty fast. Before I knew it, I was looking for another job assignment. Much to my disappointment, I was given the task of relamping the lobby area. While there are a lot of lights in there, the ceiling is too high for me to use my standard 6' ladder. Things are further complicated by the fact that the lobby area uses a different type of lamp from the standard.
Despite all that, I was still able to keep the lamps rolling. Hauling that 8' ladder around burned a good bit more energy, but everything seemed to be going Ok......
.....You know what? I don't feel like going into great detail about how the day went. I'm getting drunker by the minute, and I've got a bunch of other shit to cover. In summary, I put in 525 lamps. Not great, but sufficient. Anyways, the interesting stuff didn't start until the relamping was done for the night.
Caution: I seem to have an increasing shortage of sleep, and surplus of inebriation. I apologize for my shitty writing.
After everybody was finished loading their bad lamps onto pallets, the crew leader called everyone together for a meeting. Apparently, a couple (two guys, specifically) of the guys have been half-assing their jobs, and due to their half-assery, fixtures are starting to fall open. The earlier mentioned face-drilling incident was just the beginning.
Tonight, a member of the cleaning crew told the team leader that he had noticed an open fixture on one of the floors we'd already hit. With the threat of project closure still hanging in the air, the team lead (TL, from now in) naturally went to investigate. When he took a closer look at some of our previously covered stuff, TL noticed that a good number of the fixtures were improperly secured. This made TL nervous.
TL's response to this? Utilize our newly-acquired Friday work day to require everyone to walk throughout the building with stick, poking all of the fixture to make sure they're affixed properly. Here's the trick: My crew and I get payed per lamp installed, not fixture poked. So TL is trying to get us to poke a bunch of fixtures, for free, because two of our teammates are fuck-ups who are incapable of changing lightbulbs. Really? REALLY?! To hell with that.
The crew (By the way, when I say "The crew", I am referring to the non-fuckup guys. Myself, and 4 of the other orriginals. TL and the moron-cousins are not included). Anyways, the crew and I have decided that this is some bullshit. Everyone is drinking and shooting the shit tonight, with absolutely no intention of going into work tomorrow. Seriously. To hell with that.
"About the Author" sounds silly, and implies that I will always use this section to write about myself. "Off the Clock" has a much better sound to it, and leaves me free to write about whatever the hell I want to.
I like to drink on occasion. When I do, my ability to write diminishes. This is one of those times. Since this post is already way too fucking long, I'll keep this very short.
My crew has just decided to start calling me switch. They say it's because I can open my knife so fast that it may as well be a switchblade, and that I can can adapt to situations so fast that it's like someone flipped a switch. I'm ok with this because switch is a pretty cool name, and nicknames are fun.
So anyways, this is your favorite, rather intoxicated, somewhat pissed off, increasingly tired, and decreasingly employed ottah-fox wishing you a good morning, good afternoon, and good night. Or something. WHARGARBLE!
P.S. My paycheck just posted for this week: ~$270.00. Fuckin' medical expenses...
This whole relamping operation seems extremely volatile. I'm curious how much longer it's going to last.
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