nitwits, nincompoops, and ninnyhammers

ok, let's start by catching up on the work front. this is going to be a two-parter: the workers, and the golfers. i will start with the workers.

but first, a word math problem: if it takes 5 maintenance flunkies a half-hour to empty two pallets of sod, and the future assistant superintendant to dump a pallet of sod on its side with the forklift and then spend 25 minutes behind an irrigation box watching sprinklers run, how long before they are all skull-fucked?

now think about it, it's not as hard as it first appears. and all the info you need is there.

give up? the answer is: they were skull-fucked when they came into work that morning.

i work with a ragtag lot of ne'er-do-wells who are, for the most part, decent fellas and good workers. we all have our quirks. mine is a negative attitude and a penchant for cracking wise about anything and everything under the sun. one old guy can take a job that takes the rest of us 2 or 3 hours and spreads it out all day. but there are three dumbshits that are really pissing us off right now.

dumbshit no. 1 is your average, run-of-the-mill moron and fuck-off. he runs his mouth like an unblocked sewage pipe, frequently saying things geared towards pissing one or all of us off. this is the dimwit who chucked a golf-ball at fred's head just to watch him snap. this kid is given a job and does it half-assed, and invariably leaves some kind of mess that has to be cleaned up by one of the others later. (an example, he was once put on the frontloader to build an area for a new tee box, and pushed the excess dirt against a tree, leaving a big mound of fresh-turned earth half-way up the tree trunk. i was sent out the next day (he was off or didn't come in, can't remember which) with the frontloader to scatter the dirt and try to return the area to some sort of normalcy.)

he is a blow-hard. he talks alot of shit, but lacks the balls to back any of it up. he was recently denied full time (the kid that was hired same time as me told him, "i wouldn't hire you full-time either, you are a screw-up!" god i laugh and laughed), and decided he was going to get "everyone in management" by keeping track of all their discrepancies and writing them down. the next day he was five minutes late, and got written up for the first time since he was hired there. if he gets three write-ups for the same thing, he can be shitcanned. he isn't long for this job anymore.

dumbshit no. 2 is our "irrigation tech", which is apparently golf-talk for "show up when you like and take a month to do a job that takes 8 hours to do". he was "sick" for two weeks, (the union requires a doctor's note after an absence of more than three days) while me and another two guys and our superintendant fixed a plethera of irrigation issues (our plumbing and sprinkler system is outdated and falling apart), showed up in time to tighten a joint on a break and get recognition from the boss, then was "sick" again for another day, had to appear in court the second, and recently spent another week not showing up for various reasons. he has yet to produce a doctor's note, or any other note not written sloppily in crayon with misspelled words. he shouldn't be long for this job, but the superintendant likes him, and he knows just how to schmooze the boss.

as bad as both of these twats are, dumbshit no. 3 is the worst. dumbshit no. 3 hired on a mere two months ago. there was no position actually open at the time. but dumbshit no. 3 golfs with the boss regularly, and one day the boss says, "go talk to [the superintendant] and i will make sure you get hired." within days, he was. took me almost a month from resume to starting my first day of work. he is, in a word, a suck-up. a brown-noser. he's not even been there long enough to know what the fuck he is doing yet, but is already bucking for promotion. and he is gonna get it. because the boss created an "assistant superintendant" job, that looks ear-marked and specifically tailored for this busybody. in my experience with suck-ups (and i have had lots, having been in the military), they are usually so busy keeping the higher-ups' asses clean that they very frequently have only the vaguest idea how to do the actual job. this guy is no exception. he often skips his breaks and takes shorter lunches. he shows up fifteen minutes early. he is nearly always out on the course tinkering with something or weedeating or pruning or whatever thing, and yet he still manages to take longer than anyone to do the things that need to get done on a daily basis. on the rare occasions that i have worked with him, i have noticed that he is like a squirrel with add on crack. he never finishes a job, because he notices something else that needs to get done, and rather than making a mental note to come back later, he drops what he is up to at the moment, and goes to do the new thing right then. but you can be assured that when the boss is around, or the superintendant, he is outworking all of us.

the superintedant, who used to be a jovial, easy-going fella, has so much shit on his plate now with these three worthless hunks of scum and playing mediator to the rest of us bitching about them that he is grumpy and short all the time now. his year contract is up in january, and we doubt he is going to be around a day longer than he needs to be, which will leave us with suck-up until they can find a new superintendant to take his place.

despite all this, i still love the job. the days are cooling off. the gators are out. most of the time i get to work with only myself and my ipod to keep me company, and the hours work out perfectly with my kids' school schedule, so i am not spending half my paycheck on daycare. so i am unlikely to quit, but the next several months ought to be really interesting.

tomorrow, i will tell you all about the golfers.

darth sardonic