The eh(?)-team

Funny how conversation goes in the brass alley first thing in the morning. It started with me re-telling one of the stories told to me yesterday in our trailer. The guy had been telling us how when his ex found out that he had played around a bit on the side her response was to have a bonfire with all of his belongings. The gang in the alley enjoyed the story but it started a conversation on infidelity. Emma from the scaffolders said that if her boyfriend fooled around on her she should be able to do it to him. Then she added that she would never do that sort of thing though. So I guess she'd get herself a zippo and start a little vengeance fire like the other woman did! I am flying home tonight. I can't tell you how glad I am about that fact. I love my job but I have been worn out lately. I think that 24 we worked really took it out of me. I am fine at work and seem to have lots of energy but at night I fall into bed and just die! Mornings seem to be even worse as I have been waking up totally disoriented. Normally this isn't the case. So I will spend a week at home either sleeping or sitting in my tomato garden and will hopefully get my mojo back! Yesterday I was working with a couple of the younger apprentices. I like working with them but you couldn't find 2 more different guys if you tried. I have talked about big Mitch before in this blog. He is a big farm boy who recently turned 19. He likes working hard and non-stop. One day I decided to slow him down so I said: "Mitchy I am going to ask you a question and if you get it wrong we take a break but if you get it right we'll move these 30 45lb boxes of wire. What is the square root of pie?" Mitch looked at me and said: "it's 3.14 Knight now shut up and lets get working." "Actually Mitch I asked the wrong question. I meant to ask what is the Pythagorean theorem?" Mitchy shook his big head and replied: "A squared plus B squared equals C squared now pass me that god damned box!" of course he was smilingg while he said it because he knew I was shocked at his correct answers. Way to go Mitchy Mitch! Chris is 26 I think and is more like I would have been at that age. He is hyper and thin. He likes cigarettes and spitz sunflower seeds. He has a hard time keeping his focus when the job is overly repetitive but he works hard enough and is a nice kid. Unlike me he has two sleeves worth of tatoos to match his knuckle tatoos and his earlobes have holes in them big enough to hang his lunch bag from them. He is a little bit on the crazy side so I always enjoy his stories about things he has done back home. But totally different from Mitch! Foreman Greg got us working together yesterday. Actually Greg spotted me when I was coming up the back stairs to the surge deck and called out: "Peter Knight! Just the man I was looking for." Usually when a Foreman starts a sentence like that it ends with me saying 'Shit!' but Greg always puts me to work on interesting tasks and as a change is as good as a rest I was curious what he had in mind. He told me the job which was to remove all cables, hoses and electric cords that went through the gaps in the steel a the back of the building and to reroute them through the door frame so that the cladding guys could put the sheet metal up on the walls. Did I mention that my friend Greg can be a bit wordy? When he gets going he always kind of reminds me of Mark Twain who once said "Southerners speak music" or something like that. Greg speaks music too as he finds the most possible words to say something and then puts them together in an entertaining fashion. And then he sent me to get Mitchy and Chris and to fill them in on the job. Do you remember when you were in grade school and you played the telephone game? You all sit in a circle and the first person whispers something in the next persons ear and they pass it on until it finally comes back to the first person bearing no resemblance to the original statement? When you try to repeat something Greg says it is kind of like that. So ten minutes later when I was finishing telling the boys what I had been told I noticed their vacant looking eyes and hanging jaws and I knew I had failed in transmission. 'Did you get that?" I asked. "Eh?" They answered. So I took the two boys down to the wall itself. "We need to move those to there." I said. The light must have gone on in their eyes and away we went hauling cables and pulling cords. In what seemed like record time we were finished. At about the same time Greg showed up and said: "good job A team!" Embarrased I responded: "More like the eh-team I think." I don't think he got my point. But it was a good day and we enjoyed the different kind of task. All good. :)