22 posts tagged “work”

Lots of things to catch up on, but will only be brief at this point in time.

Mom is doing well infection is all gone stitches have been removed. She can not get around much easier than pre-surgery, still on the mend though.

Dads varicose vein surgery was a success and there is discussion of possible doing other leg in the near future. Doctor is still waiting to decide.

I am back to work, have been working steady since the beginning of July. I am working at 3 different high schools in one district that is adding security cameras and door alarms as well as other security items. Occasionally I have to go from school to school in a couple days time, because of priority projects, but for the most part work is concentrated on one school at a time.

I have worked for this company before and for multiple years so i am very comfortable working for them now. When I started on this job I was  working for a foreman that I had never worked for before, but he is a good guy to work for. Since then he has been pulled off to work another job and he suggested me as the person to take his place. So now I am the Foreman on the job.

I have a crew of 4 people so it is not too big. The biggest obstacle right now is the fact that school has started and we are having to work around all the students and teachers. I try to make sure that I get to bed very early so that my problems with fatigue and other health issues will not affect my ability to do this job. I really do enjoy being a foreman even when there are headaches about the job.

I get up between 4:30 and 5 am in order to make sure that I am on the job before the 7 am start time. I try to get to bed no later than 8:30 so that I have plenty of rest. I have had to work overtime on the last 2 Saturdays.  The one 2 week ago was a bit more grueling than this most recent one. On that particular Saturday we worked outside allllllll day for 10 hours. It was not extremely hot but, it was very sunny and even though I made sure to wear sun block I still got sunburned in spots. I like to wear bib overalls when I am working and the straps on the bibs would keep shifting my shirt around such that my neck was exposed much deeper in the back than I had sunblock on. It also bunched my sleeves up such that the back of my upper arms got very burnt. Even when I would try to put sun block on the spots it would just get rubbed right back off while I was working. Thank goodness it was not a severe burn and it was not a dehydrating day. I still was very tired by time the 10 hours was over though. I was so grateful that we only had to work 8 hours this last Saturday.

Well I would love to take the time to catch up on my neighborhood, I miss everyone, but if I want to keep rested and ready for work I best get ready for some more shut eye.

I will not be going into my Mom and Dad's tomorrow, for Father's Day, because Dad told me to save my gas. Dad knows that I am still not working so he suggested I not make the trip in. We did not have big plans, just our traditional 'breakfast and bowling with Dad'. My dad has one hobby, bowling. So it is traditional for my sister and I to go out to breakfast and then go bowling with my Dad on his Birthday and on Father's Day.

I talked to Mom about it a few minutes ago and asked her to tell Dad that I would try to get in to see him on either Tuesday or Wednesday (his days off), when I have to go all the way into St. Louis to my Union Hall. I usually try to make a round trip out of it and stop and see Mom and Dad when ever I do that. Of course that only works on the days that I do not get a 'call', if I get a 'call' I have to go to the contractor for a kind of interview. If I am hired I fill out the requisite paperwork, if not I get 2 hours show up pay. Depending on where the contractor's office is I may still go see Mom and Dad on the times when I get turned down. If I am already halfway home I just put it off until the next time.

So no Father's Day plans with Dad, but still thinking of him.

Well I checked in with the Union Hall to see what my placement was on the list. I am 247 in actual placement, but some people are out on temporary jobs so I am 222 in the available placement.Looks like I will be unemployed for a while. 

Well I knew my job would not last forever, that is the nature of my job. I had hoped that I would get a transfer rather than a lay off, but such is not the case. Monday night was my last night of work. I will now have to go back to my union hall and sigh up for work. It looks like it will be a little while before I will get to go back to work, the hiring list is pretty long right now.

I am going to work really hard to try and keep from becoming a lazy toad around the house while I am off. I have so many things that I can and should do. I am not going to try and do them all at once, but I am going to try and do a little bit every day.

Well I tried to keep my unspoken New Year resolution, but it did not happen.

I had not realized that I had a resolution until the other day when I struggled to get ready for work and made it in with out crawling back into bed and staying home.

I think in the back of my head I had made a resolution that I was not going to let all my aches, pains, and fatigue keep me from going to work everyday. Thank goodness we went back to 8 hour days instead of 10 hour days, but we still are working through the weekends. I have managed to make it 9 days in a row. This afternoon when my alarm went off I tried getting up to get ready and I just felt so tired I knew it would not be a good idea for me to drive. I suppose if I was car pooling with someone it would be a little easier, but no one lives very close to me. I think the closest person still lives about a 25 - 30 min drive from me. On my better days that would be no big deal but on days like today when I could barely muster the energy to get dressed, that 25 min drive on my rural roads would not be such a good idea.

We are working again this weekend so I will have to get as much sleep as I can today so that I can get back to work tomorrow. I may have broken my unspoken (well actually now spoken) resolution, but that does not mean that I do not want to try again to get it right.

Wish me luck.

Yeah I get two days off before going back to an overtime filled work schedule.

As I mentioned before I am working for an electrical contractor, doing a retooling at the Chrysler Assembly plant. From past experience, working a retooling during the holiday shutdown, used to mean that there would be no holiday for the contractors. This year Chrysler has declared Xmas eve, Xmas day, New Year's eve, and New Year's day black outs and the contractors can not be on the premises. ( I think this is so that they do not have to pay any of their maintenance or security people double overtime pay with holiday pay, not sure just guessing). So when I accepted the call for the job I expected to work 7 days a week for at least 2 weeks.

I am not complaining though I need the sleep.

I have been considering a way that I can get some rest at work. I have always wanted a folding hammock, that I have seen at Target. I have been thinking about this hammock quite a bit recently because work is so tiring. I do not need to actually fall asleep, just the ability to lay down and put my feet up for a half hour sounds glorious. It is still a thought. I need to figure out if I can afford the extra expense. I think they are about $80 so it may not be in my budget after I pay bills especially if this job is not going to last (for me) more than just a week. It all depends on how much more work my contractor gets from Chrysler during this shutdown. If they get any extras they will not have to reduce the crews down as fast and then I might get a few more days or a week more out of it. So I am hesitant about splurging on the hammock.

Well if I am going to maintain my sleep pattern I better get to bed even if I do not have to work tonight.

Well I survived the first couple of days back to work.

I started Friday night at 11:30pm and worked until 7am
    Saturday I worked 5:30pm until 4am
    Sunday I worked 3pm until 11:30pm
My drive to and from work is 1.5 hours each way so these erratic hours really mess with my sleep.

I had to work such unorganized hours these first few days because they wanted to get into the plant as soon as Chrysler's second shift got off on Friday. So the people that normally were going to start on 2nd shift Saturday were given the opportunity to work 3rd shift Friday night to get the ball rolling. Then Sunday's hours were askew because Chrysler wanted to get everyone, their employee's and all contractor employee's out of buildings and off the premises by midnight, which meant we had to be off by 11:30 to give plenty of time for everyone to leave. Because this would cause us to loose some hours if we came at our scheduled 5:30pm, 2nd shift was allowed to come in at 1pm or 3pm depending on if we wanted to work 8 or 10 hours. Well there was no way that I could handle working 10 hours on the limited amount of sleep that would allow me, so I choose to work only 8 hours.

I ended up having to stop on the way home just to get out and move around, because I was having so much trouble staying away. It was way too cold to just stop and walk around at a gas station or rest area so I decided to go ahead and stop at the grocery store and pick up a couple of things.

I spent most of today sleeping. My roommate had to work so that made it very quite here at the house which was helpful.

I was close to the top of the hiring list at my Union Hall so I went there today.

I got hired on by a Sachs Electric, they are the contractor doing electric work at the Chrysler plant during the holiday shut down. I start work tomorrow night. I will be working 2nd shift. When I heard that they were hiring for both 1st and 2nd shift I volunteered for 2nd because it is usually better for me traffic wise.

Because the work is being done during Chrysler's holiday shut down, there is a lot of work to get done in a short amount of time. This means that we will be working 7 days a week and 10 hour shifts. Surprisingly we will be getting off for Christmas eve, Christmas day, New Years eve, and New Years day. Ages ago I worked on one of these shut downs and we worked every day. I take that back we did not work Xmas day but all the others we worked. I think the reason we are not working any of those days this time is probably something to do with Chrysler not wanting to have to try and get enough of their supervisory and safety people to work those days. But as with most of these time crunch kind of jobs, I will not be surprised at all if things change day to day.

I am just glad that I will be working.

I just checked in at my Union hiring hall and I have moved up on the hiring list from 160 on the 21st to 125 as of the end of the day yesterday the 3rd.

So maybe I will not be unemployed as long as I thought. I am trying to keep my mood in check about this though, because I have seen times before, when I would jump up several places on the hiring list, only to go back to a snail's pace for weeks on end. I will try not to be too hopeful or too pessimistic.