union or die? DIE!

So for the fourth week in a row i was out of the office for two days on a business trip. This business trip was a re-do of last week's disaster of a business trip. It was a total Katrina last week. Last week, myself, along with a field service engineer, were on site to receive the shipment of three huge pieces of equipment and a bunch of smaller other stuff. We're talking about equipment that needs huge-ass cranes to pick up and set down in place. Two weeks prior to last week we had been on site to figure out where all the equipment was going. Unfortunately it was crazy freezing outside and snowing and so the decision-makers were not making very good decisions and they quickly settled on places and then we all ran back inside without fully exploring all the options. Why settle for the one hole when there are two others that are just as good to stick your equipment into, right?

So after putting down the first two things, the plant personnel realized that the place that was to house the third piece of equipment was not going to work. It was right next to a transformer that apparently produces electrical arcs and can cause crazy problems and deaths and power outages and equipment failure and whatnot if the crane gets too close to it, let alone if it touches it. I don't know, i'm not an electrical engineer. So between last week and this week, they re-figured out where to put all this crap, so lucky me i had to go back out to the site! I was told it should be a day-trip, so i packed accordingly. I also drove with a co-worker who is the most annoying talker at times. He is always asking questions, but when he asks questions they are more like statements, and he just wants to be assured that he's right about what he thinks is happening or going down. For instance, here is a typical example of one of his questions/statements:

so we are in the trailer and we discuss that they are going to unbolt the plate, lift it off of the bin with the crane and then put on the filter. 5 minutes later, while the workers are starting to do the work, he walks up to me and says "so, after they unbolt the plate, they're going to lift it off the bin with that crane over there and then they will put on the filter.?" and i say "yep, just like we said 5 minutes ago." that is not an exaggeration. that actually happened. and it's fine the first or second time, i just respond with "yep." but after seriously, 20 - 30 times a day of questions statements, I start getting snippy. It gets to the point where towards the end of the day he would come up to me and say "so.." and i would turn to him and say "what?!" and then he would recoil and say "nevermind." i really don't mean to be mean, but OMG, the constant asking of questions that you already know the answers to just drives me bonkers! it's one thing to ask questions if you have no idea what's going on, but I made sure to keep him informed on everything, so there's no need for constant reassurance. don't get me started, don't eeeeeven get me started. but i digress.....oh wait, one more thing. He's Indian (red-dot, not woo-woo) and once in a while i'll say something that he totally doesn't get, and i try not to say anything he won't understand, but i forget sometimes. Like while driving to the plant, he was saying something about how all the construction on the toll pike really slows down traffic and i said "word." and he said "what word?" and i didn't know how to explain it, so i said, "Oh, it's just something you say that means that i agree with you. like, "it's a nice day outside." "word." it was something that people said a lot in the early 90s, but i still say it cause i think it's funny." I don't know if my explanation is even right, but that's the best i could come up with. i've never had to explain something like that before. Oh, our silly American ways!

so getting back to the story and the title of the story, the plant hired out contractors to re-position the equipment, and do all the other miscellaneous contracty labor that I, as a salary employee, would never dream of doing. I am not one of the hourlies. ick.
So the main work consisted of picking up three different pieces of equipment with a crane, and one at a time, putting each on a flatbed, driving it over to someplace else, moving the crane, and then picking it up off the flatbed and then down on the ground. With a 6 person crew, it took them the full 8 hour day to do this. You see, union workers have to take many breaks within the day and they also like to stretch out the work since today they are working, but tomorrow, if they don't get a call, they don't work and then don't get any money. so one-day jobs can become two- or three-day jobs. They were all really nice and all, but i'd rather have surly and crass and gets things done rather than nice and slow and lazy. Also, it takes them so long, because it takes 6 people to something that only needs about 3 people. So only half the work is getting done that could. So while i'm on site, i'm mostly supervising the positioning of the equipment, because i know the orientation of it all and where it needs to go and what needs to happen, i just can't do any of it. So mostly all day i'm standing around in the cold getting agitated at how slow everything is going. mostly. So at 3:00, the day is over (union = 8 hours....) and there is still much work to be done. So yay, one-day trip is becoming a two-day trip..... this means that the next day i have re-wear all my gross dirty clothes from the power plant all day again and then get to wear them for the two-and-a-half hour drive home! So needless to say, I am not pleased. And i decide to become the whip-snapping take-initiative project manager that i have to be in order to get shit done. So since i know what all needs to be done, i go to the contracting group's manager the next morning and i tell him i need one or two people to do this today, and while they are doing that, two other people can be working on this, while the others can get started on this. i tell him that this is getting all done today. I allocate his resources for him and i constantly supervise everyone making sure to see what everyone is working on and I make my presence known so that they know that i'm watching them and that this IS getting down today. I hate to take off my kid-cap and put on my boss-hat, but everything got done by 2:00 that day. that's all i gotta say abouts that.

oh, and about the title, when you go to power plants, you get safety trained and a lot of times you get stickers from the plant, so your hard hat ends up being decorated with all these stickers. but the contractor's manager also had a sticker that was a giant skull and around it, it read "Union or Die." and i chose DIE for him.