Powering down

So, drove in to work today...they had closed off the parking lot. No notice or anything, and why not? We're just construction workers. So everyone got rerouted to this back lot in the middle of a larger, dirt lot. I was late getting in, of course. That sucks.

And yesterday, right before walk-out time, we were called to the 20th floor to take out all the temporary power. No warning, either, not for us or for all the workers busting their asses up there. We opened the panel, flipped the breaker, and the entire floor went dark. Guys were cursing, tripping over saws and cords...it was awful. We worked two hours overtime trying to get the place lit up and all the service entrance cable cleared out of the way so no one would fall. And today? We got called again to replace two of the spider boxes, because there simply wasn't enough power for all the men, but there wasn't a directive, so it couldn't be signed off, so we couldn't actually perform the work...so we spent a good portion of the day riding elevators up and down with the temp power panels.

Until, of course, somebody whined about the icky construction workers, and how the elevators smelled "like men", and how everything was so dirty, so now all subcontractors are confined to the use of one elevator. Granted, there's a 150-man layoff from our contractor alone, this Friday. But how can they expect us to produce when hundreds of workers can't get where they need to go to do what they need to do? It's not like you can run up 20 flights of stairs (or 19...there isn't a floor 13) with 30 pounds of tools strapped to your hips and an additional 60 pounds of equipment and then have any energy left over to do anything.

I know the job is powering down. I know that this is how it is when the floors and sections are turned over to the owner. But seriously...we quite literally put our lives on the line building a structure and we get treated like subhumans at the end. I just can't wait until they remove the porta-johns and then tell us we can't use the in-house toilets.