[107] Screed City

[107]

03/01/2022 Tuesday. Cushioned Stool. Room 218. Home 2 Suites at the Airport. Albany, New York.

Well, most frustrating worker of the day award goes to Jayboo. He was supposed to go to the doctor, show up around 1030a. His appointment got cancelled. Showed up around 9a. Rather than talk to me about the plan for the day he just started working. Which would have been fine except he didn't ask me what was going on and he just started terminating ropes. Op lines. Which! I had this very long and drawn out plan to keep the boobs busy. Very simple. I show them how to tie the top knot on the arbors. Billy and Sally go through and tie the knots on all 22 arbors. Then me and Allan keep putting splices on. Among other things. I wanted to do a stage clean. Get prepped for hanging pipe. Then when Sally and Billy were done I was going to show them how to run the op line through the rope locks and through the floor blocks and tie it to the bottom of the arbor. Then, when that was done I was going to go back and make sure they did the work well and adjust everything that needed adjusting. I mean, the plan was not very streamlined. It was going to take more time than needed. But it was going to work and nothing was going to get fucked up. Fast forward to 930a and Jayboo is terminating the bottom knots, not knowing the top knots needed to be inspected and guess what? I mean, we got lucky because I was able to stop him before things got out of control, but it did two things. Created confusion amongst the boobs. I mean, Jayboo has more authority than I do because he is a work bully and just wants to get the job done at any cost. Which makes him a "Natural Leader" by American Capitalist standards. And secondly this made me look like I had no idea what I was doing. Which, whatever, it wasn't an ego thing, it's just these boobs are idiots. After that I lost all authority with them. Which, whatever, let Jayboo have the job, but his impatience and bullheaded ignorance create absolute chaos that, guess who had to fight back against that? I mean, save ten seconds and lose an hour as the bridesmaids say.

I mean, he knew I was frustrated with him. He calmed down when he figured it out. But, I mean, my god. Who the hell does that? He wouldn't have stood for it if it was him. God knows that Scott would have ripped him a new one. I mean, I just had to laugh it off. Because in the grand schematics of things, it wasn't that big of a deal. But I mean, here is my advice to anyone joining a new project that you think you know better than everyone else. You don't. Shut your mouth and wait until you are given specific instructions, because I guarantee that someone else has thought this through much more comprehensively than you did.

I mean, the joke I started to make was: The first thing you do as foreman is to walk on the job site and decide who is to blame for everything going wrong. Sally volunteered for this role. The second thing you do is cross your arms. The third thing you do is pace behind everyone working and tell them they are miserable losers who will never amount to anything and then when their spirits are broken, you tell them they are doing a great job. Then you take a drink from your cup of coffee and walk away to go look at blooper prints.

I mean, nobody really engaged me when I was telling them this. Whatever. They can't tell when I am joking or not. Which is funny. I mean, probably frustrating too, but I am the boss and they can take it or leave it. They don't know anything. They have to listen to me. I mean, after we fixed all of Jayboo's impatience and insubordination we were able to start running wire rope through the head blocks. Jayboo wanted to run all of it. I wouldn't let him. I told him that it was way better to build the things a few at a time. There was no guarantee that he would be around next week. And sure, it is possible we might be done by Friday but I am not holding my breath. And if I get stuck with a million dangling wires on a very busy stage surrounded by three mindless boobs, I am going to not be very happy when shit starts to go sideways for no fucking reason. We are neither in a rush, nor are we capable of being in a rush. A line set half -finished is way worse than a line set not even started. Coiled cables on the loading bridge collecting dust is much more easy to deal with than cables hanging down getting snagged on every trades beard whiskers and ten foot chunks of whatever the hell they are carrying across stage. And I know, I know, yes, we could just close the stage off, but then what? We put Sally at the door, checking ID's? I mean, when we are working people have no choice but to go around. But when we are not, I mean, the whole job site is a construction zone. There is no way to keep people out. There just isn't. Aside from their own sense of self-preservation.

So we ran the wire rope through the first three head blocks. Then we took lunch. After lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon pulling cable. It took a very long time just to do those three line sets. Big fucking surprise. By 2:15 we were almost reading to hang pipe. I went out to the work van and got Scott's laser beam. Brought it back. Absolute confusion set in when we needed to adjust the height of the mark we could get from the laser and get the next mark for the termination height. Everybody had a very valid and useless argument as to what needed to happen. In the end we did what I told them to do. Which was make a mark where the laser beam hit the cable then take the measurement that me and Jayboo calculated to get the termination point. It was all a bunch of nonsense for nothing. And to top it off, they still think I am the boob. Which, if they all understood how many baby steps we had to take on their ignorant behest, I mean, they would probably keep their god-damned mouths shut. But shame doesn't work on goons like these boobs.

I mean, we were able to strong-arm the arbors to the upper crash rail. Which, thank fucking god. I mean, if we had to introduce those electric motor hoists, it would have sucked. And who knows, maybe we still might need to do that? I mean, there are two arbors that are one-half bigger than the others. I mean, I can already hear everyone whining about how heavy they are. I mean, I don't know what I will do if I don't have Jayboo on the loading bridge. I think I will have to be on the deck, help yank the fuckers up, then run to the ship's ladder and scurry up it as fast as possible and go to the head block and connect the thing to the come-along. I mean, I just don't trust that these guys understand what is happening. They are constantly baffled by every single thing that happens on stage. Like asking me for the third, forth, fifth time how the shit works. I mean, in good faith I keep telling them, but I have started using my arms and hands to explain "Shit goes up like this, which means the other shit comes down like this." And then I end up making a driving motion. Like I am steering a car. Just to fuck with them. I mean, they really can't tell if I am joking or not. But it doesn't matter because they wouldn't understand either way. They are kindergarteners. They really are.

I mean, all the eye/jaw turnbuckles that were supposed to come with the hardware are jaw/jaw. Jaw/jaw Binks as it were. I mean, what the hell do you do with that? I don't know. I mean, in moments like this I think WWSD, What Would Scott Do? This time I had no answer. That is what we have. I mean, aside from stopping the job completely, I mean, does BMI have 88 eye/jaw turnbuckles just laying around? Lying around? I don't know. I would ask the Big Boss but he seems so very checked out that I don't even want to get him involved. I mean, I can't imagine the jaw/jaw turnbuckles are rated any different, but who knows? Maybe they are and I made a grave error in deciding to just use what I have. I mean, I will probably laugh about it if we have to come back and somehow switch all those fuckers out. Because that would mean basically doing the job all over again. Or living with a low trim of 4'8" instead of 4'. I mean, if we were given turnbuckles that were too small or I had to add a shackle or something, I mean, I would have made a phone call, but as it stood, Jayboo agreed that it didn't matter and we went ahead as planned.

I mean, I was able to scrape back some respect from the crew when Sally and Allan put the baton clamps on every single turnbuckle wrong. And at that same moment Billy was visibly confused as to what was happening. I mean, everyone thinks they are captain of the ship until a hurricane blows in. I mean, that is a new bridesmaids saying. I mean, it was pandemonium for a while. Sally was despondent. Billy was clearly out of his element. Allan did his best Bluto impression. Thinking pure muscle was going to save him from the briny deep. I mean, I got a ladder. Someone said "We don't need a ladder." I said "Yes we do." And then people were running around like chickens under a roosting owl. I mean, it was kind of hilarious. Ten minutes of work took thirty minutes. A ton of child-like stress from the boobs. What seemed like moments of actual terror. And before you knew it, the truss was hanging exactly at 4' bottom of pipe. I mean, in moments like this I am kind of glad that I lack sense in a few important ways. I mean, there really was nothing to worry about, but if I was a normal person I would have fallen for emotional panic that everyone was experiencing. I mean, it was all so very stupid. But, I mean, maybe I would make an okay boss? I know the limitations of these boobs. Had Jayboo not been there I probably would have spent quite a bit of time preparing the boobs for what we were about to do. And they would not have panicked. And it would have gone up just the same with much less drama. But as the Wise Man from the South used to say "HANG PIPE! HANG PIPE!"

And the best part of it was all the looky-Lou's that came around. Trying to figure out what kind of magic trick we just performed. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Jayboo got accosted by this guy who was visibly drunk and smelled like. I mean, Jayboo didn't know how to answer his questions so he deferred to me. I just gave the guy the steering wheel thing that I gave the other boobs. He didn't understand, and it didn't matter, but it was still very entertaining. And then Sally, after all the questions, after all the times I explained to her, she still couldn't get over the fact that the arbors just moved up in down. And not only that, but they moved so easily! What is this devil magic? I mean, this was after I sent Jayboo and Billy up to the load bridge to get the thing into weight. I mean, we used three full bricks and a half brick. For pipe weight. I mean, I thought it would be four full bricks, but it wasn't. I mean, I the things were slightly arbor heavy after the mid-way point, so that means that maybe three bricks is the more precise measurement of weight, but it is better for them to be arbor heavy than pipe heavy at pipe weight. I mean, maybe at all weights, but specifically at pipe weight. You don't want your pipes to be randomly running when you unlock the rope lock. I mean, you don't want your arbors to run either, but it is better for the arbor to crash at the bottom than the pipe to crash at the bottom. I mean, neither is good, but the arbors are contained. The pipes take up the whole stage. And, I mean, it is a difference of like 20 lbs instead of 40+ lbs. I mean, I am not saying that the pipes and arbors are out of weight, I am just saying that we did a great job.

I mean, tomorrow we hang pipe. Then on Thursday we hang pipe. And on Friday we hang pipe. And depending on how quickly shit moves tomorrow, we will either be done on Friday or at the very latest next Tuesday. I mean, if we managed to hang seven of the things by the end of the day tomorrow we will still have to hang the main curtain track. I mean, that is a half-day itself. I mean, I don't see us doing seven trusses tomorrow. But who knows? I see us doing five, maybe. Then five. Then five. Which, I mean, Jayboo has a doctor's appointment on Friday now, so that gums the works. So, I mean, we get ten of these fuckers in by Thursday end of day. That leaves us with eleven more. I mean, maybe tomorrow we focus on the two big boys. That way Jayboo will be around for certain. I mean, then we have eleven trusses to do next week. Plus the main curtain. And if Jayboo has to go back to Buffalo, I mean, that is a full week of work for us. And my money emotions won't be hurt and everything will come out roses as the bridesmaids say.

I mean, that is neither ambitious nor unreasonable. Five trusses a day. I mean, I laugh at this because once again if it was just me and Jayboo and Scott this job would either be done by now or at least we would be slow rolling it. Just to get a full week of work. I mean, I won't lie, I am glad we only got one truss hanging today. And, I mean, it did involve me going up to the load bridge to manage cable while Jayboo and Billy reeved the wire rope. I mean, things take time. I can accept that things take time. I just can't fake it. It goes against my principles. I mean, I am not going to Ray Skillen this shit. Make the crew work while I wash my car in the parking lot. Or say we can do a half-day just as long as everyone goes drinking with me at Coney Island. But I do want the job to last one more week. And I think I have my plausible deniability going on here. And, this is setting precedent for the future. It is neither dragging ass, nor is it busting ass. The two things that BMI needs to know if they are going to move forward with hiring a union crew. I mean, I am doing the lord's work here. It might not seem like it, but the choices I make will have very long lasting implications for how we proceed. I just need to get Jayboo to calm the fuck down. I mean, he even said it "I need to learn to be less impatient." This was when I got flustered with him about terminating the op-line way before it was ready to be terminated. I mean, luckily we have a whole roll of rope left over and we could have fixed his mistakes if we needed to, but still. Save ten minutes to lose an hour.

I mean, whatever. I think it is funny that I am the only one that understands this about this job. I mean, I know Scott does too, but he is off somewhere eating surf and turf catching some gnarly waves. I mean, I think he might be back in Vermont now. He didn't go on the Hot Mom's Gone Wild Sunburn Hangover Weekend At Bernie’s. I mean, but the Big Boss seems to at least understand that he doesn't understand. And Jayboo is slowly and not so surely coming to the same conclusion. I mean, he will forget all about it the second he leaves. Which is too bad. This knowledge would help him out in the future. I mean, if he runs one of these jobs I am worried for him. Because he won't be able to keep it to himself. He will treat these boobs like Connie or Squirts and all hell will break loose. I mean, he is the kind of guy that starts a union busters gang and goes into some factory and throws people out by the scruff of their neck and brings in pure, strong, American workers. To get the job DONE. I mean, the job doesn't need to get done. It never needed to get done. The idea of finishing a job is just a construct. I mean, if all these horrible companies that fail at every turn can still be in business, no, striving, after 25, 30 years of malfeasance, I mean, this shit is just a Ponzi Scheme. It is. So getting it done actually goes against the system. WHICH is why the first thing you do when you walk onto the job site as a foreman is to find someone to blame. Then you cross your arms.

I mean, I won't lie, everyone said goodbye today when they left. They must have had something of a stressful day if they did that. Which is pretty funny if you think about it. I mean, I wonder what kind of crew I will get tomorrow. Probably not the snappy, crusty assholes I got today. They will be humbled. Confused. Intimidated. Possibly hungover. Nervous. Having spent way too much time trying to figure out what happened today. Trying to remember it in the morning. But it won't come to them easy. There are just too many details that they don't understand. I mean, they won't give me shit about how I make decisions. They will actually listen to me. Probably even be focused about it. I mean, by lunch time when we have done a couple of these trusses they will get their hubris back. But then after lunch something unpredictable will happen and there will be some yelling and hurt emotions and maybe someone will storm off. Saying they need to use the bathroom or something. Come back smelling like cigarettes. And we will keep going. And then the day will end. And the next day will be the exact same. And then on Friday when it is just me and the boobs we will switch back the them wondering why I can't make a decision because Jayboo won't be there and I will have to be at all places at once and they won't understand that they actually don't know shit and even though the job "Seems" simple it is very high stakes in the sense that if we do something wrong somebody could get seriously hurt. I mean, things will certainly grind to a halt and I will have to set my sights on a very low bar of achievement. I mean, Jayboo will eventually come back and things will return to a better state, but until that happens, I mean, I am already prepared for that.