Double Trouble

Report from the Field, Wednesday
The school I'm currently working has got some style. In most schools, you'll see signs scattered around that read, “Excel”, “Exceed”, “Succeed”, etc. They don't have those here. Instead, this school's signs just say, “Simplify”.

I didn't think I'd find any interesting rooms in an elementary school, but I guess I was wrong. Today I spent most of my time re-doing the lights in the art room. While the room it's self wasn't that special, the way the tables were organized was rather amusing.

It would seem that the class is divided into a several small groups, each named after a wild animal. The Lions, cheetahs, tigers, elephants, and... zebras. One of these things is not like the other. To make things worse, the zebra table was in the center of the big cats' tables (the elephant table was off to the side). I have to wonder if there is any logic behind which kids sit at each table... I mean do the bad kids get cycled to the prey table? Or perhaps the sickliest ones, or the ones with the weakest spirits are permanently assigned there?

On that note, what of the other tables? Twitchy kids at the cheetah table? Cool kids at the tigers? Lazy boys, and applied girls as the lions? Fat kids at the elephants? One can only hope. If the teacher is not fully utilizing the potential of their table organization system, I will be quite disappointed. One things for sure, though: If I ever end up teaching little kids, I will definitely use an organization system like this. The amount of amusement that could be had a youngins' expense is just too much to pass up.

On a more work-related note, I seem to be getting a little quicker at this retrofitting (or “conversion”, as it's apparently called) stuff. I was able to complete 19 fixtures tonight. I may have only beaten last night's number by one, but I also spent more time doing other tasks. I can certainly see me getting to be pretty good at this crap.

Report from the Field, Thursday
What a joke. There was some admin confusion regarding our storage facility. One way or another, it delayed my crew getting to the school by 3 hours. When we finally got there and opened up the truck, our TL (not the same TL from Texas) realized that there was too much waste material in the back to really access our good materials. Because of this, we had to drive to our dump site and offload all of the crap, costing us another 2 hours.

When we finally were able to unload at the school, some of the project developers decided to show up for an inspection. Between the walkthrough and the safety meeting that followed, my crew and I found ourselves out yet another 1.5 hours.

You'd think that would be enough, but fate apparently would disagree. Shortly after the project developers left, my TL got a call from our manager. It would seem that the TL of the other team decided that it would be a good idea to show up to work, drunk. When the developers peeked in on the other school, they noticed that he reeked of alcohol. Being drunk on the job site is a pretty big no-no, so that TL has been relieved of his position. To fill the void, the fastest worker from my team has been transferred to the other crew. Forsooth.

Once all of the confusion ended, there were only 2 hours left in the work day. My TL lookd at the clock, and said, “Fuck it. We're not installing lights today”. Instead, we just spent the rest of the day prepping the conversion kits for Monday. Why not.

Tales of Yore
Yeah, not today. You already got two days worth of crap here.

Off the Clock
Yay hooray, coming home for the weekend. And what a weekend it will be... I woke up at 3pm on Thursday. I'll be heading home shortly after getting back from work (~4am Friday). As in, I'll be driving to Atlanta. I should get in around 7-8am. At 10pm, there is a concert that I want to go to, and at 8am Saturday, there is a 36hr charity event that I'll be participating in.

I'm not entirely sure when the best time for sleep is going to be. I could sleep when I first get home, but that would put me off-schedule for the 36hr event happening 24 hours later. If I wait until after the show to sleep, I will only be getting 6-7 hours of sleep, in a 67hr span. I can probably do it, but it wont be fun. Oh well... I guess it will make for an interesting challenge. This is your favorite, wire-strippin', bracket-assemblin', soon-to-be-delirious ottah fawks wishing you a good morning, good afternoon, and goodnight.

P.S. If your in the mood for some fun (but incredibly spastic) music, check out Negaren's (Renard) new album, Jack.