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