The Hook-Up

I show up at work on Monday for the first time in four days. We had the long weekend and I took Thursday off as well. Ealier last week I was out of the office and on site all day Monday and all day Tuesday, so really in a span of eight days, I was only in the office for one day. I then had a seminar today (which will probably be the next blog) which means I would only be in the office two out of the eleven days.

So on Monday there is this new guy wandering around the office. I started asking around and no knew who he was. My boss finally shows up, late as usual and he then starts showing him around. The explanation that I got from the clerical staff was that he must be a client. So I was like cool, new work. But then I notice that my boss started showing him where the bathrooms are. Hmmmm. Oookaaay. I’m still kinda new at what I do (only 4 years) but that seemed really odd to me. Do clients really need to know the number and location of our bathrooms. So I made a mental note of it and my relationship with my boss is such that I can really say anything to him, so I started to think of what to say to him when the client would eventually leave. So my boss finally hits my office and I get introduced to this guy. Apparently he’s not a client but a new employee and his duties will be split between my department and the inspection and testing department. I was floored. My boss tells me everything. I mean he even tells me things I have no business knowing our relationship is that good. He had mentioned that he was looking around for another engineer but he didn’t tell me that he hired someone. Others in the office know that I have a good relationship with my boss and were wondering if it was only them that were left in the dark. I should probably mention that my boss also happens to be the Branch Manager and a Director of the firm. So the hiring of someone always goes through him anyways, but the poor inspection and testing manager has this new guy and has no idea about it.

Things just didn’t quite add up. So the new guy is just sitting there all alone, like all new people do. I felt bad for the guy so I made some simple nonsense chit chat with him just so he doesn’t think we are all a bunch of jerks. A typical question for a new guy at an engineering firm is always, whats your background. Where did you go to school, previous work experience, blah blah blah. He answers with, I have no school and my previous work experience is too many to say. I have bounced around from job to job to job. My jaw hits the floor. WTF. I’m sorry, what are you doing here exactly I asked him in as nice a way as I could. Since I was out of the office so much, I was like how was the interview. I have worked for both my boss and the inspection and testing manager. They have very different styles of inviewing. So I asked him what he thought of both styes of interviewing. The I&T guy looks you up and down to see if you are physically capable of doing the job then asks one question: Do you own a car?, whereas my boss is more the traditional route, or so I thought. He says, I have never met the other guy, but my boss hired him on Saturday when they were out drinking. DRINKING!! Then it hit me. When my boss introduced him to me, it was very short, you see my boss know me quite well and I can spot a shitty engineer and a shady situation pretty quick. My boss overheard this conversation. He then immediately calls the new guy into his office. I said nothing. I just gave the look like I knew and walked away. My boss later comes into my office closes the door and starts to bullshit me about how this guy used to inspect homes and blah blah blah. I was like, just stop. It’s me. You know you can’t do this to me. I’m not okay with it, but I have no say. If I have to work with him, that’s cool, I have nothing against him, I don’t know him. But I’m not co-signing or signing anything he does unless I was involved directly. He just stares at me. Done.

This world sucks sometimes. Here is a fantastic job that should have gone to someone way more qualified, or in this qualified period, but instead it goes to one of my boss’ drinking buddies. I have always been fortunate thank God, in that I have always had a job since I was 16 years old, but I know others that are brilliant and hard working people that have not had such fortunes. Or others that are in a shitty situation and want to get out but can’t because they cannot find other work. I’m not naive, I always new that this went on in the world, I just never thought that it happend in careers like this where public safety could be at risk.

My Daddy

My dad celebrated his 65th birthday earlier this year. For 65, the guy was in pretty good shape, he could shovel snow, mow the lawn, wash dishes, run errands, vaccuum and other such chores. Then shortly after his birthday he got sick. This really wasn’t anything new to us. Throughout his entire life he has always battled one illness or another and has always come out on top. Sometimes it has taken a little longer than others, like when he had meningitis, but the point is he always came out on top.

This time he had gall stones in his system, no biggie, but the stones were fairly large and required surgery in order to remove them. So they performed the surgery and the surgery was a success. They put him to sleep and he got out of it without any hitches, thankfully. Well almost, he doesn’t seem to have to an appetite anymore and is so incredibly weak. I have never seen him like this, ever. All of a sudden his legs don’t have the strength to support him any more. When or I guess I should say, if he walks around, he needs help. I need to help him up and he leans on the walls to get to where he needs to go. It’s even to the point where I need to help in and out the washroom and shower.

I always knew my dad was getting older, but for the first time I feel like and he actually looks like he is old. I mean you always think your parents are going to make it through whatever they are going through, I mean they’re your parents, right, they have to.

Untitled

So, I am having a really stressful day at work today. I’m an engineer and I had two specification that were due today, those of you who write specifications know how stressful this is in itself, but I get them done, perfect and in courier. It felt good, it always feel good when you finish one, they take like 3 or 4 ass busting weeks to do and when you see all your hard work nicely and neatly bound it feels good. So I’m feeling pretty good.

Then disaster strikes. I have been working on this other project for 2 years. When this project started, the Contractor indicated that it should only take him 6 months. We have had every single imaginable delay on this project. It all started with the shitty City of Hamilton Building Department. I made at least 5 calls and 3 visits to City Hall to ensure that the permit comes through snag free. But this is the City of Hamilton and nothing is ever easy here or even makes sense here. I have been doing my job long enough to know now that when a project starts out shitty like that, the whole thing is gonna go for a shit. The project involves rehabilitating balcony shear walls, balcony slabs, balcony doors and windows. After that permit delay, every other single delay imaginable happened on this job from Subcontractors backing out on their Contracts to various shut downs due to safety violations to not being able to properly communicate with the labourers or foreman on site because I don’t speak Russian. Russian. I mean, Italian, Portugese, okay, I can handle, but Russian. I mean I got nothin’. So anyways the disaster. For a year now we have had issues with the balcony railings. The railing Subcontractor has been so difficult to work with. This part should have taken 4 weeks tops, but since they never met the minimum load requirements of the OBC, I couldn’t accept them and I had to leave the occupants of the highrise building boarded up in their suites. They have been trying to fix the railings by trial and error (there’s a plan!) for over one year. They have probably lost like 40 grand on this project. One of my technologists rejects the railings again today because the anchor bolts can be easily removed from the base plates despite numerous warnings about this issue. So they got fed up and literally said fuck you, we’re leaving.

So now after the morning high of seeing the fruits of labour couriered away, I have to go the site and sort this out. I then find out that they are going to put a lein on the job and that means lawyers. So now I have to prepare myself for dealing with dumbass lawyers who know nothing about engineering. I had to write a report describing everything from day one to what led to this stand still by end of day today and since its legal, I can’t say, well you see sir they’re a bunch of fucking morons that dont know what they are doing. So I have to stay late to get this done and I do. I then realize that I need to do some grocery shopping so I decide I’m gonna stop in on the way home, otherwise there is no way I gonna go.

So I stop in at my regular grocery store. Next to it though is an LCBO. Just as I am about to walk the grocery store some guy asks me for some change. I stand there for a sec and think, u know, I’m just enabling this guy. But after the day I’ve had I was like forget it I don’t care, maybe you got the right idea pal. No stress, no problems, nothing. Just on cruise control living on another person’s dime. I give him everything I have and I go in. Then like 10 minutes later I see him in the grocery store, he’s actually shopping for groceries. I couldn’t beleive it. In my head I was like wtf. After seeing him I approached him and apoligized to him. I said I thought for sure you were going next door. He was like nope, his family was really going through hard times now and he really needed the money. I ended up paying for all of his groceries I felt so bad. You live in Canada and you hear about this kind of stuff, but you never really feel it until you see it and experience it first hand.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, no matter how bad you think you got it, it could always be worse.