Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Light at the end of the tunnel...
The last few days have been rather hectic here on the job site. We have a crew here to perform a specific job that should take about 6-7 days. They have been here about 10 days now and finally, last night, we were able to fix a problem that was holding them up from doing the job they were sent here to do. The only problem remaining is that one of the key workers for the job decided rather than come here to site he was going home. He was stuck in Hyderabad due to flooding in Visag (the airport has been closed for days and will not reopen anytime soon). He refused to take a car or train for some reason and just went back home. I don’t think he’ll be keeping his job after pulling a stunt like that. Now we have to wait for another “blade tech” to be arranged and get here to get the job done.
At least I can hope for a quiet day today. After the last few, I’m more than ready for one. It would be nice to have Sunday off but who know what new problems will arise between now and then.
Haven’t heard anything about my replacement and since I’m scheduled to leave in 16 days I’m beginning to get a little concerned. I’m sure I’ll be leaving in November but I just hope sooner rather than later in the month. I know that it’s very busy for all of us right now. I just hope that the right person pops up quickly on my manager’s radar. One benefit of being here a little longer is getting more of my required hours for the contract year in. My contract runs from June to June and I should be able to get ¾ of them done with over 6 months left to go if I’m stuck here into late November. Once they are out of the way, the rest of the contract year is all “bonus bucks” … now that would be really nice… With all that, I’d still really, really like to be home for Thanksgiving but if they can’t get someone soon, I will probably be stuck here until just after the Thanksgiving holiday. My supervisor mentioned it but the TA that’s here to supervise the night shift for that job I wrote about didn’t want to “swap” rolls with me right now (could I possibly not understand this?) but is willing to return (this I don’t understand) after the Thanksgiving holiday to take my place. We’ll see how that plays out.
My attitude has improved a good bit since my last post. I’ve gotten to a point of acceptance that this culture is just upside down when it comes to logic or common sense, especially with the educated castes. Yea, the caste system, now there’s a bit of logical thinking for you. Although “officially” no longer recognized it is still going strong here. It’s amazing how prejudice people are toward any caste that is “beneath” them. As for the job, I’m going home before it finishes so for now I’m just here doing what I have to and don’t care about whether the unit will fire or not when the time comes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still doing what has to be done, without letting them take the shortcuts, etc but I just couldn’t care less any more. That may still sound bad but it isn’t it has eliminated my anger and frustration. Now I can just sit back a chuckle to myself and shake my head when I watch them work or when the supervisor’s come to me and want to do things differently to save time. I’ve made my adjustments and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel getting brighter with each passing day even if I get stuck here for a couple extra weeks.
At least I can hope for a quiet day today. After the last few, I’m more than ready for one. It would be nice to have Sunday off but who know what new problems will arise between now and then.
Haven’t heard anything about my replacement and since I’m scheduled to leave in 16 days I’m beginning to get a little concerned. I’m sure I’ll be leaving in November but I just hope sooner rather than later in the month. I know that it’s very busy for all of us right now. I just hope that the right person pops up quickly on my manager’s radar. One benefit of being here a little longer is getting more of my required hours for the contract year in. My contract runs from June to June and I should be able to get ¾ of them done with over 6 months left to go if I’m stuck here into late November. Once they are out of the way, the rest of the contract year is all “bonus bucks” … now that would be really nice… With all that, I’d still really, really like to be home for Thanksgiving but if they can’t get someone soon, I will probably be stuck here until just after the Thanksgiving holiday. My supervisor mentioned it but the TA that’s here to supervise the night shift for that job I wrote about didn’t want to “swap” rolls with me right now (could I possibly not understand this?) but is willing to return (this I don’t understand) after the Thanksgiving holiday to take my place. We’ll see how that plays out.
My attitude has improved a good bit since my last post. I’ve gotten to a point of acceptance that this culture is just upside down when it comes to logic or common sense, especially with the educated castes. Yea, the caste system, now there’s a bit of logical thinking for you. Although “officially” no longer recognized it is still going strong here. It’s amazing how prejudice people are toward any caste that is “beneath” them. As for the job, I’m going home before it finishes so for now I’m just here doing what I have to and don’t care about whether the unit will fire or not when the time comes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still doing what has to be done, without letting them take the shortcuts, etc but I just couldn’t care less any more. That may still sound bad but it isn’t it has eliminated my anger and frustration. Now I can just sit back a chuckle to myself and shake my head when I watch them work or when the supervisor’s come to me and want to do things differently to save time. I’ve made my adjustments and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel getting brighter with each passing day even if I get stuck here for a couple extra weeks.
