Daniel called Brad gay today...but in spanish, so Brad wouldn't catch it. He said it to Jaime, and I caught it as I walked up. Basically the only word I heard as I walked up was "mariposa," which means butterfly; but when applied to a guy, means he's gay. We all laughed about it and Brad looked confused and just about freaked out. "Guys! What did he say?! Grant!" It was pretty funny.
I was kinda annoyed with Daniel today though. This morning Lawrence said to get a three man crew and get on wiz nutting. Daniel said okay, and then picked his crew. "Richard and Derek.........no.......Brad and Derek!" Brad high fived me and took off. I was like, "Dang it." It kinda bugged me, cause not only is Daniel keen to patronize me, but he's overwhemingly talkative and insists that his way is the only correct (and quickest) method to do anything. I try to be nice and just do what he says, and then be over-gracious about him being such a great mentor. It's worked alright so far, but it's taken a lot of self-control not to talk back to him. I'm afraid that in life confrontaion just leads to horrible consequences later on. I therefore try to remain polite, despite any horrible manners anyone I happen to associate with might have.
I ended up working with Felipe most all day long, punching holes. He worked on one of the Axxessor lifts (similar to the Genie lifts I have described in the past). I stood on the scaffolding, handing him the tools and peices he needed to punch the holes. The I-beams were too high up for the scaffolding to reach, so that's why he needed to use the Axxessor. About halfway through the day Alfredo joined us on another Axxessor, and we all worked on the hole-punching, which went faster with two on the lifts.
Lawrence informed us this morning that Alfredo and a few others got wasted last night and didn't want to come in to work today. They got home this morning at 1am and were still kinda drunk while at work this morning. You could smell the alcohol on Alfredo's breath, and I think I heard Gerard talking to him about it, but it was more joking than anything else; or so it seemed to me. It's sad to see that...people shouldn't do that to themselves. But there's little you can do if they don't want to stop.
Fernando almost killed me a few times today, while I was on the scaffold. One time I was standing up, not grasping any of the sidebars, but actually using both of my hands to lift the extremely heavy hole punch to hand to Felipe. Suddenly the scaffold started to move closer to Felipe (even though it was already close enough) and I almost lost my balance. Luckily Felipe yelled at him soon enough that I didn't fall completely over, and was able to catch myself. Another time, Alfredo was calling for some bolts, and I climbed up on the scaffold to grab them and then shimmied my way between the bars and the grids. I got between them and sat on the table taped to the corner of the scaffold. As soon as I turned around to toss the bolts to Alfredo, the scaffold started to move. Having only about a foot of clearance between the grids and the top of the table, I quickly sprung myself out of the death-trap--luckily the scaffold was moving in the direction I needed it to move so I could escape. It wouldn't have been so scary if Fernando would actually listen the first time I yell to him to stop--even the first three times. But he's practically deaf when it comes to taking orders from the scaffold crew. That can be dangerous, as is now obvious.
Another time, the air compressor that was strapped to the table, and too tall to fit underneath the grids. We suddenly were moving underneath the grids and I looked over to see the compressor being violently slid along the table, strapped down, and ready to do some major damage if I didn't stop it moving quick. I yelled three or four times to get Geneva and Fernando to stop, but finally Alfredo yelled and they stopped. Wonder why? It really got on my nerves. There were a bunch of close calls with me today, and it's because Fernando does not communicate. He doesn't ever listen closely to orders, and he never tells the guys on top when he's moving the scaffold. I could have been seriously injured today. Thank goodness I wasn't. Holy crap...
At lunch I heard the record for most f-words I've ever had the pleasure of listening to in one five-minute period. Some lady was talking about some guy who harassed her or something--I don't really want to go into detail--but she seriously used the f-word in the place of every possible adjective. Anywhere in her sentences an adjective should go, I heard "f***ing!" And it wasn't just any normal adjective space...she'd insert them anywhere she pleased. ...And it was all grammatically correct!
So today was kinda boring. I got 11 hours of sleep and was still dozing off during the first shift. During the second break I sang Taking Back Sunday songs and Brand New songs to keep myself awake. It worked pretty well and I wasn't tired after that. The only entertaining thing today really, was when Fernando was standing on the floor, minding his own business and Alfredo kept dropping peices of plaster (the plaster they use to coat the I-beams) on his head and he couldn't figure out what it was. Everytime Fernando almost killed me or something, Alfredo would look at me and roll his eyes, hinting his opinion that Fernando was a complete moron.
Hmm....wow.
Quote of the Day:
"Fruit-Salad-Guy is my hero and I think he's homeless...doesn't it look like he's homeless?"
-Skye
Monday, July 31, 2006
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Day 25: Ninjas or Pirates?
Note: I had to publish this today, even though I'm writing about Friday (yesterday).
Ninjas or Pirates? That's been the question plaguing us all day. I say Pirates, but Brad says Ninjas. It's a simple question at first, but upon further investigation, reveals a deeper and more meaningful dilemma. Which ones are more dominate? Sure Ninjas can throw stars and stealthily assassinate anybody they really want, but Pirates have their own ships and engage in swashbuckling adventures. Sure Pirates have treasure and eye-patches, but Ninjas can get super pissed and supposedly they're pretty good at wailing on guitars (thanks to www.realultimatepower.net). There are a plethora of arguments, and I swear we've heard them all day. Brad and I asked just about everyone at Brycon during work today. We're not quite sure if this question will ever be answered...
I actually didn't work all day. I had a doctor appointment this morning at 8:30 to see if my constant stomach aches were caused by an ulcer. Turns out they are, lucky for me... Anyway, I didn't get in to work until noonish. IM Flash Technologies was hosting a free lunch for all the contractors working in the facility. Goodwood catering provided the food, which was superb. A nice meal to make me feel better after getting the bad news.
I have to stay off soda and caffeine and crap like that or it won't ever heal. My mom thinks it's going to be hard and I'll have headaches all the time for the next few weeks and stuff. So far I've been going 3 or 4 days and I've been fine. The hardest part is finding someting else to drink when I'm thirsty. There's nothing at my house except sprite and water, which sucks. I haven't had a problem really. I drink all kinds of juices and water and stuff and there's really no problem. This should be easier than my mom says, but we'll see.
After lunch I worked with Brad and Derek, pushing the scaffold around, and wiz nutting. At lunch is when I popped the question, cause I was thinking about a cool-sounding RPG online game I discovered the other night, called Pirates of the Burning Sea. So I asked Brad what he thought about Ninjas vs. Pirates, since that's a funny debate going on with everyone. I didn't ever actually get to explain why I asked the question until a few hours later.
Skye probably worked in the pass-thru all day, but I never asked really what he did. I can usually assume he'll just work in the pass-thru. That's kinda his place.
It was Griffin's last day and it being so, he never showed up. Makes sense, I mean, Quinn didn't show up on his last day. I kinda don't want to either, but Brad and I will probably go, since we don't want to let Lawrence down like that. I kinda wish Griffin would have come though. Oh well.
So that was basically what we did and there's not much more to say, since I was only there half the day.
I just have two words though....Kiera Knightley
Quote of the Day:
Brad: "Lawrence, Ninjas or Pirates?"
Lawrence: "Pirates. They have guns and can be far away and kill the Ninjas."
Brad: "Why? Ninjas are so much faster than Pirates. What if one comes up behind the Pirate and cuts his throat?"
Lawrence: "Pirates come back to life all the time. There's probably tons of dead Pirates all over the place."
Ninjas or Pirates? That's been the question plaguing us all day. I say Pirates, but Brad says Ninjas. It's a simple question at first, but upon further investigation, reveals a deeper and more meaningful dilemma. Which ones are more dominate? Sure Ninjas can throw stars and stealthily assassinate anybody they really want, but Pirates have their own ships and engage in swashbuckling adventures. Sure Pirates have treasure and eye-patches, but Ninjas can get super pissed and supposedly they're pretty good at wailing on guitars (thanks to www.realultimatepower.net). There are a plethora of arguments, and I swear we've heard them all day. Brad and I asked just about everyone at Brycon during work today. We're not quite sure if this question will ever be answered...
I actually didn't work all day. I had a doctor appointment this morning at 8:30 to see if my constant stomach aches were caused by an ulcer. Turns out they are, lucky for me... Anyway, I didn't get in to work until noonish. IM Flash Technologies was hosting a free lunch for all the contractors working in the facility. Goodwood catering provided the food, which was superb. A nice meal to make me feel better after getting the bad news.
I have to stay off soda and caffeine and crap like that or it won't ever heal. My mom thinks it's going to be hard and I'll have headaches all the time for the next few weeks and stuff. So far I've been going 3 or 4 days and I've been fine. The hardest part is finding someting else to drink when I'm thirsty. There's nothing at my house except sprite and water, which sucks. I haven't had a problem really. I drink all kinds of juices and water and stuff and there's really no problem. This should be easier than my mom says, but we'll see.
After lunch I worked with Brad and Derek, pushing the scaffold around, and wiz nutting. At lunch is when I popped the question, cause I was thinking about a cool-sounding RPG online game I discovered the other night, called Pirates of the Burning Sea. So I asked Brad what he thought about Ninjas vs. Pirates, since that's a funny debate going on with everyone. I didn't ever actually get to explain why I asked the question until a few hours later.
Skye probably worked in the pass-thru all day, but I never asked really what he did. I can usually assume he'll just work in the pass-thru. That's kinda his place.
It was Griffin's last day and it being so, he never showed up. Makes sense, I mean, Quinn didn't show up on his last day. I kinda don't want to either, but Brad and I will probably go, since we don't want to let Lawrence down like that. I kinda wish Griffin would have come though. Oh well.
So that was basically what we did and there's not much more to say, since I was only there half the day.
I just have two words though....Kiera Knightley
Quote of the Day:
Brad: "Lawrence, Ninjas or Pirates?"
Lawrence: "Pirates. They have guns and can be far away and kill the Ninjas."
Brad: "Why? Ninjas are so much faster than Pirates. What if one comes up behind the Pirate and cuts his throat?"
Lawrence: "Pirates come back to life all the time. There's probably tons of dead Pirates all over the place."
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Day 24: Badges?! We Don't Need No Stinking Badges!
My stomach felt better today; that's good. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at 8:30am to figure out what's wrong. So I'm going in to work later on, around lunchtime to finish of the day. ...So yeah, looking forward to that...
I lost my badge this morning, and was a little late to clock in. I never found the badge, unfortunately, and now it's really starting to bug me. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to find it, or even where it would be. I probably dropped it on my way home yesterday and I'll never see it again. Woe is me! ...So I got a temporary ID and felt pretty dumb about it all day.
I walked by something that made me laugh today. There was an area probably 20 feet by 30 feet taped off with Danger tape, that had signs posted reading, "Do Not Enter, Level 4 Protocol." It just happened to be in the middle of the FAB, completely surrounded by the Level 3 area. To me, it didn't look much different than anywhere else in the clean room--definitely not any cleaner. But they were installing vents in the ceiling grids or something, so that being Level 4 work, I guess it made sense to label it Level 4. I just imagined those areas being separated from everything else, so as to create a cleaner environment, but there isn't much of a difference now.
Speaking of Level 4, there's a new gowning room on the opposite side of the FAB, where we can all gown up in the full "bunny" suits pretty soon. It's cool cause there are large heavy strips of plastic that hang down and overlap, and you have to push them out of the way to get through the doors. Brad and I just walk right through them though, without even moving them out of the way first. Brad does it cause he's Magneto, and I do it cause it's like the Terminator. We're nerds, but what can I say? Work gets boring sometimes...if you don't pretend you're Magneto, you start to lose your mind...
I worked all day with Daniel and Derek, wiz nutting. When I was spotting, I was falling asleep on my feet, but when I was actually wiz nutting, I had like, no energy and felt like crap. That was until the first break though. After the break I felt better and more awake. I had no problem with staying awake while I was working or spotting, and it went by much smoother.
Brad worked with Alfredo all day, punching holes in the complete opposite end of the FAB. I couldn't even really hear the hole-punch, that's how far away they were. He worked with Fernando and Geneva, who pushed him around while he and Alfredo punched holes. We're getting pretty close to having all the grids we've hung levelled, wiz nutted, and caulked, and we're hanging more grid soon too. Although we have an incredible amount of grid in the ceiling, Lawrence claims that we still have 2/3 of the grid still to hang. That just sounds crazy to me, since I swear that there isn't that much more room left to expand into. Now we have a nice square clean room, but we've still got areas surrounding the whole FAB that will eventually be moved into and turned into the clean room as well as the portions we already have.
I'm not quite sure what Skye and Griffin did today. I never work with them any longer, so I never have much of an idea of their activities on a day to day basis. They usually both work at the pass-thrus, but occasionally are in the clean room, and they've been split up to work at different pass-thrus before. I'm sad, though, since tomorrow's Griffin's last day. I'm sad to see him go, cause we've gotten to be better friends while working at Brycon. I never really knew him that well during high school, even though we were on a friendly basis. I'm definitely glad he decided to join us at work though.
Brad brought his iPod today to watch Nacho Libre during the breaks, and he and Griffin watched it while they ate. I was jealous, and kinda disappointed, since Brad said he brought it for me to watch during break, and I never actually got to see it. Oh well, no biggie.
After we finished the wiz nuts at about 2pm, Derek and I pushed Daniel around while he speed-caulked. That's what I like to call it. Instead of wheeling him to a spot and he caulks it, then we move him again, we just keep wheeling him, he stays in one spot on the scaffolding and it's one continuous line of caulking. It moves a lot faster, despite quick pauses to get past the wires and grid intersections.
So about halfway through the third shift, Lawrence gave me and Brad walkie-talkies. I asked him what for and he just shrugged his shoulders and chuckled, saying, "I dunno...communication?" I was like, duh... Anyway, Brad's walkie-talkie was in the mode where it just stays on all the time, so I could hear his conversations with Fernando and Geneva while they were putting hardware together all the way accross the FAB. It was fun to watch them and hear their conversation from so far away. It was kinda weird to watch, but it kept me entertained for a while. Then I went and fixed it, and talked to Brad about stuff, including how we needed to clean off the scaffolding we used yesterday, cause we ran out of time during cleanup yesterday.
Pedro farted today in the gowning room and Jayson raced out, gasping for air, closely followed by Pedro, who obviously didn't want to be in the company of his own bodily gases. Everyone's noses were curling and they had disgusted looks on their faces. Sometimes I'm grateful that I've got a cold...couldn't smell a thing. Another time I saw Pedro lying, spread-eagle, on the tile floor, next to the weird circle laser thingy. He's a crazy guy...a little messed up in the head, methinks.
So I was minding my own business and Lawrence asked me to come over and take a look at something Brad and I did yesterday. Apparently, we had accidentally installed a block on the I-beam exactly one foot to the left of where it was supposed to be. At first I admit that I thought it was Fernando's fault, because he was the one who set the laser, and we drill the holes where he puts the laser. That just didn't make sense though...why would he set the laser in some random spot? Anyway, I remembered a time when I thought Brad was drilling in the wrong spot, but the dot that I thought was the one he'd made just turned out to be a spot of dirt. So I figured that he had messed up the dots and drilled it a little further down than he was supposed to. It was weird. Neither he, nor I, quite understood what happened. Lawrence chuckled and said it was just something funny to laugh about later. I hoped that the extra dots wouldn't ruin the integrity of the beam, but he assured me that the I-beams would look like swiss cheese by the end of the project, with all the holes they needed to drill for all the components and stuff. Unusually enough, it didn't reassure me as it should have. There's just something about holy steel that doesn't comfort me.
Anyway, work was surprisingly pleasant today, despite my self-diagnosed 5am depression. I get up in the morning and feel like I'm going to die of waking up so early. I doubt that I can even function, let alone work for the next 10 hours. It really sucks, but work is never as bad as it seems when I wake up--which is good...
Quote of the Day:
Grant: "Lawrence, Alfredo almost ruined everything, but I stopped him and saved the day!"
Lawrence: "It happens..."
I lost my badge this morning, and was a little late to clock in. I never found the badge, unfortunately, and now it's really starting to bug me. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to find it, or even where it would be. I probably dropped it on my way home yesterday and I'll never see it again. Woe is me! ...So I got a temporary ID and felt pretty dumb about it all day.
I walked by something that made me laugh today. There was an area probably 20 feet by 30 feet taped off with Danger tape, that had signs posted reading, "Do Not Enter, Level 4 Protocol." It just happened to be in the middle of the FAB, completely surrounded by the Level 3 area. To me, it didn't look much different than anywhere else in the clean room--definitely not any cleaner. But they were installing vents in the ceiling grids or something, so that being Level 4 work, I guess it made sense to label it Level 4. I just imagined those areas being separated from everything else, so as to create a cleaner environment, but there isn't much of a difference now.
Speaking of Level 4, there's a new gowning room on the opposite side of the FAB, where we can all gown up in the full "bunny" suits pretty soon. It's cool cause there are large heavy strips of plastic that hang down and overlap, and you have to push them out of the way to get through the doors. Brad and I just walk right through them though, without even moving them out of the way first. Brad does it cause he's Magneto, and I do it cause it's like the Terminator. We're nerds, but what can I say? Work gets boring sometimes...if you don't pretend you're Magneto, you start to lose your mind...
I worked all day with Daniel and Derek, wiz nutting. When I was spotting, I was falling asleep on my feet, but when I was actually wiz nutting, I had like, no energy and felt like crap. That was until the first break though. After the break I felt better and more awake. I had no problem with staying awake while I was working or spotting, and it went by much smoother.
Brad worked with Alfredo all day, punching holes in the complete opposite end of the FAB. I couldn't even really hear the hole-punch, that's how far away they were. He worked with Fernando and Geneva, who pushed him around while he and Alfredo punched holes. We're getting pretty close to having all the grids we've hung levelled, wiz nutted, and caulked, and we're hanging more grid soon too. Although we have an incredible amount of grid in the ceiling, Lawrence claims that we still have 2/3 of the grid still to hang. That just sounds crazy to me, since I swear that there isn't that much more room left to expand into. Now we have a nice square clean room, but we've still got areas surrounding the whole FAB that will eventually be moved into and turned into the clean room as well as the portions we already have.
I'm not quite sure what Skye and Griffin did today. I never work with them any longer, so I never have much of an idea of their activities on a day to day basis. They usually both work at the pass-thrus, but occasionally are in the clean room, and they've been split up to work at different pass-thrus before. I'm sad, though, since tomorrow's Griffin's last day. I'm sad to see him go, cause we've gotten to be better friends while working at Brycon. I never really knew him that well during high school, even though we were on a friendly basis. I'm definitely glad he decided to join us at work though.
Brad brought his iPod today to watch Nacho Libre during the breaks, and he and Griffin watched it while they ate. I was jealous, and kinda disappointed, since Brad said he brought it for me to watch during break, and I never actually got to see it. Oh well, no biggie.
After we finished the wiz nuts at about 2pm, Derek and I pushed Daniel around while he speed-caulked. That's what I like to call it. Instead of wheeling him to a spot and he caulks it, then we move him again, we just keep wheeling him, he stays in one spot on the scaffolding and it's one continuous line of caulking. It moves a lot faster, despite quick pauses to get past the wires and grid intersections.
So about halfway through the third shift, Lawrence gave me and Brad walkie-talkies. I asked him what for and he just shrugged his shoulders and chuckled, saying, "I dunno...communication?" I was like, duh... Anyway, Brad's walkie-talkie was in the mode where it just stays on all the time, so I could hear his conversations with Fernando and Geneva while they were putting hardware together all the way accross the FAB. It was fun to watch them and hear their conversation from so far away. It was kinda weird to watch, but it kept me entertained for a while. Then I went and fixed it, and talked to Brad about stuff, including how we needed to clean off the scaffolding we used yesterday, cause we ran out of time during cleanup yesterday.
Pedro farted today in the gowning room and Jayson raced out, gasping for air, closely followed by Pedro, who obviously didn't want to be in the company of his own bodily gases. Everyone's noses were curling and they had disgusted looks on their faces. Sometimes I'm grateful that I've got a cold...couldn't smell a thing. Another time I saw Pedro lying, spread-eagle, on the tile floor, next to the weird circle laser thingy. He's a crazy guy...a little messed up in the head, methinks.
So I was minding my own business and Lawrence asked me to come over and take a look at something Brad and I did yesterday. Apparently, we had accidentally installed a block on the I-beam exactly one foot to the left of where it was supposed to be. At first I admit that I thought it was Fernando's fault, because he was the one who set the laser, and we drill the holes where he puts the laser. That just didn't make sense though...why would he set the laser in some random spot? Anyway, I remembered a time when I thought Brad was drilling in the wrong spot, but the dot that I thought was the one he'd made just turned out to be a spot of dirt. So I figured that he had messed up the dots and drilled it a little further down than he was supposed to. It was weird. Neither he, nor I, quite understood what happened. Lawrence chuckled and said it was just something funny to laugh about later. I hoped that the extra dots wouldn't ruin the integrity of the beam, but he assured me that the I-beams would look like swiss cheese by the end of the project, with all the holes they needed to drill for all the components and stuff. Unusually enough, it didn't reassure me as it should have. There's just something about holy steel that doesn't comfort me.
Anyway, work was surprisingly pleasant today, despite my self-diagnosed 5am depression. I get up in the morning and feel like I'm going to die of waking up so early. I doubt that I can even function, let alone work for the next 10 hours. It really sucks, but work is never as bad as it seems when I wake up--which is good...
Quote of the Day:
Grant: "Lawrence, Alfredo almost ruined everything, but I stopped him and saved the day!"
Lawrence: "It happens..."
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Day 23: A Nice Pile-drive to the Ceiling, or A Nice Punch to the Ceiling!
Today I felt sick to my stomach again. I think that ulcer is getting better...I mean, worse. Better in the way of ulcers, in that it's maturing, which isn't good. Worse in that it's bad for me, cause it hurts all the time. I am constantly shoving Tums down my throat...which I can't imagine is very good either. The whole situation is one giant mess.
Bugger....
Anyway, seeing as there are only four of us working together at Brycon these days, there seems to be less and less to write about. In a nutshell, Griffin and Skye worked pass-thru for a while, until Skye got pulled to work with Ron. Brad and I worked together on the scaffolding, punching holes in the ceiling (I-beams) all day long.
This morning, Skye and I were a minute late (6:06am) and he was annoyed to be late for a second day in a row. Things aren't looking good for little old me if I make him late again. In short, I'll make this short, so I can get to bed earlier tonight.
There wasn't much word from Griffin or Skye as to the goings-on in their areas, so there's not anything to say about them, except what has already been said--that Skye was pulled to work with Ron at a different pass-thru.
Brad and I were put on the hole-punching crew, to finish off some areas on the perimeter of the raised tile floor (RTF). Fernando and Geneva pushed us around the whole day, and despite our somewhat slow work--this being Brad's first day on the hole-punching crew, and it being my first day without someone else who did the majority of the actual punching--Fernando made the day move so much slower, and we didn't get a large number of the blocks installed. We tried to get Fernando's attention time after time and he was zoned out. He would just stand there while Brad and I were like, "Fernando.........Fernando..........Fernando!" It was amusing until it got to be a hindrance on our progress. Once we finally got him moving us, we'd reach the spot where we needed to stop and we'd do the same exact thing to get him to quit pushing us: "Stop...Stop....Stop....Stop! STOP!" Again...funny for a while.
I was proud of us, when the layout of the markings called for an offsetted hole on the block, and we installed one correctly (after offsetting the holes we punched by an inch to compensate for the difference in the measurements). Lawrence walked up and showed some concern about us offsetting, as if we didn't know what we were doing--which didn't help, as we weren't completely sure we had done it correctly--and when Fernando double checked it with the laser, and it lined up perfect, I couldn't help but smile. Brad and I aren't dumb...hello.
We told Lawrence that we were quitting next Friday, and he said he understood, since he's been telling us almost every day, to get an education. The problem, however, is now he'll be short two men, and he needs to get more and train them to be as dominant as Brad and I have become. Apparently he talked to Steve and requested two more guys to add to the crew A.S.A.P. This concerned me somewhat, as rumor holds that he once got so angry at one employee who turned in his 5-day notice for a resignation, he fired them on the spot. Not something I'd consider good, even though I don't know how much longer I can stand this...
Brad and I had a delightful time working up on the scaffolding, and I was never really tired. Usually I'll be dozing off or something absurd like that, but today was nice cause I stayed awake completely.
We had Level 4/5 Protocol Training today at 2pm, in the orientation room. This was to review the protocol for the clean room again, and teach us how to gown up in the full "bunny" suits. It was pretty exciting, and the guy who spoke to us, when he put his hood on, looked like a middle-eastern woman, hiding his face. I had to wake Griffin up and show him, it was that amusing. We're excited to gown up in the "bunny" suits, but we're not exactly sure if we'll be able to before we quit. I asked Lawrence if he'd let us once before we left, and he laughed and asked us if we wanted to bring a camera too. He was joking of course, seeing as we'd get fired on the spot, and probably in some legal trouble.
Anyway, today was pretty fun. It went by pretty smoothly, and we enjoyed it a lot. I'm somewhat excited for tomorrow, however, waking up at 5am is not my favorite.
Quote of the Day:
Brad: "If Fernando were a dinosaur--"
Grant: "--He'd be extinct..."
Bugger....
Anyway, seeing as there are only four of us working together at Brycon these days, there seems to be less and less to write about. In a nutshell, Griffin and Skye worked pass-thru for a while, until Skye got pulled to work with Ron. Brad and I worked together on the scaffolding, punching holes in the ceiling (I-beams) all day long.
This morning, Skye and I were a minute late (6:06am) and he was annoyed to be late for a second day in a row. Things aren't looking good for little old me if I make him late again. In short, I'll make this short, so I can get to bed earlier tonight.
There wasn't much word from Griffin or Skye as to the goings-on in their areas, so there's not anything to say about them, except what has already been said--that Skye was pulled to work with Ron at a different pass-thru.
Brad and I were put on the hole-punching crew, to finish off some areas on the perimeter of the raised tile floor (RTF). Fernando and Geneva pushed us around the whole day, and despite our somewhat slow work--this being Brad's first day on the hole-punching crew, and it being my first day without someone else who did the majority of the actual punching--Fernando made the day move so much slower, and we didn't get a large number of the blocks installed. We tried to get Fernando's attention time after time and he was zoned out. He would just stand there while Brad and I were like, "Fernando.........Fernando..........Fernando!" It was amusing until it got to be a hindrance on our progress. Once we finally got him moving us, we'd reach the spot where we needed to stop and we'd do the same exact thing to get him to quit pushing us: "Stop...Stop....Stop....Stop! STOP!" Again...funny for a while.
I was proud of us, when the layout of the markings called for an offsetted hole on the block, and we installed one correctly (after offsetting the holes we punched by an inch to compensate for the difference in the measurements). Lawrence walked up and showed some concern about us offsetting, as if we didn't know what we were doing--which didn't help, as we weren't completely sure we had done it correctly--and when Fernando double checked it with the laser, and it lined up perfect, I couldn't help but smile. Brad and I aren't dumb...hello.
We told Lawrence that we were quitting next Friday, and he said he understood, since he's been telling us almost every day, to get an education. The problem, however, is now he'll be short two men, and he needs to get more and train them to be as dominant as Brad and I have become. Apparently he talked to Steve and requested two more guys to add to the crew A.S.A.P. This concerned me somewhat, as rumor holds that he once got so angry at one employee who turned in his 5-day notice for a resignation, he fired them on the spot. Not something I'd consider good, even though I don't know how much longer I can stand this...
Brad and I had a delightful time working up on the scaffolding, and I was never really tired. Usually I'll be dozing off or something absurd like that, but today was nice cause I stayed awake completely.
We had Level 4/5 Protocol Training today at 2pm, in the orientation room. This was to review the protocol for the clean room again, and teach us how to gown up in the full "bunny" suits. It was pretty exciting, and the guy who spoke to us, when he put his hood on, looked like a middle-eastern woman, hiding his face. I had to wake Griffin up and show him, it was that amusing. We're excited to gown up in the "bunny" suits, but we're not exactly sure if we'll be able to before we quit. I asked Lawrence if he'd let us once before we left, and he laughed and asked us if we wanted to bring a camera too. He was joking of course, seeing as we'd get fired on the spot, and probably in some legal trouble.
Anyway, today was pretty fun. It went by pretty smoothly, and we enjoyed it a lot. I'm somewhat excited for tomorrow, however, waking up at 5am is not my favorite.
Quote of the Day:
Brad: "If Fernando were a dinosaur--"
Grant: "--He'd be extinct..."
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Day 22: Final Four
Today found me suddenly loathing my job. I could feel myself going insane with helplessness. I don't quite understand why I felt so strongly against going to work today, but I was really close to turning in a resignation today. It could be my constant stomach ache, possibly caused by an ulcer. It could be that I have to wake up at 5am every day and I never spend my nights anywhere but home. It could be that I work for 10 hours a day, falling asleep on my feet, literally. It could be many different things, but I think it's just time for me to quit.
Brad was planning on working until the 16th, while Skye was planning on working til the 18th or 19th. Griffin planned on turning in his resignation today, hopefully setting his last day as Friday. I was planning on working until the 12th. After Steve harped on Brad somewhat indirectly, my poor friend decided he was through with Brycon. Steve was apparently infuriated by Brad's injury, despite the pure accident-ness of it. Brad felt awful after the morning pep-talk, and there was little I could do to help him feel better. I didn't really know what to say. What was there to say? He wanted to quit as soon as possible. If it weren't for the 5-day warning Brycon asks for, he would have been gone by tomorrow. I actually managed to talk him into quitting next Friday. That means he'd turn his resignation in on Monday. I decided to do the same; Skye, on the other hand, remains intent on working until the last Friday before school starts, which would be the 18th. Griffin left at lunch today for a doctor's appointment or something. I don't know if he ever turned in a resignation, but I doubt he forgot.
I worked with Felipe all day, on a scissor-lift. We were punching holes in an area of the FAB that was not covered with the raised floor tiles. That means that it cannot be reached by the scaffolds; thus the need for a scissor-lift. It was my first time in one, and I thought it was pretty cool. Brad was excited for me, and I felt bad that I got to go on the scissor-lift, while he had to stay on the floor and work with Alfredo. Not that there's anything wrong with Alfredo, or the floor. It's just sometimes not exciting to do the same thing over and over. I didn't enjoy myself much on the scissor-lift though, as I kept literally falling asleep on my feet. It was horrible; my eyes would not stay open and I kept like, opening them to find Felipe asking for something or handing something to me. I wondered if he noticed I was asleep.
Brad worked with Alfredo most of the day, until he had nothing else to do and sent Brad over to work with Pedro. Brad said Pedro's got the dirtiest mouth he's ever heard. I felt bad for Brad all day long. Everyone that saw him was suddenly interested in seeing his tooth, which had miraculously been put back into his head. He was smiling all day, but not cause he was happy. Pedro actually asked him to smile and he wouldn't; then Alfredo told him to smile and he did, then asked "Would you like me to sign your tooth, Pedro?" Brad got really sick of showing his tooth off, but there wasn't much he could do. They even mentioned him in the weekly safety meeting at 7am today. "There was one craft that knocked his tooth out and chipped the one next to it." A tumultuous murmer arose in the large crowd of workers assembled in the break room. "What an idiot!" Brad said.
Skye worked with Griffin and Cowboy at the pass-thru for a while, until there was really nothing to do there. Then Cowboy sent them inside to help with the new section of the fab, recently opened. Now we've got a square, and there's a large Level 4 gowning room being assembled opposite the Level 3, across the FAB. Tomorrow we're supposed to attend a Protocal meeting to be briefed for Level 4 activity. Although I know I'll fall asleep during the meeting, it's still exciting, because I know it means less work! Hooray less work!
I was talking to Fernando today and he randomely said, "Richard, you're a good man!" and went to shake my hand. I took it and we shook, as I said "Thank you, Fernando." The next thing I know, the water cup in my hand spilled. We shook hands too hard, I guess. Fernando laughed and apologized. He was really interested in what I was doing for college. I told him I was going to the University of Utah, and he was very jealous. He said, "I like two sports teams: University of Utah, and whoever is playing BYU." It made me laugh. He told me that he'd been kicked out of BYU after having a beard in the computer lab. Completely ludacris, I think. Sometimes BYU's stupid rules just piss me off. They take it too far with just about everything. Anyway, back to work...
Basically, nothing really happened today. The day seemed to pass pretty quickly, yet slowly. It was pretty uneventful, and it makes me want to quit so much. I hope next Friday comes soon...
Quote of the Day:
Grant: "Brady's got the best name for things, like "Rice Rice, Brady" or "Hasta la vista, Brady..."
Skye: "Basically anything with 'baby' in it..."
Brad was planning on working until the 16th, while Skye was planning on working til the 18th or 19th. Griffin planned on turning in his resignation today, hopefully setting his last day as Friday. I was planning on working until the 12th. After Steve harped on Brad somewhat indirectly, my poor friend decided he was through with Brycon. Steve was apparently infuriated by Brad's injury, despite the pure accident-ness of it. Brad felt awful after the morning pep-talk, and there was little I could do to help him feel better. I didn't really know what to say. What was there to say? He wanted to quit as soon as possible. If it weren't for the 5-day warning Brycon asks for, he would have been gone by tomorrow. I actually managed to talk him into quitting next Friday. That means he'd turn his resignation in on Monday. I decided to do the same; Skye, on the other hand, remains intent on working until the last Friday before school starts, which would be the 18th. Griffin left at lunch today for a doctor's appointment or something. I don't know if he ever turned in a resignation, but I doubt he forgot.
I worked with Felipe all day, on a scissor-lift. We were punching holes in an area of the FAB that was not covered with the raised floor tiles. That means that it cannot be reached by the scaffolds; thus the need for a scissor-lift. It was my first time in one, and I thought it was pretty cool. Brad was excited for me, and I felt bad that I got to go on the scissor-lift, while he had to stay on the floor and work with Alfredo. Not that there's anything wrong with Alfredo, or the floor. It's just sometimes not exciting to do the same thing over and over. I didn't enjoy myself much on the scissor-lift though, as I kept literally falling asleep on my feet. It was horrible; my eyes would not stay open and I kept like, opening them to find Felipe asking for something or handing something to me. I wondered if he noticed I was asleep.
Brad worked with Alfredo most of the day, until he had nothing else to do and sent Brad over to work with Pedro. Brad said Pedro's got the dirtiest mouth he's ever heard. I felt bad for Brad all day long. Everyone that saw him was suddenly interested in seeing his tooth, which had miraculously been put back into his head. He was smiling all day, but not cause he was happy. Pedro actually asked him to smile and he wouldn't; then Alfredo told him to smile and he did, then asked "Would you like me to sign your tooth, Pedro?" Brad got really sick of showing his tooth off, but there wasn't much he could do. They even mentioned him in the weekly safety meeting at 7am today. "There was one craft that knocked his tooth out and chipped the one next to it." A tumultuous murmer arose in the large crowd of workers assembled in the break room. "What an idiot!" Brad said.
Skye worked with Griffin and Cowboy at the pass-thru for a while, until there was really nothing to do there. Then Cowboy sent them inside to help with the new section of the fab, recently opened. Now we've got a square, and there's a large Level 4 gowning room being assembled opposite the Level 3, across the FAB. Tomorrow we're supposed to attend a Protocal meeting to be briefed for Level 4 activity. Although I know I'll fall asleep during the meeting, it's still exciting, because I know it means less work! Hooray less work!
I was talking to Fernando today and he randomely said, "Richard, you're a good man!" and went to shake my hand. I took it and we shook, as I said "Thank you, Fernando." The next thing I know, the water cup in my hand spilled. We shook hands too hard, I guess. Fernando laughed and apologized. He was really interested in what I was doing for college. I told him I was going to the University of Utah, and he was very jealous. He said, "I like two sports teams: University of Utah, and whoever is playing BYU." It made me laugh. He told me that he'd been kicked out of BYU after having a beard in the computer lab. Completely ludacris, I think. Sometimes BYU's stupid rules just piss me off. They take it too far with just about everything. Anyway, back to work...
Basically, nothing really happened today. The day seemed to pass pretty quickly, yet slowly. It was pretty uneventful, and it makes me want to quit so much. I hope next Friday comes soon...
Quote of the Day:
Grant: "Brady's got the best name for things, like "Rice Rice, Brady" or "Hasta la vista, Brady..."
Skye: "Basically anything with 'baby' in it..."
Friday, July 21, 2006
Day 21: Magic Teeth
Usually you show up for your last day of work, right? Usually....
Quinn didn't. In the morning he was nowhere to be found. In the afternoon he was nowhere to be found. Not even when the checks came at lunch, did he show his face. I was kinda disappointed that he didn't come to work. It was pretty laid back today too...I mean, as laid back as it could get with all the Arizona employees ducking out at lunchtime to drive home for the weekend. We probably lost half our crew during lunch.
The whole morning Alfredo, Luis, Arturo, Geneva, and I hung measuring tape and leveled the new section of the FAB that we had just hung grids on. My neck already was hurting, but I had to spend the first 6 hours of my day looking up at the stupid ceiling. Alfredo tried to teach Geneva the commands in spanish, for what he was saying (un-octavo, etc.), but she ended up just saying "un-ocho" and we all laughed about it. Then Alfredo said "Yes Sir Dawg," and we all laughed about it.
At lunch, Brad and I ate alone, as Griffin and Skye were at lunch with Alex's crew. They had a pizza party. Now every Friday different crews will switch off with pizza parties; Brycon's paying! I'm excited for ours....at least, I hope it comes before we quit. That would suck.
After lunch, Gerard pooled the remaining contractors and we worked on wiz nutting and drilling holes in the I-beams for the rest of the day. I worked with Jaime up on the scaffold, doing wiz nuts, while Brad and Daniel drilled the holes. Geneva, Derek, and a few other people pushed us around and the afternoon went really slow.
Until suddenly Jaime noticed everyone congregating around Brad and Daniel's scaffold. Jaime said, "Is your friend alright?" and I saw from between the grids, Brad walking away, accompanied by a couple people. He was shaking his hand, so I assumed that he had probably cut himself or something. Not a big problem... Ron walked up to the scaffold we were on and said "Your buddy just knocked his teeth out."
"Yeah right, Ron. No really, what happened?" I said. He replied, "No really, he knocked one of his teeth out."
Wow........that can't be. But it was true. He was rushed to the dentist, but not before putting the tooth in milk to save it, and enduring a drug screening to prove he wasn't high. What had happened was, Brad was using a wrench to tighted one of the bolts on the hardware for the ceiling. On the very last tug he gave on the nut, to ensure it was tight, his wrench slipped and slammed straight into his left canine tooth. He fell backwards and his tooth luckily landed on the scaffolding next to him. He looked at it and thought, "Is that my tooth? Yeah, that's my tooth.....crap!" When he went in to fill out the accident report, they asked him not to use any of the words he used during the accident, while filling it out. Brad thought to himself, "What words? Crap?" Gerard actually used them all for Brad. He was in shock that Brad wasn't crying or screaming out in pain. Brad didn't feel a thing. Gerard (who usually has a really clean mouth) was like, "Holy S***! I can't believe you aren't crying. That would hurt so F****** bad! I'd be screaming so bad...." He obviously swore more than that, but I needn't go on.
Interestingly enough, the entire tooth, roots and all had popped right out of his head. The really creepy thing was that it wasn't scratched, chipped or broken in any way, and Brad really never felt a thing. It didn't really hurt at all. In fact, he was humming and singing to himself on the way down to the nurse's office. The nurse thought it was his escort that was sick, cause Brad looked so lively until he smiled. They were able to save the tooth and stick it back in. It's there to this day, losing color as it slowly dies (the dentist said it would probably die and we'd just paint it to look better). The dentist said to Brad, in between numerous comments on his beautifully straight teeth, "I've never seen anything like this before, and I've been a dentist for a while. I can't believe it came out all in one peice! No chips or scratches or anything. You said your prayers this morning, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir, I did" Brad replied, frankly.
Brad tells the story better than I do, and the best part is that his tooth is perfectly fine, while he has this totally awesome story to tell. He was fine afterward, happy and ready to go on our double date we had planned for this evening (which was great). Too bad Quinn never showed up to see the magic tooth.
Quote of the Day:
*Ping!* (sound of Jaime's hard hat hitting the steel sprinkler line)
"Woah...good thing I was wearing my hard hat!"
-Jaime
Quinn didn't. In the morning he was nowhere to be found. In the afternoon he was nowhere to be found. Not even when the checks came at lunch, did he show his face. I was kinda disappointed that he didn't come to work. It was pretty laid back today too...I mean, as laid back as it could get with all the Arizona employees ducking out at lunchtime to drive home for the weekend. We probably lost half our crew during lunch.
The whole morning Alfredo, Luis, Arturo, Geneva, and I hung measuring tape and leveled the new section of the FAB that we had just hung grids on. My neck already was hurting, but I had to spend the first 6 hours of my day looking up at the stupid ceiling. Alfredo tried to teach Geneva the commands in spanish, for what he was saying (un-octavo, etc.), but she ended up just saying "un-ocho" and we all laughed about it. Then Alfredo said "Yes Sir Dawg," and we all laughed about it.
At lunch, Brad and I ate alone, as Griffin and Skye were at lunch with Alex's crew. They had a pizza party. Now every Friday different crews will switch off with pizza parties; Brycon's paying! I'm excited for ours....at least, I hope it comes before we quit. That would suck.
After lunch, Gerard pooled the remaining contractors and we worked on wiz nutting and drilling holes in the I-beams for the rest of the day. I worked with Jaime up on the scaffold, doing wiz nuts, while Brad and Daniel drilled the holes. Geneva, Derek, and a few other people pushed us around and the afternoon went really slow.
Until suddenly Jaime noticed everyone congregating around Brad and Daniel's scaffold. Jaime said, "Is your friend alright?" and I saw from between the grids, Brad walking away, accompanied by a couple people. He was shaking his hand, so I assumed that he had probably cut himself or something. Not a big problem... Ron walked up to the scaffold we were on and said "Your buddy just knocked his teeth out."
"Yeah right, Ron. No really, what happened?" I said. He replied, "No really, he knocked one of his teeth out."
Wow........that can't be. But it was true. He was rushed to the dentist, but not before putting the tooth in milk to save it, and enduring a drug screening to prove he wasn't high. What had happened was, Brad was using a wrench to tighted one of the bolts on the hardware for the ceiling. On the very last tug he gave on the nut, to ensure it was tight, his wrench slipped and slammed straight into his left canine tooth. He fell backwards and his tooth luckily landed on the scaffolding next to him. He looked at it and thought, "Is that my tooth? Yeah, that's my tooth.....crap!" When he went in to fill out the accident report, they asked him not to use any of the words he used during the accident, while filling it out. Brad thought to himself, "What words? Crap?" Gerard actually used them all for Brad. He was in shock that Brad wasn't crying or screaming out in pain. Brad didn't feel a thing. Gerard (who usually has a really clean mouth) was like, "Holy S***! I can't believe you aren't crying. That would hurt so F****** bad! I'd be screaming so bad...." He obviously swore more than that, but I needn't go on.
Interestingly enough, the entire tooth, roots and all had popped right out of his head. The really creepy thing was that it wasn't scratched, chipped or broken in any way, and Brad really never felt a thing. It didn't really hurt at all. In fact, he was humming and singing to himself on the way down to the nurse's office. The nurse thought it was his escort that was sick, cause Brad looked so lively until he smiled. They were able to save the tooth and stick it back in. It's there to this day, losing color as it slowly dies (the dentist said it would probably die and we'd just paint it to look better). The dentist said to Brad, in between numerous comments on his beautifully straight teeth, "I've never seen anything like this before, and I've been a dentist for a while. I can't believe it came out all in one peice! No chips or scratches or anything. You said your prayers this morning, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir, I did" Brad replied, frankly.
Brad tells the story better than I do, and the best part is that his tooth is perfectly fine, while he has this totally awesome story to tell. He was fine afterward, happy and ready to go on our double date we had planned for this evening (which was great). Too bad Quinn never showed up to see the magic tooth.
Quote of the Day:
*Ping!* (sound of Jaime's hard hat hitting the steel sprinkler line)
"Woah...good thing I was wearing my hard hat!"
-Jaime
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Day 20: Goodbye To Another
Brady got terminated today.
We were walking in through the badging station for IMFT, when his beeped. He was pulled aside and we told him we'd keep going and see him at the "Stretch & Flex." The "Stretch & Flex" came and went, but no Brady. Griffin showed up (after waking up a little late) and said he saw Brady at the badging station and waited for him for a minute, but then felt he should probably hurry and get up to the FAB.
Brad and I got split up to work on different parts of the ceiling crew. Brad and Jaime worked on the scaffolding, screwing the grids together with the wiz nuts. Daniel followed them in a separate scaffold, caulking. It worked pretty quickly that way, and we got a large portion of the FAB caulked and wiz nutted by the end of the day. I, on the other hand, worked with Geneva, hanging measuring tape from the grids, so Alfredo could site them with a eye-level thing, and then Arturo and Luis adjusted the grid height. We leveled the grids that way. We spent all morning, until lunch doing that, and I thought my neck was going to break. Hanging the measuring tape was pretty cool though. We pulled it out til the tape read about 130 inches and we carefully hung it by the tip on the edge of the grids. The tricky part was getting it to grab onto the grid without slipping and falling on us. The most frusterating thing was when the tape would buckle and tip over. That much tape is hard to balance without it buckling. Arturo, Luis, and Alfredo all were speaking spanish, and Alfredo was giving commands like "tres-cuartos" or "cinco-octavos" and every time one was level he would say "a esta" (i think...that's what it sounded like, but I couldn't tell if he was saying 'a esta' or 'ya esta'). Then I would pull a tape down and move it to the next grid. Geneva can't speak spanish (she's Native American), so I would let her know when to pull down the tape and move it. Lawrence knew that I took spanish in high school and could pretty well understand them, and Alfredo asked if I spoke after a particularly long conversation that included a lot of whooping and laughing between him and Arturo. I told him a little but it's hard to understand cause they spoke so fast.
Quinn worked at the pass-thru, moving gaskets into the FAB for Alex's crew. They're finally moving at a pretty fast pace and keeping up with the ceiling crew. Griffin, I believe, worked either on gaskets, or at one of the pass-thrus. It's more probable that Alex grabbed him and put him to work in the gaskets than a pass-thru. I saw him occasionally walk by as I was moving skates or hanging measuring tape.
During the 9am break, we were still wondering where Brady was and I unfortunately couldn't get the phone in the break room to work, so we were left wondering what had happened to him. We began to speculate that he'd been fired, but more jokingly than anything else. Brady fired? Could someone really do that? We weren't sure what was going on, but it certainly bugged us. Skye was feeling sickly, flu-ish, if you will; and he opted to ask to leave and go home. We didn't see him again, so we figured he either was granted sick leave or was asked to leave for good...we hoped it was the former, since we were sick of losing friends at work.
We did the same thing in between 9am and 12pm, hanging measuring tape, caulking, and wiz nutting. It was relatvely boring, but I couldn't complain, since the time passed pretty quickly. At lunch I nuked two peices of Dimitri's pizza and was in heaven, because it's so good. Oh, and I also called Brady and found out for sure that he was terminated. In his halting and seemingly unbelieving words, "I...don't....work there anymore." Then we both cut out and I hung up. I broke the news to Griffin, Brad, and Quinn, who just sat there dumbfounded, but then we all started to laugh. It was funny, although unfortunate that he was let go. It just seemed unusual that he was suddenly gone, without a warning. We were still in shock by the end of the day. Quinn just kept laughing at lunch, saying, "Brady got fired." We started to joke about it, and thought it was pretty funny.
After lunch, Lawrence had us move grids and he, along with Arturo, Luis, and Alfredo, hung them in the ceiling. I believe we got about 8 or 9 hung before the end of the day. Geneva and I moved them all over and then just hung around by the scaffolding, moving Brad and Jaime, and Daniel when they needed to be rolled along to the next area. It was a pretty boring afternoon and we thought the day would never end.
We decided to say hello to Brady at Maggie Moo's tonight, but we never ended up going. Geneva and Elvira went, I think; and perhaps Ron went too, since we told him to. I didn't wake up from my nap until 8:15 and I never got a call from Brad or Quinn or anyone.
Brad and I ducked into the bathroom on our way out today, and Lawrence, Arturo, and Luis did too. Lawrence walks up to the stall next to mine and says "RIGHTEOUS!" and he unzips. Brad and I just busted up laughing. These guys are so funny! While we were at the clock-out station, Brad was standing in front of Lawrence and Luis, when they suddenly busted out laughing. Brad turned around and said, "What was it?" Lawrence said, "Well, I probably should be saying this cause it's mean, but Julie is so ugly that her mom doesn't even want her!" They all just started laughing again and Brad said, "It's so mean, but it's so true!"
Well, I guess something good came from today...now Brad (or Griffin) doesn't have to wake up as early to get Brady in the morning. Here's to looking on the bright side.
Two down.....five more to go......
Quote of the Day:
"Gosh, no matter how much you jiggle, the last drop always gets on your pants!"
-Brad
Ron's Trash Talk of the Day:
Quinn: "It was freezing in the clean room this morning!"
Ron: "It was not you big baby!"
We were walking in through the badging station for IMFT, when his beeped. He was pulled aside and we told him we'd keep going and see him at the "Stretch & Flex." The "Stretch & Flex" came and went, but no Brady. Griffin showed up (after waking up a little late) and said he saw Brady at the badging station and waited for him for a minute, but then felt he should probably hurry and get up to the FAB.
Brad and I got split up to work on different parts of the ceiling crew. Brad and Jaime worked on the scaffolding, screwing the grids together with the wiz nuts. Daniel followed them in a separate scaffold, caulking. It worked pretty quickly that way, and we got a large portion of the FAB caulked and wiz nutted by the end of the day. I, on the other hand, worked with Geneva, hanging measuring tape from the grids, so Alfredo could site them with a eye-level thing, and then Arturo and Luis adjusted the grid height. We leveled the grids that way. We spent all morning, until lunch doing that, and I thought my neck was going to break. Hanging the measuring tape was pretty cool though. We pulled it out til the tape read about 130 inches and we carefully hung it by the tip on the edge of the grids. The tricky part was getting it to grab onto the grid without slipping and falling on us. The most frusterating thing was when the tape would buckle and tip over. That much tape is hard to balance without it buckling. Arturo, Luis, and Alfredo all were speaking spanish, and Alfredo was giving commands like "tres-cuartos" or "cinco-octavos" and every time one was level he would say "a esta" (i think...that's what it sounded like, but I couldn't tell if he was saying 'a esta' or 'ya esta'). Then I would pull a tape down and move it to the next grid. Geneva can't speak spanish (she's Native American), so I would let her know when to pull down the tape and move it. Lawrence knew that I took spanish in high school and could pretty well understand them, and Alfredo asked if I spoke after a particularly long conversation that included a lot of whooping and laughing between him and Arturo. I told him a little but it's hard to understand cause they spoke so fast.
Quinn worked at the pass-thru, moving gaskets into the FAB for Alex's crew. They're finally moving at a pretty fast pace and keeping up with the ceiling crew. Griffin, I believe, worked either on gaskets, or at one of the pass-thrus. It's more probable that Alex grabbed him and put him to work in the gaskets than a pass-thru. I saw him occasionally walk by as I was moving skates or hanging measuring tape.
During the 9am break, we were still wondering where Brady was and I unfortunately couldn't get the phone in the break room to work, so we were left wondering what had happened to him. We began to speculate that he'd been fired, but more jokingly than anything else. Brady fired? Could someone really do that? We weren't sure what was going on, but it certainly bugged us. Skye was feeling sickly, flu-ish, if you will; and he opted to ask to leave and go home. We didn't see him again, so we figured he either was granted sick leave or was asked to leave for good...we hoped it was the former, since we were sick of losing friends at work.
We did the same thing in between 9am and 12pm, hanging measuring tape, caulking, and wiz nutting. It was relatvely boring, but I couldn't complain, since the time passed pretty quickly. At lunch I nuked two peices of Dimitri's pizza and was in heaven, because it's so good. Oh, and I also called Brady and found out for sure that he was terminated. In his halting and seemingly unbelieving words, "I...don't....work there anymore." Then we both cut out and I hung up. I broke the news to Griffin, Brad, and Quinn, who just sat there dumbfounded, but then we all started to laugh. It was funny, although unfortunate that he was let go. It just seemed unusual that he was suddenly gone, without a warning. We were still in shock by the end of the day. Quinn just kept laughing at lunch, saying, "Brady got fired." We started to joke about it, and thought it was pretty funny.
After lunch, Lawrence had us move grids and he, along with Arturo, Luis, and Alfredo, hung them in the ceiling. I believe we got about 8 or 9 hung before the end of the day. Geneva and I moved them all over and then just hung around by the scaffolding, moving Brad and Jaime, and Daniel when they needed to be rolled along to the next area. It was a pretty boring afternoon and we thought the day would never end.
We decided to say hello to Brady at Maggie Moo's tonight, but we never ended up going. Geneva and Elvira went, I think; and perhaps Ron went too, since we told him to. I didn't wake up from my nap until 8:15 and I never got a call from Brad or Quinn or anyone.
Brad and I ducked into the bathroom on our way out today, and Lawrence, Arturo, and Luis did too. Lawrence walks up to the stall next to mine and says "RIGHTEOUS!" and he unzips. Brad and I just busted up laughing. These guys are so funny! While we were at the clock-out station, Brad was standing in front of Lawrence and Luis, when they suddenly busted out laughing. Brad turned around and said, "What was it?" Lawrence said, "Well, I probably should be saying this cause it's mean, but Julie is so ugly that her mom doesn't even want her!" They all just started laughing again and Brad said, "It's so mean, but it's so true!"
Well, I guess something good came from today...now Brad (or Griffin) doesn't have to wake up as early to get Brady in the morning. Here's to looking on the bright side.
Two down.....five more to go......
Quote of the Day:
"Gosh, no matter how much you jiggle, the last drop always gets on your pants!"
-Brad
Ron's Trash Talk of the Day:
Quinn: "It was freezing in the clean room this morning!"
Ron: "It was not you big baby!"
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Day 19: Yes Sir Dawg
I worked on the ceiling crew again today, but this time I was with the guys punching holes. We use this air-compressor attachment that clamps down on the I-beam and slowly pushes a hole in the steel until it finally pops through. It makes a really loud sound, so the crew working on punching the holes has to wear earplugs. Most of the crews that work adjacent and around end up wearing some earplugs or just covering their ears before it punches the hole.
I started out working with Brad, moving scaffolding around for a while, but then Alfredo moved me to the hole-punching crew. He and Brad worked with the mag-drill doing some of the holes that the punch can't reach. The mag-drill takes forever, cause instead of punching a hole in a few seconds, it actually has to hang there and drill through a half-inch of steel. So they spent the entire morning until lunch doing one row of holes and hanging the blocks of iron. In the time it took them to drill those, we had 4 or 5 rows done.
I mostly pushed scaffolding, but during the second shift, I actually worked with Felipe, punching the holes. That kept me awake a little better than standing around waiting to push the scaffold. I punched holes the second half of the third shift also, and those two hours went by a lot faster than the two right after lunch.
Alfredo always says, "Yes Sir Dawg," really fast, instead of only saying "yes" or "yes sir." It's pretty funny, and I get a laugh out of it every time. He's a weird guy. Brad says he makes him laugh a ton, just with all the weird looks he gives Brad.
Occasionally I'd see Skye and Josefina walking back and forth, transporting materials or talking to each other in broken english and hand-signals. Josefina really only speaks spanish, although she's learning english, having to work around us all day. Skye worked pass-thru all day, as well as Quinn.
I found out this morning that yesterday we got another "Safety" personnel. Now we've got "Safety Joe" and "Safety Shelley." Thank goodness for "Safety Joe," who basically walks around and looks at stuff all day. It's a good thing we've got "Safety Shelley" around to help, in case Joe doesn't quite cut it.
Brad told me today that while he was leaving yesterday, he was almost Magneto. It's his dream to be Magneto, haha. They were moving these giant metal box-room things into place and one was on a forklift, but Brad didn't know it, and he started to pretend to move it with his Magneto powers. Then they moved exactly where he commanded them, and he was freaking out until he realized it was a forklift. Good ole Brad.
Ron was trash-talking us all day, after he played basketball last night. He's excited because we decided to play once a week with him. We were talking with him, and realized that both he and Skye's dad went to Cottonwood High School at the same time. When Skye told Ron that his dad was Bryce Larsen, the starting running back, Ron got this weird look and sat there for a minute, as if lost in thought. Then he said, "I know him! Bryce Larsen....I know him." Then Skye told him that he ran track and stuff and Ron was like, "Yeah, we were good friends!" Skye had to leave after that, but a few minutes later, Skye's dad came walking across the grass to see Ron after about 20 years. "Is that Rone Atine?" he said, happily. They laughed and started talking. Quinn and I had to go, but it was cool to find out that Ron and Skye's dad knew each other.
Anyway, today went pretty slow and it was pretty uneventful, other than when Brad and I picked a section of the FAB and figured the number of holes in the tiles in the whole area. Turns out that there were 1,789,952....
Quote of the Day:
"I want 'Safety Joe' and 'Safety Shelley' to get married and make 'Safety babies.'"
-Brad
Ron's Trash-Talk of the Day:
"Yeah, better play inside cause it's gonna be raining...........raining three's!"
-Ron
I started out working with Brad, moving scaffolding around for a while, but then Alfredo moved me to the hole-punching crew. He and Brad worked with the mag-drill doing some of the holes that the punch can't reach. The mag-drill takes forever, cause instead of punching a hole in a few seconds, it actually has to hang there and drill through a half-inch of steel. So they spent the entire morning until lunch doing one row of holes and hanging the blocks of iron. In the time it took them to drill those, we had 4 or 5 rows done.
I mostly pushed scaffolding, but during the second shift, I actually worked with Felipe, punching the holes. That kept me awake a little better than standing around waiting to push the scaffold. I punched holes the second half of the third shift also, and those two hours went by a lot faster than the two right after lunch.
Alfredo always says, "Yes Sir Dawg," really fast, instead of only saying "yes" or "yes sir." It's pretty funny, and I get a laugh out of it every time. He's a weird guy. Brad says he makes him laugh a ton, just with all the weird looks he gives Brad.
Occasionally I'd see Skye and Josefina walking back and forth, transporting materials or talking to each other in broken english and hand-signals. Josefina really only speaks spanish, although she's learning english, having to work around us all day. Skye worked pass-thru all day, as well as Quinn.
I found out this morning that yesterday we got another "Safety" personnel. Now we've got "Safety Joe" and "Safety Shelley." Thank goodness for "Safety Joe," who basically walks around and looks at stuff all day. It's a good thing we've got "Safety Shelley" around to help, in case Joe doesn't quite cut it.
Brad told me today that while he was leaving yesterday, he was almost Magneto. It's his dream to be Magneto, haha. They were moving these giant metal box-room things into place and one was on a forklift, but Brad didn't know it, and he started to pretend to move it with his Magneto powers. Then they moved exactly where he commanded them, and he was freaking out until he realized it was a forklift. Good ole Brad.
Ron was trash-talking us all day, after he played basketball last night. He's excited because we decided to play once a week with him. We were talking with him, and realized that both he and Skye's dad went to Cottonwood High School at the same time. When Skye told Ron that his dad was Bryce Larsen, the starting running back, Ron got this weird look and sat there for a minute, as if lost in thought. Then he said, "I know him! Bryce Larsen....I know him." Then Skye told him that he ran track and stuff and Ron was like, "Yeah, we were good friends!" Skye had to leave after that, but a few minutes later, Skye's dad came walking across the grass to see Ron after about 20 years. "Is that Rone Atine?" he said, happily. They laughed and started talking. Quinn and I had to go, but it was cool to find out that Ron and Skye's dad knew each other.
Anyway, today went pretty slow and it was pretty uneventful, other than when Brad and I picked a section of the FAB and figured the number of holes in the tiles in the whole area. Turns out that there were 1,789,952....
Quote of the Day:
"I want 'Safety Joe' and 'Safety Shelley' to get married and make 'Safety babies.'"
-Brad
Ron's Trash-Talk of the Day:
"Yeah, better play inside cause it's gonna be raining...........raining three's!"
-Ron
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Day 18: Goodbye To Thomas
Today was Thomas' last day. Thomas is the large and beloved native american coworker that we have come to love through his amazing garbage-shooting skills. You could usually see him scoring a freakin' sweet shot from like 30 feet away. He's leaving after today, or something. I'm not sure why.
I actually wasn't at work today, cause I was feeling ill again. I'm not quite sure what's up with that either, but when I woke up at noon, I was feeling much better.
Skye told me that since it was Thomas' last day, Ron approached them after work, as they were clocking out, and asked them if they were going to ball with him and Ron tonight. They couldn't pass up a chance to play with Ron and Thomas, so they all agreed to show up at Cedar Ridge Elementary at 7pm and play. Ron was trash-talking them at the clock-out station, saying, "I don't want you to show up tomorrow and be like 'Oh, sorry we didn't show. We weren't feeling too well.'" Skye said it was pretty funny.
Here we go to play with Ron and Thomas...
Ron's Trash-Talk of the Day:
"You better show up. I don't want you to come to work tomorrow and be like, 'Oh, sorry we didn't make it...we were sick.'"
-Ron
I actually wasn't at work today, cause I was feeling ill again. I'm not quite sure what's up with that either, but when I woke up at noon, I was feeling much better.
Skye told me that since it was Thomas' last day, Ron approached them after work, as they were clocking out, and asked them if they were going to ball with him and Ron tonight. They couldn't pass up a chance to play with Ron and Thomas, so they all agreed to show up at Cedar Ridge Elementary at 7pm and play. Ron was trash-talking them at the clock-out station, saying, "I don't want you to show up tomorrow and be like 'Oh, sorry we didn't show. We weren't feeling too well.'" Skye said it was pretty funny.
Here we go to play with Ron and Thomas...
Ron's Trash-Talk of the Day:
"You better show up. I don't want you to come to work tomorrow and be like, 'Oh, sorry we didn't make it...we were sick.'"
-Ron
Monday, July 17, 2006
Day 17: Not Rafting...
Quinn and I showed up to work today to see only Brad and Skye among the Brycon employees. I guess Jeff had a doctor's appointment for his back condition...same as Friday, I found out from Skye. Quinn had already informed me on the way to work, that Brady and Griffin had gone river rafting with Lacie Jones. Something I was invited to a few weeks ago, but I graciously turned down due to work. Ironic.
I was pretty tired today, and kept catching myself lagging, but for the most part, I had enough energy. Brad and I got split up after he finally came back. I was kinda ticked about that. I was so excited to work with him, especially after he was kinda hyper in the morning during the Pre-Task Plan. I was like "I'm so glad you're back. I'm so excited to work." ...Not. I worked with Jaime again, but this time I was caulking the ceiling...craning backwards and kneeling with my neck thrown back all the way. I spent the better half of ten hours like that today, and it was so tiring.
Brad, on the other hand, also worked on the ceiling, but actually installed the cast iron hardware peices that are bolted between the I-Beams and the ceiling grids. They're very heavy, as you can tell, being cast iron (actually I only assume they're cast iron because they're so incredibly heavy). He worked with Alfredo, whom he called Fettucini during break and lunch. I got a kick out of that one. He told me that he got to hear Alfredo swear twice, despite his resolution to not swear around us. It's kinda nice that everyone's trying to hold their tongues for our sakes, even though we haven't even asked them. Anyway, Alfredo dropped his marker and Brad was like "Oh, here it comes." Alfredo let out a curt, "Mother ******!" That amused Brad, who couldn't help from laughing after he returned the marker, and had a chance to hide his face. "It's a good thing you guys are here, cause if it weren't for you, I'd already have cussed out Fernando," Alfredo said to Brad at one point during the day. We're glad because Fernando is a great guy, but he's just a little mentally challenged. He's always eager to help, even if it means his hard hat slipping backwards off his head. You can usually find him hunched over, with his arms slung behind his back, trying to balance the hard hat on his back, while simultaneously trying to get a firm grasp on it to return it to his head. Most of us will turn and chuckle for a second, before helping him out. He's just a funny guy.
I saw Skye and Quinn working at the pass-thru occasionally, while searching for Lawrence, who spent most of the first half of the day outside the clean room. At one point, though, he came in to tell me to rewrite the Pre-Task Plan because Jaime, who'd written it, had scrawled it such that it was illegible. I'm not quite sure Jaime is quite literate by normal human standards. He's a great guy...in fact, everyone at Brycon is exceptionally nice and willing to look out for you, but Jaime probably shouldn't be put in charge of such tasks as writing something...that's all.
The safety meeting made us all more tired than we were before, and the first break wasn't long enough. We were discussing the weather for the 24th of July celebration, which Skye claimed to be rainy...something that didn't raise our spirits. But then again, they were already down, due to the fact that we don't have work off on Monday or Tuesday for that.
The lunch break seemed to come quickly for me...but we did like, nothing. Jaime and I were so vastly incompetent when it came to caulking upside down and fastening the wiz nuts to the grids, that it was sad. We got like, 20 minutes worth of work done in a few hours. Daniel got fed up with our stupidity at the end of the second shift and came up to clean our equipment and prep us for the third shift.
During lunch we talked about, among other things, how sick I felt. Skye suggested going home, but I didn't feel like doing anything...not even moving to get up, to get home. Quinn said he was tired and was going to take a nap. "I'm going to take a nap in a box, and I'll have Skye put the lid on the box, so when Steve walks up, then all he'll see is a box," he said. We all had a good laugh about that, but something about that plan made me wish it were even possible to do. I'm thinking of campaigning for a nap-time between 2:00 and 2:30pm--everyone would love me.
The last shift went buy pretty quickly, especially the second half. Daniel showed us his amazing secrets, and although I felt completely incompetent and like a full-blown oaf as he explained it, it was okay, cause I was when it came to caulking the ceiling, etc. Once he took us through the routine a few times, we flew. We got 5 times the work done that we had before, during the second 3-hour shift. It felt nice to do something productive, and although I occasionally found myself about to tip over due to exhaustion or nausea, I managed to stick it out the whole time. Before we knew it, Daniel was at the bottom of our scaffold, telling us to hurry cause it was 4:14.
I was excited to end the day, and get home. It was long, and for some reason I was miserable all day. I still fell that way even...it's really annoying. Hopefully Brad will keep me company tomorrow, but the outlook isn't bright.
Quote of the Day:
"The Native-Americans said that it would rain on Monday, during the 24th of July, and they're never wrong."
-Skye
I was pretty tired today, and kept catching myself lagging, but for the most part, I had enough energy. Brad and I got split up after he finally came back. I was kinda ticked about that. I was so excited to work with him, especially after he was kinda hyper in the morning during the Pre-Task Plan. I was like "I'm so glad you're back. I'm so excited to work." ...Not. I worked with Jaime again, but this time I was caulking the ceiling...craning backwards and kneeling with my neck thrown back all the way. I spent the better half of ten hours like that today, and it was so tiring.
Brad, on the other hand, also worked on the ceiling, but actually installed the cast iron hardware peices that are bolted between the I-Beams and the ceiling grids. They're very heavy, as you can tell, being cast iron (actually I only assume they're cast iron because they're so incredibly heavy). He worked with Alfredo, whom he called Fettucini during break and lunch. I got a kick out of that one. He told me that he got to hear Alfredo swear twice, despite his resolution to not swear around us. It's kinda nice that everyone's trying to hold their tongues for our sakes, even though we haven't even asked them. Anyway, Alfredo dropped his marker and Brad was like "Oh, here it comes." Alfredo let out a curt, "Mother ******!" That amused Brad, who couldn't help from laughing after he returned the marker, and had a chance to hide his face. "It's a good thing you guys are here, cause if it weren't for you, I'd already have cussed out Fernando," Alfredo said to Brad at one point during the day. We're glad because Fernando is a great guy, but he's just a little mentally challenged. He's always eager to help, even if it means his hard hat slipping backwards off his head. You can usually find him hunched over, with his arms slung behind his back, trying to balance the hard hat on his back, while simultaneously trying to get a firm grasp on it to return it to his head. Most of us will turn and chuckle for a second, before helping him out. He's just a funny guy.
I saw Skye and Quinn working at the pass-thru occasionally, while searching for Lawrence, who spent most of the first half of the day outside the clean room. At one point, though, he came in to tell me to rewrite the Pre-Task Plan because Jaime, who'd written it, had scrawled it such that it was illegible. I'm not quite sure Jaime is quite literate by normal human standards. He's a great guy...in fact, everyone at Brycon is exceptionally nice and willing to look out for you, but Jaime probably shouldn't be put in charge of such tasks as writing something...that's all.
The safety meeting made us all more tired than we were before, and the first break wasn't long enough. We were discussing the weather for the 24th of July celebration, which Skye claimed to be rainy...something that didn't raise our spirits. But then again, they were already down, due to the fact that we don't have work off on Monday or Tuesday for that.
The lunch break seemed to come quickly for me...but we did like, nothing. Jaime and I were so vastly incompetent when it came to caulking upside down and fastening the wiz nuts to the grids, that it was sad. We got like, 20 minutes worth of work done in a few hours. Daniel got fed up with our stupidity at the end of the second shift and came up to clean our equipment and prep us for the third shift.
During lunch we talked about, among other things, how sick I felt. Skye suggested going home, but I didn't feel like doing anything...not even moving to get up, to get home. Quinn said he was tired and was going to take a nap. "I'm going to take a nap in a box, and I'll have Skye put the lid on the box, so when Steve walks up, then all he'll see is a box," he said. We all had a good laugh about that, but something about that plan made me wish it were even possible to do. I'm thinking of campaigning for a nap-time between 2:00 and 2:30pm--everyone would love me.
The last shift went buy pretty quickly, especially the second half. Daniel showed us his amazing secrets, and although I felt completely incompetent and like a full-blown oaf as he explained it, it was okay, cause I was when it came to caulking the ceiling, etc. Once he took us through the routine a few times, we flew. We got 5 times the work done that we had before, during the second 3-hour shift. It felt nice to do something productive, and although I occasionally found myself about to tip over due to exhaustion or nausea, I managed to stick it out the whole time. Before we knew it, Daniel was at the bottom of our scaffold, telling us to hurry cause it was 4:14.
I was excited to end the day, and get home. It was long, and for some reason I was miserable all day. I still fell that way even...it's really annoying. Hopefully Brad will keep me company tomorrow, but the outlook isn't bright.
Quote of the Day:
"The Native-Americans said that it would rain on Monday, during the 24th of July, and they're never wrong."
-Skye
Day 16: The Lonesome Twosome
Skye and Brady went to work on Saturday all by themselves. As Skye describes it, they're more laid back and nobody cares if anything gets done. They're basically aware, since Saturday's are optional, that you're there because you want to be, and are less strict.
I'm jealous of not having to work hard one day, but then again, not working at all is nice too! I'm sure Skye and Brady just worked pass-thru; Brady on the outside and Skye on the inside. Just like always.
I'm jealous of not having to work hard one day, but then again, not working at all is nice too! I'm sure Skye and Brady just worked pass-thru; Brady on the outside and Skye on the inside. Just like always.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Day 15: The Last Men Standing
Quinn and Griffin went to Melissa Christiansen's cabin today...random. So they were gone. Brad's still in Flaming Gorge, so he was gone. And Jeff randomely never showed up. The word was that his Heritage Tour friends out in the boonies wanted to play with him. Instead of waiting until work was over and going up tonight, he just decided to take the day off...without letting us know--or so we think. We never actually got a hold of him, so we still don't know where he is or was.
So it was Brady, Skye and me at work today. I got to spend the whole first shift until the 9am break by myself, trying to install hardware on the grids. With Brad we can usually get a whole grid (three sets of hardware on each grid) done in about 3 or 4 minutes. We fly down the row and get them done incredibly fast when we work together. It's really hard to do with only one person and required both hands and usually at least one knee, or sometimes two, depending on your level of retardedness. I was really close to using two today. Assembling the hardware is a lengthy process (if you do enough to cover a whole day's work), and it's usually split up into 4 or 5 different times, in between installation and other projects. This morning, working by myself, I only got 6 hardware peices installed on grids (making up only two whole grids) and then assembled an additional 8 corner hardware peices. That took me from about 7am to 9am. Embarassing is the word that comes to mind.
Skye told me to "quit my biotching"--"biotch" being the term Brady suggested, after Skye used the word "witching" and the both of us were like "what the heck are you talking about?!"--cause I wouldn't stop complaining about how tired I was and how I kept dozing off in the middle of working, and how I've been doing a crappy job on a two-person task all by myself. I deserved it, but I was miserable. Skye, on the other hand, had been flexing his spanish skills for Josefina, who moved here from Mexico and only speaks spanish. He explained that she was about to pass something through into the clean room, and he wanted to check it or something and said quite determinedly, "¡Espera!" Josefina looked shocked and began to blurt out spanish, under the impression that Skye actually spoke and had been holding out on her forever. Skye quickly corrected her with a look like "no, that's the only word I know besides 'hola', and 'adios.'"
Brady was raving about his dominant job outside the clean room, supplying the workers inside with materials to clean and distribute for constructing the different areas. He bragged about how he was able to keep five workers busy cleaning the supplies he brought them. Huzzah for Brady.
But seriously folks, my job is getting to be mind-numbing and I am dying for Brad to come back! I hope monday comes soon, but not too soon, cause I want to enjoy my weekend.
Nearing the end of the second shift, and all throughout the third shift after lunch, Daniel Ellis kept me company. A return missionary who served in Mexico, he can speak spanish very well and we conversed about it, and the ideas behind becoming fluent, for a while. The two of us spent the time assembling hardware, installing hardware and helping Lawrence with hoisting the grids and spotting the grid fitters while they attached them to the ceiling. One of the most amusing things about working with the ceiling crew is my close proximity with Ron. He's one of the coolest guys I know. Most of the entertainment comes from his happy-go-lucky attitude and funny disposition. For example, I'll be working on installing some hardware components on a grid and he'll walk up behind me and start saying "Richard.......Richard.......Richard" in a high voice. I dunno why he really does this, but I think it's hilarious. He's great at making my day run smoother.
Skye left after lunch to go to the Rocky Mountain Review. Some basketball Jazz thing. I dunno what it is really, and I don't really care to know much. I just know that he left us, and by the end of the day, Brady and I were the only two to actually make it through the day. We gave each other stones for that.
At one point during the day, Daniel was trying to explain to Arturo and Luis that the particular grid that we were about to raise would buckle and twist because of the gap it had to fit around a support pillar. He was arguing with them in spanish, trying to get them to see exactly what he meant, and they were taking two separate stances and arguments to further their ideas. I concentrated really hard on understanding what they were arguing about and I must have looked pretty dumb, because suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, Luis smiled and looked at me. He basically said something referencing the blank look on my face, they all turned, and started to laugh together. I hadn't really followed the sudden turn in attention and thought I was expected to say something about the grid, but missed it cause it was in spanish. Dang! I was so close to taking the Steven Shelley approach and just shrugging my shoulders with a large cheesy grin, and saying "¡AMIGO!" I didn't, and finally talked to Daniel afterward to figure out exactly what was so funny.
Despite it being the longest shift, I enjoy the post-lunch working time because I'm finally awake and can work the best. We also get the most work done after lunch for some reason, and I always have something to do, which helps the time go by faster. This morning I kept falling asleep, with no one to talk to or anything, and I was going crazy by the beginning of the second shift, but luckily Daniel came to the rescue.
Although there was like, nobody at work today, we still managed to have a good time, and the best part was that I got another paycheck. Woo hoo!
Quote of the Day:
"My bladder is about to, like, explode! And at my age, that's not a very good thing."
-Lawrence
So it was Brady, Skye and me at work today. I got to spend the whole first shift until the 9am break by myself, trying to install hardware on the grids. With Brad we can usually get a whole grid (three sets of hardware on each grid) done in about 3 or 4 minutes. We fly down the row and get them done incredibly fast when we work together. It's really hard to do with only one person and required both hands and usually at least one knee, or sometimes two, depending on your level of retardedness. I was really close to using two today. Assembling the hardware is a lengthy process (if you do enough to cover a whole day's work), and it's usually split up into 4 or 5 different times, in between installation and other projects. This morning, working by myself, I only got 6 hardware peices installed on grids (making up only two whole grids) and then assembled an additional 8 corner hardware peices. That took me from about 7am to 9am. Embarassing is the word that comes to mind.
Skye told me to "quit my biotching"--"biotch" being the term Brady suggested, after Skye used the word "witching" and the both of us were like "what the heck are you talking about?!"--cause I wouldn't stop complaining about how tired I was and how I kept dozing off in the middle of working, and how I've been doing a crappy job on a two-person task all by myself. I deserved it, but I was miserable. Skye, on the other hand, had been flexing his spanish skills for Josefina, who moved here from Mexico and only speaks spanish. He explained that she was about to pass something through into the clean room, and he wanted to check it or something and said quite determinedly, "¡Espera!" Josefina looked shocked and began to blurt out spanish, under the impression that Skye actually spoke and had been holding out on her forever. Skye quickly corrected her with a look like "no, that's the only word I know besides 'hola', and 'adios.'"
Brady was raving about his dominant job outside the clean room, supplying the workers inside with materials to clean and distribute for constructing the different areas. He bragged about how he was able to keep five workers busy cleaning the supplies he brought them. Huzzah for Brady.
But seriously folks, my job is getting to be mind-numbing and I am dying for Brad to come back! I hope monday comes soon, but not too soon, cause I want to enjoy my weekend.
Nearing the end of the second shift, and all throughout the third shift after lunch, Daniel Ellis kept me company. A return missionary who served in Mexico, he can speak spanish very well and we conversed about it, and the ideas behind becoming fluent, for a while. The two of us spent the time assembling hardware, installing hardware and helping Lawrence with hoisting the grids and spotting the grid fitters while they attached them to the ceiling. One of the most amusing things about working with the ceiling crew is my close proximity with Ron. He's one of the coolest guys I know. Most of the entertainment comes from his happy-go-lucky attitude and funny disposition. For example, I'll be working on installing some hardware components on a grid and he'll walk up behind me and start saying "Richard.......Richard.......Richard" in a high voice. I dunno why he really does this, but I think it's hilarious. He's great at making my day run smoother.
Skye left after lunch to go to the Rocky Mountain Review. Some basketball Jazz thing. I dunno what it is really, and I don't really care to know much. I just know that he left us, and by the end of the day, Brady and I were the only two to actually make it through the day. We gave each other stones for that.
At one point during the day, Daniel was trying to explain to Arturo and Luis that the particular grid that we were about to raise would buckle and twist because of the gap it had to fit around a support pillar. He was arguing with them in spanish, trying to get them to see exactly what he meant, and they were taking two separate stances and arguments to further their ideas. I concentrated really hard on understanding what they were arguing about and I must have looked pretty dumb, because suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, Luis smiled and looked at me. He basically said something referencing the blank look on my face, they all turned, and started to laugh together. I hadn't really followed the sudden turn in attention and thought I was expected to say something about the grid, but missed it cause it was in spanish. Dang! I was so close to taking the Steven Shelley approach and just shrugging my shoulders with a large cheesy grin, and saying "¡AMIGO!" I didn't, and finally talked to Daniel afterward to figure out exactly what was so funny.
Despite it being the longest shift, I enjoy the post-lunch working time because I'm finally awake and can work the best. We also get the most work done after lunch for some reason, and I always have something to do, which helps the time go by faster. This morning I kept falling asleep, with no one to talk to or anything, and I was going crazy by the beginning of the second shift, but luckily Daniel came to the rescue.
Although there was like, nobody at work today, we still managed to have a good time, and the best part was that I got another paycheck. Woo hoo!
Quote of the Day:
"My bladder is about to, like, explode! And at my age, that's not a very good thing."
-Lawrence
Day 14: Work Without Me and Quinn
This is more of a place holder blog. Skye's going to update me on the goings-on of yesterday while Quinn and I were at the University of Utah, registering for classes and going to the freshman orientation. It was way fun!
Coming Soon:
Skye's info on Brycon Clean Room progress...
Coming Soon:
Skye's info on Brycon Clean Room progress...
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Day 13: No Brad, No Fun
I didn't do much talking today. That's because Brad was gone to Flaming Gorge, and I worked with Jaime. I mean, I talked a fair amount, but nothing compared to when Brad's there to chat with and sing about idiots like Colby with.
Jaime, despite being sorta lazy and not a very hard worker, worked pretty well. He never complained about anything; just silently did whatever I said--being the one who's done this job for the last week--and worked at it all day. I jumped around a lot between grids and gasketing, cause once again the gasketeers don't know how to work in order. They just randomely gasket any old grid and then Lawrence needs grid 247 and not only is it in some remote corner of the FAB, but it's also devoid of any gasket whatsoever. It's quite frusterating when I'm the one who has to listen to Lawrence complaining about it all day. But it is a nice relief from his normal topic--advice about how to not screw up my life (which always consists of telling me to go to college and get an education, altough I assure him every time that I intend to do just that).
I felt bad for Jaime when he walked off to help bring a grid over for the ceiling and Lawrence started to talk about how he was going nowhere and he wasn't going to last long on the job. Apparently he's pretty lazy, gets to work late all the time, and just has this "aura about him" that gives the impression that he'll never go anywhere in life, according to Lawrence. I can see it now, but I really didn't even look for it. I didn't work with him for very long, and he's a nice guy...so I had no disposition to ever think ill of him. Lawrence, on the other hand, is paid to spot people who don't work as hard as they should and make them. I did begin to notice, once i started to jump in and gasket, that Jaime just stood there and watched. I wondered to myself if he knew how, but how hard could it be? I taught myself.
With Brad gone, I was driving myself crazy with want of somebody to talk to and commiserate with, but alas, there was nobody. I found myself working like Brad rather than myself. I mean that Brad's just go go go, nonstop. He'll always be saying "let's go over here and make more hardware" or "we need to roll this grid over now, so run over there." It's not that I don't like to work, it's just that he's more hop-to than I am usually. I dunno if I was more efficient today than before, but I found myself saying what Brad would say all day, and keeping myself busy when I could have just stood around like Jaime. He got away with it, and if I played it right, then I could have gotten away with it too. But then again, I guess I had to step up cause if I didn't take Brad's place, then we would have done nothing all day, or been yelled at by Lawrence...one or the other. Lawrence wanted to hang like, 18 grids today, but we only got off with about 15 or so. He was annoyed with it because he really wants to hang 20 a day. We blamed it on the gasketeers, and rightfully so. Alex definitely doesn't keep them on a tight leash.
Jeff was working on gasketing again today, but he needed to move due to his back. I guess he has problems hunching over all day--not like nobody else wouldn't have them, but he's got extra problems or something. Anyway, he disappeared after a while and when I went to gasket one of the other guys was like "one guy was here, but he said he had back problems, so Alex replaced him with this guy." It was Christian, and he sucked at gasketing; it was actually turned sideways at one point.
Griffin and Quinn worked with Cowboy taping the new area or something. I think they were putting up new walls for the new section of the FAB or something. I didn't inquire into it very far, and all they said was that they were taping walls--which usually means a new section is nearly cleaned and ready to be opened up. It's exciting cause our clean room is about to get 33% bigger.
Brady and Skye worked at the pass-thru again today. They were just cleaning stuff and transporting it again. Same as it ever was. At lunch today Brady greeted me with some crazy random word, which he claimed to be the Navajo word for "hello," although I'm sure it meant something like "I'm a dufus." If I spoke Navajo (or any foreign language) and Brady asked me how to say "hello" I would definitely tell him something that we could use to laugh at him (me and my Navajo buddies, that is). I guess I shouldn't discriminate against Brady, but it'd just be funny to watch him, cause if you know Brady, then you know he gets way excited about foreign languages, and he'll overuse his new words.
After Lawrence got done complaining about how slow the gasketeers were, near the end of the day, he sent me and Jaime to find some tape and scissors to lay out the grid on the floor. Like I mentioned before, the ceiling is lined with holes 8 feet apart in every distance (except diagonally). Well, I said that there's tape on the floor lining out the grid, whereon the exact measurement is eventually made, followed by a laser which projects onto the I-Beam and recorded. So Jaime and I spent about a half hour scouring the newly assembled tiles in the recently opened area a mere three weeks old.
Following that we rearranged the grids for tomorrow--none of them had been gasketed completely or even close to halfway--and perhaps Lawrence will reach his goal tomorrow. But I doubt it, as both Brand and I will be gone from the ceiling crew, and Quinn's going to be gone also, so there are less people to pull from other areas. Tomorrow Quinn and I will be registering for the University of Utah Fall 2006 Semester. We're extremely excited to go to college and we're staying the night in our new apartment, which is also way fun. We've started to move stuff into it, but there is basically no food to begin with. There's hardly any furniture besides a card table we're bringing up tonight and like, five chairs.
Aside from working kinda slow and quietly today, it was pleasant. I had a fair amount of energy in the morning, although after 9am break I started to get really tired. For the most part I was attentive and didn't feel like crap--which is always a plus when working construction.
I can't wait for tomorrow. Two good things: No work, and finally picking a schedule. I'm gonna officially be a college student.
Quote of the Day:
Jaime, despite being sorta lazy and not a very hard worker, worked pretty well. He never complained about anything; just silently did whatever I said--being the one who's done this job for the last week--and worked at it all day. I jumped around a lot between grids and gasketing, cause once again the gasketeers don't know how to work in order. They just randomely gasket any old grid and then Lawrence needs grid 247 and not only is it in some remote corner of the FAB, but it's also devoid of any gasket whatsoever. It's quite frusterating when I'm the one who has to listen to Lawrence complaining about it all day. But it is a nice relief from his normal topic--advice about how to not screw up my life (which always consists of telling me to go to college and get an education, altough I assure him every time that I intend to do just that).
I felt bad for Jaime when he walked off to help bring a grid over for the ceiling and Lawrence started to talk about how he was going nowhere and he wasn't going to last long on the job. Apparently he's pretty lazy, gets to work late all the time, and just has this "aura about him" that gives the impression that he'll never go anywhere in life, according to Lawrence. I can see it now, but I really didn't even look for it. I didn't work with him for very long, and he's a nice guy...so I had no disposition to ever think ill of him. Lawrence, on the other hand, is paid to spot people who don't work as hard as they should and make them. I did begin to notice, once i started to jump in and gasket, that Jaime just stood there and watched. I wondered to myself if he knew how, but how hard could it be? I taught myself.
With Brad gone, I was driving myself crazy with want of somebody to talk to and commiserate with, but alas, there was nobody. I found myself working like Brad rather than myself. I mean that Brad's just go go go, nonstop. He'll always be saying "let's go over here and make more hardware" or "we need to roll this grid over now, so run over there." It's not that I don't like to work, it's just that he's more hop-to than I am usually. I dunno if I was more efficient today than before, but I found myself saying what Brad would say all day, and keeping myself busy when I could have just stood around like Jaime. He got away with it, and if I played it right, then I could have gotten away with it too. But then again, I guess I had to step up cause if I didn't take Brad's place, then we would have done nothing all day, or been yelled at by Lawrence...one or the other. Lawrence wanted to hang like, 18 grids today, but we only got off with about 15 or so. He was annoyed with it because he really wants to hang 20 a day. We blamed it on the gasketeers, and rightfully so. Alex definitely doesn't keep them on a tight leash.
Jeff was working on gasketing again today, but he needed to move due to his back. I guess he has problems hunching over all day--not like nobody else wouldn't have them, but he's got extra problems or something. Anyway, he disappeared after a while and when I went to gasket one of the other guys was like "one guy was here, but he said he had back problems, so Alex replaced him with this guy." It was Christian, and he sucked at gasketing; it was actually turned sideways at one point.
Griffin and Quinn worked with Cowboy taping the new area or something. I think they were putting up new walls for the new section of the FAB or something. I didn't inquire into it very far, and all they said was that they were taping walls--which usually means a new section is nearly cleaned and ready to be opened up. It's exciting cause our clean room is about to get 33% bigger.
Brady and Skye worked at the pass-thru again today. They were just cleaning stuff and transporting it again. Same as it ever was. At lunch today Brady greeted me with some crazy random word, which he claimed to be the Navajo word for "hello," although I'm sure it meant something like "I'm a dufus." If I spoke Navajo (or any foreign language) and Brady asked me how to say "hello" I would definitely tell him something that we could use to laugh at him (me and my Navajo buddies, that is). I guess I shouldn't discriminate against Brady, but it'd just be funny to watch him, cause if you know Brady, then you know he gets way excited about foreign languages, and he'll overuse his new words.
After Lawrence got done complaining about how slow the gasketeers were, near the end of the day, he sent me and Jaime to find some tape and scissors to lay out the grid on the floor. Like I mentioned before, the ceiling is lined with holes 8 feet apart in every distance (except diagonally). Well, I said that there's tape on the floor lining out the grid, whereon the exact measurement is eventually made, followed by a laser which projects onto the I-Beam and recorded. So Jaime and I spent about a half hour scouring the newly assembled tiles in the recently opened area a mere three weeks old.
Following that we rearranged the grids for tomorrow--none of them had been gasketed completely or even close to halfway--and perhaps Lawrence will reach his goal tomorrow. But I doubt it, as both Brand and I will be gone from the ceiling crew, and Quinn's going to be gone also, so there are less people to pull from other areas. Tomorrow Quinn and I will be registering for the University of Utah Fall 2006 Semester. We're extremely excited to go to college and we're staying the night in our new apartment, which is also way fun. We've started to move stuff into it, but there is basically no food to begin with. There's hardly any furniture besides a card table we're bringing up tonight and like, five chairs.
Aside from working kinda slow and quietly today, it was pleasant. I had a fair amount of energy in the morning, although after 9am break I started to get really tired. For the most part I was attentive and didn't feel like crap--which is always a plus when working construction.
I can't wait for tomorrow. Two good things: No work, and finally picking a schedule. I'm gonna officially be a college student.
Quote of the Day:
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Day 12: Sing Like You're In A Musical Day...Kinda....
We found out today that Whitlie and Reagan showed up and applied for the job, but were turned away. Brycon's excuse was that they weren't looking for any more workers that would be leaving at the end of the summer. It's a perfectly good reason, but we all think that there were other reasons. Whitlie and Reagan are, of course, girls--good looking girls--and we think they might be distractors to the other workers. Sad as that is, Brady made a good point when he mentioned it. I still think that Brycon was perfectly honest, and it's acceptable that they had a good reason, but it just sucks that they can't work here...for us, at least.
This morning I could not wake up. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I tried (cold water, walking around in circles, caffeine, working, etc.) I couldn't keep my eyes open. I would get these bouts of extreme sleepiness, followed by a somewhat alert and awakened state, but only for a slight period of time. Brad seemed tired too, and verified it. We were tired.
Quinn, Griffin, and Jeff spent the whole 10 hours gasketing again...boring. I feel bad for them, but not really, seeing as Brad and I were so tired and bored with our job. I would have given anything to gasket today. Brady and Skye also continued to work in the same area as before, cleaning and passing materials through into the clean room. Another job I would have probably enjoyed more than my own today.
Anyway, Brad and I actually spotted the hole-punching crew until lunch (and after break, worked on the grid hardware in between moving the scaffolding to a new area). It was pretty boring, and loud, so we had to wear ear protection, which limited conversation, thus resulting in an ever-increasing blanket of drowsiness invading our bodies. The little booties that we were wearing were horrible on the tile floor. We couldn't get a firm grip on the ground and slid all over, rather than push the scaffold anywhere--this was also due to the massive amount of weight on the scaffold (Alberto, Cecilio, the air compressor, hole-punch, and other tools).
On the way to lunch, we had an argument with Quinn about listening to music. It's frowned upon while working...actually, if I remember correctly, they prohibit MP3 players. Quinn didn't care...he'd prefer to get fired, and it makes work go faster. Haha. Well, he got away with it, apparently in front of "Supernintendo" Steve (our Superintendant).
At lunch, Thomas (Renae Cowboy's husband) threw his garbage into one of the cans from like 20 feet away and totally nailed the shot. We just happened to be looking over there at the time and when he made it we were all like "OOOOOOOH!" and saluted him with a follow-through hand signal thingy. It was funny, but I don't think he heard us. He did it again, but only Brady was looking.
After lunch it was back to full-time grids for me and Brad. The only good thing was that the gasketeers were actually finishing them up relatively quickly, and wheeling them over in order and stuff--so Brad and I only had to install the hardware and roll them up to the forklifts. It made the job run so much smoother, and Brad and I weren't sweating profusely for the first time in a week. We were grateful, but I think that goes without saying.
Brad and I had an argument about who said "I keep my friends close, and my enemies closer." He said Albert Einstein said it, but I just didn't think it was something Einstein would say. Maybe he did say it, the point is, Brad had a dumb argument, which was Einstein was involved in politics...which I am kinda doubtful of, he being a scientist and mostly predisposed with questions of life and the "equation to everything." Anyway, I still haven't verified that he said it...and conversely, I haven't raised a countersubject or proven him/her any more likely to have said it either.
For the last hour and a half Brad and I amused ourselves with singing songs to the tunes of Les Misérables songs, Goofy Movie songs, Phantom of the Opera songs, and "Heigh-Ho" from Snow White. Most of them were either about how Colby is and idiot, or how Ron is the coolest guy we know, or how Brad is gonna take a dook in Flaming Gorge. Haha...wow, they were clever.
"Colby's A Ho"
Sung to the tune of "Heigh-Ho" from the Disney classic, Snow White
He's a Ho, He's a Ho
And it's not to work he'll go
Cause he got terminated and he's an idiot
And a ho....a ho.....a ho....a ho......
(repeat)
Um, there were others, but they were random and really we only sang them once. We also fantasized about Jaime rapping and Cowboy backing him up "Bas-sic-cally" style. Speaking of Cowboy...we decided that if he wears Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle shirts and pants to work construction, then his nice clothes must be incredibly amazing and expensive. What a funny guy.
Anyway, so to sum it all up, we're bummed that Reagan and Whitlie can't work, but it's probably for the best. And Brad and I are going out of our minds, fantasizing about Jaime rapping and Brad taking a dook in Flaming Gorge.
Quote of the Day:
Grant: "Brad, the Atomic Bomb wasn't a political project, it was scientific."
Brad: "Yes it was. It was scientifical and political"
This morning I could not wake up. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I tried (cold water, walking around in circles, caffeine, working, etc.) I couldn't keep my eyes open. I would get these bouts of extreme sleepiness, followed by a somewhat alert and awakened state, but only for a slight period of time. Brad seemed tired too, and verified it. We were tired.
Quinn, Griffin, and Jeff spent the whole 10 hours gasketing again...boring. I feel bad for them, but not really, seeing as Brad and I were so tired and bored with our job. I would have given anything to gasket today. Brady and Skye also continued to work in the same area as before, cleaning and passing materials through into the clean room. Another job I would have probably enjoyed more than my own today.
Anyway, Brad and I actually spotted the hole-punching crew until lunch (and after break, worked on the grid hardware in between moving the scaffolding to a new area). It was pretty boring, and loud, so we had to wear ear protection, which limited conversation, thus resulting in an ever-increasing blanket of drowsiness invading our bodies. The little booties that we were wearing were horrible on the tile floor. We couldn't get a firm grip on the ground and slid all over, rather than push the scaffold anywhere--this was also due to the massive amount of weight on the scaffold (Alberto, Cecilio, the air compressor, hole-punch, and other tools).
On the way to lunch, we had an argument with Quinn about listening to music. It's frowned upon while working...actually, if I remember correctly, they prohibit MP3 players. Quinn didn't care...he'd prefer to get fired, and it makes work go faster. Haha. Well, he got away with it, apparently in front of "Supernintendo" Steve (our Superintendant).
At lunch, Thomas (Renae Cowboy's husband) threw his garbage into one of the cans from like 20 feet away and totally nailed the shot. We just happened to be looking over there at the time and when he made it we were all like "OOOOOOOH!" and saluted him with a follow-through hand signal thingy. It was funny, but I don't think he heard us. He did it again, but only Brady was looking.
After lunch it was back to full-time grids for me and Brad. The only good thing was that the gasketeers were actually finishing them up relatively quickly, and wheeling them over in order and stuff--so Brad and I only had to install the hardware and roll them up to the forklifts. It made the job run so much smoother, and Brad and I weren't sweating profusely for the first time in a week. We were grateful, but I think that goes without saying.
Brad and I had an argument about who said "I keep my friends close, and my enemies closer." He said Albert Einstein said it, but I just didn't think it was something Einstein would say. Maybe he did say it, the point is, Brad had a dumb argument, which was Einstein was involved in politics...which I am kinda doubtful of, he being a scientist and mostly predisposed with questions of life and the "equation to everything." Anyway, I still haven't verified that he said it...and conversely, I haven't raised a countersubject or proven him/her any more likely to have said it either.
For the last hour and a half Brad and I amused ourselves with singing songs to the tunes of Les Misérables songs, Goofy Movie songs, Phantom of the Opera songs, and "Heigh-Ho" from Snow White. Most of them were either about how Colby is and idiot, or how Ron is the coolest guy we know, or how Brad is gonna take a dook in Flaming Gorge. Haha...wow, they were clever.
"Colby's A Ho"
Sung to the tune of "Heigh-Ho" from the Disney classic, Snow White
He's a Ho, He's a Ho
And it's not to work he'll go
Cause he got terminated and he's an idiot
And a ho....a ho.....a ho....a ho......
(repeat)
Um, there were others, but they were random and really we only sang them once. We also fantasized about Jaime rapping and Cowboy backing him up "Bas-sic-cally" style. Speaking of Cowboy...we decided that if he wears Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle shirts and pants to work construction, then his nice clothes must be incredibly amazing and expensive. What a funny guy.
Anyway, so to sum it all up, we're bummed that Reagan and Whitlie can't work, but it's probably for the best. And Brad and I are going out of our minds, fantasizing about Jaime rapping and Brad taking a dook in Flaming Gorge.
Quote of the Day:
Grant: "Brad, the Atomic Bomb wasn't a political project, it was scientific."
Brad: "Yes it was. It was scientifical and political"
Monday, July 10, 2006
Day 11: The Boringest Day
Today was slow, at least in the morning. I must have had a crappy night, becuase I was dead tired all day. It wasn't much yawning, just no energy. I remember waking up three or four times in the middle of the night, which I believe contributed to the lack of drive I had to work. Brad and I worked on the grids, installing hardware, again.
It wasn't that we didn't get much done; I mean, we hung 16 grids...a new record for us. Plus, we had the weekly safety meeting this morning, which probably put us back to starting work at like 7:45, at the earliest. I just had no desire to work--let alone live, because of the horrible headache and stomachache that I had from no sleep--and I felt horrible about it, cause Brad was trying so hard to get me to focus and work. He kept saying, "Grant! Let's go buddy...you're taking forever." Oh well...so much for that.
We did get a lot done though, so I don't really think anybody had much license to complain about my crappy performance today. Thanks to Brad, we got more than usual done.
The safety meeting this morning was a joke. No donuts. No juice. No coffee--not that I would actually drink coffee...but it pissed off a bunch of other guys who would drink it. When the head Hoffman guy apologized for the lack of refreshments, I heard one guy "Boo" him. I laughed, cause even though I would never have the gall to do that--at least in a silent room--that's exactly how I felt.
Besides moving grids, there wasn't much going on today. A pretty boring series of events--if you can even call them events. Jeff, Griffin, and Quinn worked on gasketing today, along with the other 500 people. Holy crap! I kept having these familiar recollections of something every time I saw them all hunched over between the rows of the grids. It wasn't until I actually helped at the end of the day, that I realized it. They looked like the African plantation slaves you always see in historical movies and stuff. It was pretty creepy.
Brady, Jaime, and Skye all worked at the pass-thrus, cleaning and sending grates into the new section of the clean room. They've been working on starting a new section...covering the holes and crap.
Brad and I were talking to Ron today and we found out that Colby got fired. Hooray Fired! We were excited, cause he's an idiot. Always swearing and never working. Sometimes he'd work, but when he was with his buddies, they'd slack. Plus, he apparently hardly ever showed up--something I started to notice in hopes that he had been fired. Ron said he had shown up for a few hours on Saturday and then he was gone, and wasn't there today either. Although I'm not completely sure that he really is fired, I really hope so. Ron seemed pretty certain about it, so whatever.
Anyway, so our day was pretty uneventful. Nothing really exciting happened. Nobody died. Nobody joined the crew. I guess the most exciting thing was when Lawrence gave Brad advice on how to not screw up his life. Lawrence has done a lot of things he's regretted, and every day he thinks about them. Poor guy. I really like Lawrence. He's a really sincere guy, who always is looking to help you out. Never wants you to do something you'd regret...like working in construction. Ha Ha...
Quote of the Day:
"You're wearing your Kevlar underwear, right?"
-Quinn
It wasn't that we didn't get much done; I mean, we hung 16 grids...a new record for us. Plus, we had the weekly safety meeting this morning, which probably put us back to starting work at like 7:45, at the earliest. I just had no desire to work--let alone live, because of the horrible headache and stomachache that I had from no sleep--and I felt horrible about it, cause Brad was trying so hard to get me to focus and work. He kept saying, "Grant! Let's go buddy...you're taking forever." Oh well...so much for that.
We did get a lot done though, so I don't really think anybody had much license to complain about my crappy performance today. Thanks to Brad, we got more than usual done.
The safety meeting this morning was a joke. No donuts. No juice. No coffee--not that I would actually drink coffee...but it pissed off a bunch of other guys who would drink it. When the head Hoffman guy apologized for the lack of refreshments, I heard one guy "Boo" him. I laughed, cause even though I would never have the gall to do that--at least in a silent room--that's exactly how I felt.
Besides moving grids, there wasn't much going on today. A pretty boring series of events--if you can even call them events. Jeff, Griffin, and Quinn worked on gasketing today, along with the other 500 people. Holy crap! I kept having these familiar recollections of something every time I saw them all hunched over between the rows of the grids. It wasn't until I actually helped at the end of the day, that I realized it. They looked like the African plantation slaves you always see in historical movies and stuff. It was pretty creepy.
Brady, Jaime, and Skye all worked at the pass-thrus, cleaning and sending grates into the new section of the clean room. They've been working on starting a new section...covering the holes and crap.
Brad and I were talking to Ron today and we found out that Colby got fired. Hooray Fired! We were excited, cause he's an idiot. Always swearing and never working. Sometimes he'd work, but when he was with his buddies, they'd slack. Plus, he apparently hardly ever showed up--something I started to notice in hopes that he had been fired. Ron said he had shown up for a few hours on Saturday and then he was gone, and wasn't there today either. Although I'm not completely sure that he really is fired, I really hope so. Ron seemed pretty certain about it, so whatever.
Anyway, so our day was pretty uneventful. Nothing really exciting happened. Nobody died. Nobody joined the crew. I guess the most exciting thing was when Lawrence gave Brad advice on how to not screw up his life. Lawrence has done a lot of things he's regretted, and every day he thinks about them. Poor guy. I really like Lawrence. He's a really sincere guy, who always is looking to help you out. Never wants you to do something you'd regret...like working in construction. Ha Ha...
Quote of the Day:
"You're wearing your Kevlar underwear, right?"
-Quinn
Friday, July 07, 2006
Day 10: And Then There Were Three...
Basi-cally, nobody came to work today. Brad, Griffin, and I were the only ones out of our little group that showed up today. Brady is still gone to scout camp, Quinn went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Skye called at 5am to confess that a bout of severe vomiting had overcome his person. On top of half of our crew missing, Griffin was the only one who got to work on time, as Brad slept through his alarm--shutting it off and thinking he had hit the "snooze" button--and Skye woke me up at 5:10 to ask for Jeff's cell number so he could call Jeff to let him know not to pick him up.
Thanks to Skye, I was able to get to work only 5 minutes after 6am, and thanks to Griffin, Brad was woken up and got to work a few minutes after me. Wow, what a morning!
Anyway, the day started off like any other...except like, everybody was gone! Renae was gone, Quinn, Brady, and Skye were gone, and some other people turned up missing too. We were short-handed and didn't end up getting any grids today. Something that would have been an insult to mine and Brad's name, except we were given a brand new task this morning. Brand new to us, that is. Dex, a coworker of ours that we actually met just today, trained me and Brad on how to measure and mark the I-Beams on the ceiling for the hole punching crew. To hang the grids in the ceiling, we actually punch holes into the I-Beams and bolt a short rectangular tube of steel to the beam. The grids are then attached to that steel tube with the long and thick bolts that Brad and I were previously engaged in installing on the grids for the last two days. Before our task began this morning, Alex approached Lawrence and apparently tried to pull Brad away to help clean or something. We heard her say his name and I was like, "See ya, Brad." Brad cringed, not because he doesn't like Alex, but because cleaning grids and tiles is so freaking boring. Alex, however, walked off a minute later and never came to get Brad. Apparently Lawrence had talked her into taking Ron instead.
The process, although sort of tedious and actually quite important to the entire layout of the floor, is very fun and time seems to fly while you're doing it. Brad and I took turns up on the scaffolding, marking the points where each of the holes would be punched. The floor of the FAB (clean room) is hidden underneath an artificial floor of steel tiles (so wires and other such things can be run accross the room without the clutter of such a large computer dominated aread. There is a largely invisible grid layed out on that floor, with peices of tape layed out every eight feet in all directions, marking the corners of the grids on the ceiling. On each peice of tape is an X, where we line up a laser-level to project a dot on the I-Beam overhead. The man on the scaffold marks a dot with a Sharpie marker and then measures out with a square, one and a half inches on each side, where the holes are to be punched. That's what we did. It's a long process for each one, but for some reason, doesn't get old as quickly as cleaning tiles or assembling grids. We spent our morning until lunch doing that.
Brad said to me, as we walked out of the clean room to lunch, "I feel like an engineer."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Because those dots we put on the ceiling are so important. We have a job that if we didn't do it totally correct, could ruin the whole ceiling. That's kinda cool."
"Yeah, it is," I said.
At lunch, Jeff showed up. He had just gotten out of Orientation and looked tired. He informed us that he was running off an hour and a half of sleep, because he had to work until close last night. He got off at 2am or something, after the midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ended. Then he woke up at like 5am to go to work. After work he would go straight back to the theatre to work until close tonight, and unless he passed out from exhaustion, I believe he's still there. Poor kid. I now have very little sympathy for poor Quinn, who figured he'd be too tired to come to work after seeing it at midnight. The only thing that Quinn had going for him, was the fact that he had been working for the last 2 days and I knew just how tired he already was, and how tired he would have been with only 2 hours of sleep last night. Oh well, it's not a big deal, but Jeff impressed me that he could keep it up.
After lunch, and after the afternoon "Stretch & Flex," Jeff left again to go to Protocol Training. Brad and I gowned up and spent the rest of the day moving grids that had been delivered out of order, which was basically all of them. We moved like...ten grids, and they were HEAVY. After a while, Jeff and a new guy named Cody joined us in the FAB and Alex put them to work gasketing. We finally started to get the 170's in and we can probably start on the grids again fairly soon. I don't think anybody is going into work tomorrow, cause it's a saturday, but Skye might, since he missed today. Hopefully he doesn't go in alone, but he may anyway. I'm definitely not going...I've got sleep to do.
Oh, and poor Griffin spent the entire day cleaning grids...not much to say really. Only that he needs to get transferred or he's going to lose his mind. Maybe I can trade him for Brad...haha.
Quote of the Day:
Lawrence: "You're lucky! Alex wanted to take you, but I told her she could have Ron instead."
Brad: "Yes! Take that Ron!"
Thanks to Skye, I was able to get to work only 5 minutes after 6am, and thanks to Griffin, Brad was woken up and got to work a few minutes after me. Wow, what a morning!
Anyway, the day started off like any other...except like, everybody was gone! Renae was gone, Quinn, Brady, and Skye were gone, and some other people turned up missing too. We were short-handed and didn't end up getting any grids today. Something that would have been an insult to mine and Brad's name, except we were given a brand new task this morning. Brand new to us, that is. Dex, a coworker of ours that we actually met just today, trained me and Brad on how to measure and mark the I-Beams on the ceiling for the hole punching crew. To hang the grids in the ceiling, we actually punch holes into the I-Beams and bolt a short rectangular tube of steel to the beam. The grids are then attached to that steel tube with the long and thick bolts that Brad and I were previously engaged in installing on the grids for the last two days. Before our task began this morning, Alex approached Lawrence and apparently tried to pull Brad away to help clean or something. We heard her say his name and I was like, "See ya, Brad." Brad cringed, not because he doesn't like Alex, but because cleaning grids and tiles is so freaking boring. Alex, however, walked off a minute later and never came to get Brad. Apparently Lawrence had talked her into taking Ron instead.
The process, although sort of tedious and actually quite important to the entire layout of the floor, is very fun and time seems to fly while you're doing it. Brad and I took turns up on the scaffolding, marking the points where each of the holes would be punched. The floor of the FAB (clean room) is hidden underneath an artificial floor of steel tiles (so wires and other such things can be run accross the room without the clutter of such a large computer dominated aread. There is a largely invisible grid layed out on that floor, with peices of tape layed out every eight feet in all directions, marking the corners of the grids on the ceiling. On each peice of tape is an X, where we line up a laser-level to project a dot on the I-Beam overhead. The man on the scaffold marks a dot with a Sharpie marker and then measures out with a square, one and a half inches on each side, where the holes are to be punched. That's what we did. It's a long process for each one, but for some reason, doesn't get old as quickly as cleaning tiles or assembling grids. We spent our morning until lunch doing that.
Brad said to me, as we walked out of the clean room to lunch, "I feel like an engineer."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Because those dots we put on the ceiling are so important. We have a job that if we didn't do it totally correct, could ruin the whole ceiling. That's kinda cool."
"Yeah, it is," I said.
At lunch, Jeff showed up. He had just gotten out of Orientation and looked tired. He informed us that he was running off an hour and a half of sleep, because he had to work until close last night. He got off at 2am or something, after the midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ended. Then he woke up at like 5am to go to work. After work he would go straight back to the theatre to work until close tonight, and unless he passed out from exhaustion, I believe he's still there. Poor kid. I now have very little sympathy for poor Quinn, who figured he'd be too tired to come to work after seeing it at midnight. The only thing that Quinn had going for him, was the fact that he had been working for the last 2 days and I knew just how tired he already was, and how tired he would have been with only 2 hours of sleep last night. Oh well, it's not a big deal, but Jeff impressed me that he could keep it up.
After lunch, and after the afternoon "Stretch & Flex," Jeff left again to go to Protocol Training. Brad and I gowned up and spent the rest of the day moving grids that had been delivered out of order, which was basically all of them. We moved like...ten grids, and they were HEAVY. After a while, Jeff and a new guy named Cody joined us in the FAB and Alex put them to work gasketing. We finally started to get the 170's in and we can probably start on the grids again fairly soon. I don't think anybody is going into work tomorrow, cause it's a saturday, but Skye might, since he missed today. Hopefully he doesn't go in alone, but he may anyway. I'm definitely not going...I've got sleep to do.
Oh, and poor Griffin spent the entire day cleaning grids...not much to say really. Only that he needs to get transferred or he's going to lose his mind. Maybe I can trade him for Brad...haha.
Quote of the Day:
Lawrence: "You're lucky! Alex wanted to take you, but I told her she could have Ron instead."
Brad: "Yes! Take that Ron!"
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Day 9: Ah, Nuts!
They have these dumb latex gloves in the gowning room that aren't like the other latex gloves--in fact, I don't even think they're latex, to tell the truth. They dont' stretch and they hardly stay on your fingers for longer than a few seconds. Brad and I had a heck of a time trying to screw in the bolts for the hardware on the grids today. Actually, I had a heck of a time, since I had to hold the nuts, while Brad screwed in the bolt...a task that didn't require the use of fingertips. I had the hardest time getting the nuts into the little grooves to line up the holes for the bolt. More than half the time--way more than half--the gloves would get stuck between the grid and the nuts or inside the threads of the nuts and bolts. Every once in a while, Brad and I would find real latex gloves and the work would proceed a million times faster.
Today we basically just did the same thing we did yesterday. Brady was gone--that was the only difference. Everyone went to the same places: Brad and I were fastening the hardware to the grids while Quinn, Griffin, and Renae cleaned them and rolled them out to us. Skye was still cleaning the material that passed through into the clean room. Alex came up before Brad and I really started assembling the "y-wings" and pulled him over to help with pass-thru. So I worked alone for about 3 hours, just standing at the cart, putting the hardware together. I didn't try to put them onto the grids cause none of them were ready to go really, and I didn't dare try myself--Brad and I tried that before we found out we could fly if we teamed up.
I knew that it'd be more trouble than it was worth to try to teach someone else how to work the way Brad and I did yesterday, and it wasn't like there was anybody willing to...everyone else on the ceiling crew was busy working on the grid that we brought over first thing. We only ended up getting two grids up before morning break, and I was falling asleep on my feet, which ached like crazy.
At morning break I confessed to Brad that I desperately needed him and that he'd be a much better help with me than just standing around cleaning stuff. The cleaning crew had about four people, maybe five, and were not really in any position to give one up. But then again, Brad and Skye were both outside, and the outsiders really don't do that much--they can't clean materials because the insiders have to clean it anyway; it's a waste of time. Skye could really handle it himself if the need arose. I felt bad trying to get Skye to work by himself, cause I obviously knew what that was like. My job was really a two-person job, while Alex's cleaning crew really only needed one person outside the pass-thru--any more than one was really just a comfort worker...not extremely necessary. We decided that Brady pretty much ruined the whole system cause he was gone and everyone was getting switched around...dummy.
Brad asked me to work on getting him back. Alex only wanted Brad because he was could "hustle," which is nice, but who needs to hustle when you're wiping down floor tiles...or just standing outside handing floor tiles to the cleaners, who can't go fast or it's pointless anyway?
As soon as I got a chance, I asked Lawrence (our supervisor, and head of the ceiling crew) if I could have Brad back once we started to move tiles. The gasketeers had finally started to come around, and had gotten at least some of the 170's done, so we could continue to roll them over and hoist them up to be placed. Lawrence wasn't happy at losing Brad in the first place, as he knew how well we had improved the efficiency yesterday. We placed ten grids for crying out loud! The average was like, five, before we started. So Lawrence was more than happy to approach Alex about getting his second-best worker back. Only kidding...I'm second, Ron's first.
Anyway, like Lawrence said, Alex wasn't happy about losing Brad either, but the minute he got back inside, we started assembling the grids and pulling them over to be placed. We had a lot of ground to make up--Steve, for some reason, had said something about placing 20 grids today, and we'd only placed two, with only 7 hours left. Over the next few hours we placed probably 3 or 4 more before lunch break.
After lunch, Brad and I, despite having to wait for the gaskets to be done, got even closer to the day's quota. I even gasketed for a while and I thought it was fun. We had, like, ten people gasketing but it still took them forever. The people outside kept sending in grids in the wrong order and we were missing like half of the ones we needed, and we couldn't continue to place them. The gasketeers, under the direction of Alex, randomely gasketed any old grid and we found ourselves with grid number 95 done way ahead of schedule, along with 159 and other grids that shouldn't have been brought in for at least a few days. Lawrence, needless to say, was pissed. Luckily we had ordered the ones we needed before lunch, so we could plan on getting them afterward.
We got our grids and work continued. Brad and I intalling the hardware non-stop, and rolling grid after grid over to be raised to the ceiling. The work, as it did yesterday, became mind-numbing and Brad and I were exhausted by 3 o'clock. We had moved nine grids already, and were well on our way toward getting three more done by 4:30.
We finished the day with 12 grids moved and placed in the ceiling--many more than I had expected before Brad came back. Today ended up better than expected, but I'm so tired. Quinn is going to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, so he won't be at work tomorrow, and neither will Brady, who is gone to a scout camp. The only good thing about tomorrow is that Jeff starts, along with (hopefully) a bunch of other people to lighten the load a bit more. We never found out if Whitlie or Reagan actually applied, and Griffin and Quinn are talking about persuading them not to...I don't blame them. They'd both hate it, but I admit it'd be fun to have them around.
I'm going to bed...
Quote of the Day:
"Does Pedro look like Saddam Hussein to anyone else?"
-Skye
Today we basically just did the same thing we did yesterday. Brady was gone--that was the only difference. Everyone went to the same places: Brad and I were fastening the hardware to the grids while Quinn, Griffin, and Renae cleaned them and rolled them out to us. Skye was still cleaning the material that passed through into the clean room. Alex came up before Brad and I really started assembling the "y-wings" and pulled him over to help with pass-thru. So I worked alone for about 3 hours, just standing at the cart, putting the hardware together. I didn't try to put them onto the grids cause none of them were ready to go really, and I didn't dare try myself--Brad and I tried that before we found out we could fly if we teamed up.
I knew that it'd be more trouble than it was worth to try to teach someone else how to work the way Brad and I did yesterday, and it wasn't like there was anybody willing to...everyone else on the ceiling crew was busy working on the grid that we brought over first thing. We only ended up getting two grids up before morning break, and I was falling asleep on my feet, which ached like crazy.
At morning break I confessed to Brad that I desperately needed him and that he'd be a much better help with me than just standing around cleaning stuff. The cleaning crew had about four people, maybe five, and were not really in any position to give one up. But then again, Brad and Skye were both outside, and the outsiders really don't do that much--they can't clean materials because the insiders have to clean it anyway; it's a waste of time. Skye could really handle it himself if the need arose. I felt bad trying to get Skye to work by himself, cause I obviously knew what that was like. My job was really a two-person job, while Alex's cleaning crew really only needed one person outside the pass-thru--any more than one was really just a comfort worker...not extremely necessary. We decided that Brady pretty much ruined the whole system cause he was gone and everyone was getting switched around...dummy.
Brad asked me to work on getting him back. Alex only wanted Brad because he was could "hustle," which is nice, but who needs to hustle when you're wiping down floor tiles...or just standing outside handing floor tiles to the cleaners, who can't go fast or it's pointless anyway?
As soon as I got a chance, I asked Lawrence (our supervisor, and head of the ceiling crew) if I could have Brad back once we started to move tiles. The gasketeers had finally started to come around, and had gotten at least some of the 170's done, so we could continue to roll them over and hoist them up to be placed. Lawrence wasn't happy at losing Brad in the first place, as he knew how well we had improved the efficiency yesterday. We placed ten grids for crying out loud! The average was like, five, before we started. So Lawrence was more than happy to approach Alex about getting his second-best worker back. Only kidding...I'm second, Ron's first.
Anyway, like Lawrence said, Alex wasn't happy about losing Brad either, but the minute he got back inside, we started assembling the grids and pulling them over to be placed. We had a lot of ground to make up--Steve, for some reason, had said something about placing 20 grids today, and we'd only placed two, with only 7 hours left. Over the next few hours we placed probably 3 or 4 more before lunch break.
After lunch, Brad and I, despite having to wait for the gaskets to be done, got even closer to the day's quota. I even gasketed for a while and I thought it was fun. We had, like, ten people gasketing but it still took them forever. The people outside kept sending in grids in the wrong order and we were missing like half of the ones we needed, and we couldn't continue to place them. The gasketeers, under the direction of Alex, randomely gasketed any old grid and we found ourselves with grid number 95 done way ahead of schedule, along with 159 and other grids that shouldn't have been brought in for at least a few days. Lawrence, needless to say, was pissed. Luckily we had ordered the ones we needed before lunch, so we could plan on getting them afterward.
We got our grids and work continued. Brad and I intalling the hardware non-stop, and rolling grid after grid over to be raised to the ceiling. The work, as it did yesterday, became mind-numbing and Brad and I were exhausted by 3 o'clock. We had moved nine grids already, and were well on our way toward getting three more done by 4:30.
We finished the day with 12 grids moved and placed in the ceiling--many more than I had expected before Brad came back. Today ended up better than expected, but I'm so tired. Quinn is going to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, so he won't be at work tomorrow, and neither will Brady, who is gone to a scout camp. The only good thing about tomorrow is that Jeff starts, along with (hopefully) a bunch of other people to lighten the load a bit more. We never found out if Whitlie or Reagan actually applied, and Griffin and Quinn are talking about persuading them not to...I don't blame them. They'd both hate it, but I admit it'd be fun to have them around.
I'm going to bed...
Quote of the Day:
"Does Pedro look like Saddam Hussein to anyone else?"
-Skye
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Day 8: Donut Day
I got the lecture today. No, it wasn't a bad lecture. Just kinda...unusual. I was assisting Lawrence with lifting one of the grids, and he said, "Careful, I don't want you to hurt yourself and ruin the rest of your life. You need to use your back... You going to college this fall?"
I said, "Uh, yeah."
"Good," he replied. "Cause you need to go to college and get an education. Don't waste your time here. Don't get into this kind of job. Go and make something of yourself. That's the best advice I can give you."
"Well, thank you," I said. "I plan on it."
It was nice of him to say that. Means he really cares about helping other people make something of themselves. He knows the value of avoiding a bad injury and a bad career. Maybe he made the mistake of staying in construction his whole life, but he obviously doesn't want anybody with a mind to make the same mistake. I thought it was pretty cool of him.
Anyway, it wasn't really donut day...kinda. We had a safety meeting this morning at 7am, and there had to have been, like, at least 200 dozen donuts. We scarfed them down and saved two boxes for lunch and stuff. Those donuts were weird though, cause Brad and I both got heartburn from them...yes, that's right, from a freaking donut.
Bas-sic-cally...my feet are throbbing from today. 10 hours of work is so long, and Brad and I were walking back and forth ALL day. He and I were fastening support plates to the ceiling grids, preparing them to be connected to the ceiling, of all places. Up and down and up and down...then lifting them onto wheels, then rolling them over to the guys who were lifting them up to the ceiling and bolting them to it. 10 hours of that went relatively quickly--seemed a lot quicker than the last few work days, cleaning materials at the pass-thru's.
Quinn and Griffin spent the day with Renae, cleaning the grids for us to prepare to be assembled on the ceiling. Brad and I were both grateful to be doing something closer to real work, only because it made the hours crawl along a bit faster. Cleaning materials is so mind-numbing is so mind-numbing is so mind-numbing....
While Brad and I worked on the grids, suffering from heartburn, Brady and Skye were at another pass-thru, cleaning pedestals and tubes, and other crap that just continues to appear in front you, and multiplies when you blink. Blah blah blah, you get the point. I don't need to ramble any longer about how monotonous it is to clean materials.
Anyway, as Brad and I got progressively more and more tired, we got progressively more and more giggly. Well, actually it was more Brad than it was me. He laughed at everything, and I felt great cause they were my jokes and silly remarks that he was cracking up about. But I won't really attribute it to my hilarity, seeing as we were both tired and had reached terminal laugh-point a good 12 hours earlier than normal. It usually comes around at like, 1am, but for us, who were exhausted, we found ourselves laughing at the dumbest things even before lunch at noon.
While Brad and I were assembling "y-wings" (one of the types of support plates that we fastened to the grids...Brad named each type after the manner of Star Wars, cause we're geeks)...while we were assembling some "y-wings," Brad totally clocked himself with a wrench he was trying to loosen a lug nut with. The reaction was immediate, and the humor was intensified by the fact that it happened at the same time that Quinn, Griffin, and Renae had come over to get a drink at the water fountain a mere 15 feet away. They also happened to be watching us at that exact moment, and I was pleased to not only have someone to laugh at, but also have someone to laugh with. I did feel awful for Brad though...after my initial chuckle at his facial expression, I asked him if he was okay. If he did say he was, then I didn't hear it. I decided just to laugh with the rest of them, since he seemed to not be able to respond quite yet.
The remainder of the day was virtually eventless, besides the fact that Ron was very pleased that we were able to assemble a whole ten grids of the ceiling today--completely shattering the average of like, five or so. At that rate...well, we might be done with the ceiling in like, a few months. Yeah, it's not comforting, but at least we picked up the pace. Hopefully we'll be working with the ceiling team again tomorrow. It was pretty darn fun. Ron laughed at our jokes and seemed to really like me and Brad. He's a way cool guy.
Oh, and we found out today, that Reagan and Whitlie, because they can't find another job this summer, are both applying to work at Brycon! Exciting! Not only are they girls, but they're our friends, and they're super fun. We're all excited, and they might even start on Friday, we're thinking. That's when Jeff starts, so it'll be a really fun day.
Cheers to Brycon! And here's to donuts and Ron, the funniest guy on the ceiling crew!
Quote of the Day:
(15 minutes after Brad's accident, we were still struggling with the "y-wings," getting the lug nuts to turn on them.)
Brad : These stupid lug nuts!
Grant: Yeah, these lug nuts definitely aren't "luck" nuts. In fact, they're not the only unlucky nuts...
I said, "Uh, yeah."
"Good," he replied. "Cause you need to go to college and get an education. Don't waste your time here. Don't get into this kind of job. Go and make something of yourself. That's the best advice I can give you."
"Well, thank you," I said. "I plan on it."
It was nice of him to say that. Means he really cares about helping other people make something of themselves. He knows the value of avoiding a bad injury and a bad career. Maybe he made the mistake of staying in construction his whole life, but he obviously doesn't want anybody with a mind to make the same mistake. I thought it was pretty cool of him.
Anyway, it wasn't really donut day...kinda. We had a safety meeting this morning at 7am, and there had to have been, like, at least 200 dozen donuts. We scarfed them down and saved two boxes for lunch and stuff. Those donuts were weird though, cause Brad and I both got heartburn from them...yes, that's right, from a freaking donut.
Bas-sic-cally...my feet are throbbing from today. 10 hours of work is so long, and Brad and I were walking back and forth ALL day. He and I were fastening support plates to the ceiling grids, preparing them to be connected to the ceiling, of all places. Up and down and up and down...then lifting them onto wheels, then rolling them over to the guys who were lifting them up to the ceiling and bolting them to it. 10 hours of that went relatively quickly--seemed a lot quicker than the last few work days, cleaning materials at the pass-thru's.
Quinn and Griffin spent the day with Renae, cleaning the grids for us to prepare to be assembled on the ceiling. Brad and I were both grateful to be doing something closer to real work, only because it made the hours crawl along a bit faster. Cleaning materials is so mind-numbing is so mind-numbing is so mind-numbing....
While Brad and I worked on the grids, suffering from heartburn, Brady and Skye were at another pass-thru, cleaning pedestals and tubes, and other crap that just continues to appear in front you, and multiplies when you blink. Blah blah blah, you get the point. I don't need to ramble any longer about how monotonous it is to clean materials.
Anyway, as Brad and I got progressively more and more tired, we got progressively more and more giggly. Well, actually it was more Brad than it was me. He laughed at everything, and I felt great cause they were my jokes and silly remarks that he was cracking up about. But I won't really attribute it to my hilarity, seeing as we were both tired and had reached terminal laugh-point a good 12 hours earlier than normal. It usually comes around at like, 1am, but for us, who were exhausted, we found ourselves laughing at the dumbest things even before lunch at noon.
While Brad and I were assembling "y-wings" (one of the types of support plates that we fastened to the grids...Brad named each type after the manner of Star Wars, cause we're geeks)...while we were assembling some "y-wings," Brad totally clocked himself with a wrench he was trying to loosen a lug nut with. The reaction was immediate, and the humor was intensified by the fact that it happened at the same time that Quinn, Griffin, and Renae had come over to get a drink at the water fountain a mere 15 feet away. They also happened to be watching us at that exact moment, and I was pleased to not only have someone to laugh at, but also have someone to laugh with. I did feel awful for Brad though...after my initial chuckle at his facial expression, I asked him if he was okay. If he did say he was, then I didn't hear it. I decided just to laugh with the rest of them, since he seemed to not be able to respond quite yet.
The remainder of the day was virtually eventless, besides the fact that Ron was very pleased that we were able to assemble a whole ten grids of the ceiling today--completely shattering the average of like, five or so. At that rate...well, we might be done with the ceiling in like, a few months. Yeah, it's not comforting, but at least we picked up the pace. Hopefully we'll be working with the ceiling team again tomorrow. It was pretty darn fun. Ron laughed at our jokes and seemed to really like me and Brad. He's a way cool guy.
Oh, and we found out today, that Reagan and Whitlie, because they can't find another job this summer, are both applying to work at Brycon! Exciting! Not only are they girls, but they're our friends, and they're super fun. We're all excited, and they might even start on Friday, we're thinking. That's when Jeff starts, so it'll be a really fun day.
Cheers to Brycon! And here's to donuts and Ron, the funniest guy on the ceiling crew!
Quote of the Day:
(15 minutes after Brad's accident, we were still struggling with the "y-wings," getting the lug nuts to turn on them.)
Brad : These stupid lug nuts!
Grant: Yeah, these lug nuts definitely aren't "luck" nuts. In fact, they're not the only unlucky nuts...
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Day 7: The Shortest Day Ever
I didn't go to work today. Neither did Brady, Quinn or Brad. Griffin and Skye went, though. Skye decided against going on a boating trip with his ward cause of the weather last night. The lightning storms that dominated Utah Valley seemed to him, that they may continue today.
Skye and Griffin worked until morning break, which started a half an hour earlier because the particle count was high again. Once work resumed, the Protocal people denied entrance to the clean room, so everyone got off at 9am. That sucks for me, cause it wouldn't have been a big problem working for 3 hours...dang.
This also sucks for Skye, because once he walked outside to chirping birds and shining sun, he realized his big mistake. But alas, it couldn't be helped because his ward left at 8:30, and he got off work at 9:00. Ouch.
I dunno if Griffin missed out on any cool boating trips or anything, but he must be freaking confused. The fans inside the clean room aren't working, and we can't work inside until they're fixed. Griffin's not seen a normal day of work yet, so who knows if we really work as long as we say we do. Hopefully Wednesday will be normal, because Jeff just got hired and he's starting work then.
Our numbers are growing my friends....
Skye and Griffin worked until morning break, which started a half an hour earlier because the particle count was high again. Once work resumed, the Protocal people denied entrance to the clean room, so everyone got off at 9am. That sucks for me, cause it wouldn't have been a big problem working for 3 hours...dang.
This also sucks for Skye, because once he walked outside to chirping birds and shining sun, he realized his big mistake. But alas, it couldn't be helped because his ward left at 8:30, and he got off work at 9:00. Ouch.
I dunno if Griffin missed out on any cool boating trips or anything, but he must be freaking confused. The fans inside the clean room aren't working, and we can't work inside until they're fixed. Griffin's not seen a normal day of work yet, so who knows if we really work as long as we say we do. Hopefully Wednesday will be normal, because Jeff just got hired and he's starting work then.
Our numbers are growing my friends....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
