Today was not a tough day at work.There is a project going on at Eleven Mile and Woodward in which crews are widening the road, or making it less bumpy, and they ran into a problem in which the six-inch gas main is higher than it ought to be and, by digging down to level the road, they exposed it in all its yellow plastic glory.
I was out on that job earlier in the week and we were supposed to dig underneath the gas main so that we could lower it for them. Well, we started to do just that and then we ran into a problem: the gas main is lying about two inches above an MCI fiber optic conduit. **gasp** So, yeah, we wouldn't be able to lower it, seeing as how crashing through a fiber optic conduit, severing cables, would probably cost about five million dollars (give or take a million or two) to repair. So, we stopped a few days ago and left it in the engineers' hands.
Today, instead of relocating it, which would have been nigh impossible--engineering-decision made--we headed back out there to lay some rock shield over the main. Listen: that consists of unrolling about twenty feet of rock shield, a hard plastic membrane that is used to cover the main to protect it from the rocks that the road crews use to level the road, and laying said rock shield over the main. (And hoping that nothing bad happens, like big-assed tractors scraping the main, blowing natural gas sky-high.) The rest of the day, we sat there and watched the road crew get load after load (double-semi-trailer-sized) of rock. Our primary purpose was to be on-site should anything untoward happen.
Nothing did.
In fact, the road crew didn't even get to the area of the exposed main before it was time to head back into the shop.
So...total time worked: twenty minutes.
The rest of the day was spent sitting, watching the rock truck traverse back and forth about seven times with loads (the last time, I saw the driver look over at us and shake his head) and eating lunch (I had a foot-long Tuna on Wheat--with all the fixin's--from Subway) and shooting the shit, laughing our asses off at some of the characters we have here in this company.
So, no. Today was not a tough day at work. Some days I--we--bust my--our--ass(es) and some days are relatively easy. Today was a friggin' joke. But! We get paid either way. And handsomely, at that.
I'll chalk this one up as a freebie. =o)
8 comments:
even though you did not physically bust your butts, you were there to watch over, and try to avoid, a real mess. that is ultimately more important than a lot of your regular days (though they are important, too). we live in the area and are very happy there are crews like yours keeping us safe. so if you get to physically rest sometimes, it just makes up for the 18 hour days.
LOL. Truism, BooBoo. :-) Here at Consumers Energy, we aim to please both our custoers and the community in which we all live and work. :-P
And if your gas ever gets shut off, we'll try to get there within 120 hours! ;-)
Those are the best kinds of days ever. I personally enjoy the days when we have a full staff of 20 working and really nothing to do. That leaves time for playing capture the flag (in the guise of working) and sneaking off to take naps.
Good. You'll be rested enough to do the meme I just tagged you for. ;)
Yay for lazy days at work!!! At least you got a few laughs out of the deal too!
They are nice, aren't they, Frank?
Izzy: I'll go check it out. =o)
Tizz: Oh, for sure. :-)
We were forced to take a half-day on Friday (paid) and left early yesterday to go out for drinks.
And I haven't really been able to work much today, due to something blahblah with our servers.
Rough, I tells ya! :)
OMG when is 11 mile going to get done?
I appreciate your effort and hard work in completing this project right the first time, I need you to know.
BUT HOLY FUCK, WHEN IS 11 MILE GOING TO BE DONE???
Yours,
Someone frustrated with 11 mile and 13 mile being under construction for the past year.
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