Devil's in the details

6.6.06 - Well today went off without a hitch. I woke at 5:30 and downed a cup of decaffeinated coffee. I’d been working in the room yesterday and so it didn’t get cleaned and I didn’t get a new filter bag of regular. I took a shower and dressed and made my way to the front office at 6:00 AM where I retrieved two Styrofoam cups, with tops, of some shit like “Sanka” from the thermal dispensers. Back in my room I checked the traffic on the Trappan Zee bridge via the web cams and realized that I probably didn’t have to leave as soon as I thought I had to make it to White Plains. I needed to be there by 8:30, and finally came to grips with the fact that I didn’t need to leave until 7:30. On the road at 7:45, I got a call that the person I was supposed to meet to train was four hours away. His car had broken down the night before and instead of calling and rescheduling the appointment, which would have allowed me to do some of my sites, he simply went and go his car fixed and called the next day. Beside the fact that’s it’s illegal to drive while talking on the phone in NY, unless you’re hands free, I was only 10 minutes from the location. Luckily there was still another person coming for training, so it wasn’t all lost. Of course he wasn’t going to be doing this job, but a less intensive one later.

After driving all over BF, NY looking for the site, I finally found it as I viewed something that looked like the bank name in my rear view window. Luckily I found a place to turn around four miles later. Sitting and waiting in the parking lot, I called the office to get some answers. Everyone must have been in the smoking pit.

In the end, I did the survey while the other person walked behind me emulating what I was doing. I wasn’t going to lose a day or a site for the sake of someone I hadn’t met. The guy, who had showed up, hopefully gained something from the lesson, because he made nothing and spent 5 hours with me while I accomplished a site 3 hours more intensive than what he was going to be doing in the coming weeks.

It all worked out though, thanks to the fact that I made most of the calls and worked it all out. I’m now going to wake-up tomorrow at 5:30 AM and hope this time the trainee is there at the site at 7:30. I should really find a new vocation. This one is annoying.