Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The Last Old Post

Here's the last of the unposted entries.  This one was written in June 2011.


It’s a Wonder….

That anything gets accomplished at my job.  I have never worked in a place with a lesser sense of urgency as this one has.  The project I’m working on has been ongoing since late 2009.  Right now we are 18 months from running out of three key materials and the basic information on the replacement materials is not in-house.  There are no specs from the manufacturer and no in-house specs.  I brought this up at least two weeks ago, maybe a month and there has been no movement.  It’s very hard to write something without the source documents.  But ultimately it’s not my problem.  I’m just a contractor who’s come to the project at the end.  I have no authority to make things happen and when I bring it up to those who do, it’s glossed over.  And I won’t go into the other contractor they brought in on the project.  He supposedly has experience in the field, well you couldn’t prove it by me.  He has no grasp on how big industry works.  He spends most of his day talking to relatives or friends on the company phone.  Will he be surprised if or when one of our bosses comes down with the phone bill.  He doesn’t seem to be able to grasp a lot of the training or discussions of the project.  I  know I’m smart, but I had to explain something to him four times and he still didn’t understand the concept.  I’ve had to organize the work load for the two of us because he is either unwilling or unable to do those types of tasks.  I also think he’s been working on a business venture of his own.  I can’t say I’ve been an angel since we haven’t been very busy, but I do my side business things at home on my own time.  And mine are not in the same area of business, so there’s no conflict of interest.  His are, I think.   He keeps talking about all these people he knows who have started companies in India and how much money they’ve made.  I think he’s trying to do the same.  I know he’s been trolling company information sites that have nothing to do with our project. (He had to call me over to figure out what he did on  the computer to cause it to lock up and I saw all sorts of places he’s gone to on the company intranet.  I’m staying out of it, that’s all I can say.)


I have been trying to catch up and finish the shawl I had started making.  It has turned out to be fairly large.  I just have to join the two ends of the edging, secure the ends and give it a wash then it’s off to Scotland.  I think Kirsten will like it.  I do have to get a picture for Leo, since it is his design and I think I’m the first to finish it.  Others have started it, but most are in time-out since there were two errors in the pattern.  I figured out what needed to be changed, did it and then let Leo know about the problem and my solution.  After all, we are his test knitters and that comes with the territory.  You get patterns no one else has seen but there may be problems with the pattern.  I haven’t measured it but I expect it’s about 5 to 6 ft in diameter without stretching.  It’s acrylic so it won’t stretch out much.  She wanted acrylic so she can use it for breastfeeding.  It can go in the wash and not have to have special care.  It should have been in Scotland by now, but life got in the way.  The AC went on the fritz and I needed to go car shopping.   I was also participating in Ravelry’s Sock Madness and that cut into my knitting time on the shawl.    Sock Madness is a speed competition between groups of sock knitters.  It has seven rounds and I made it through five of them.  I was foiled in making it though the sixth round by work.  I had to go there and it was Memorial day in Canada, so a Canadian who was at home for a three day weekend finished before I could.  The sixth round had only one person from each team going to the finals.  So I made it to the semifinals.  Not bad for my first time entering.   But now it’s back to the Guild Wars on AMKG.  I was knitting the shawl for a challenge there, but didn’t finish it in time.  It was too big to take to the Yankee games with me so I lost valuable time there.  But I wasn’t going to miss any of the games.  I even stayed through the whole game last Saturday in the cold wind and mist.  I watched more of the game with my glasses off than on I think.  I took them off because I got tired of wiping them clear of all the water.  At least they won. 

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