25 February 2008

Saddish day.


The real stuff first, then my whiney stuff.

On Valentine's Day, the father of one of my friends passed away. I never met the man, but I have never heard a negative word said about him, and my general foreman had worked closely with him for quite some time so I've heard quite a few stories. Any time I mention, within the jobsite setting, that I know his son, more often than not the next comment to me is, "Oh wow, have you ever met his dad?" And it's sad, to me, that I missed out knowing someone who was apparently so likable and, so I'm told, was an excellent electrician. His service was held today, and you can read his obituary here.

Now my inconsequential bullshit.

I felt so worthless today. No joke, it took me a full day to lay out one box, map out my circuits, drill out one hole with the holesaw, and come up with about 30 problems for my foreman. It was ridiculous. It's not that I wasn't working, it's that alot of this stuff I'd never really done before, and certainly not alone, so I'd try one method and it would fail, then another and it would fail too...it's like no matter what I did, it was utterly useless. And Jay, he's about the most patient foreman I've ever had and he was trying hard to mask his frustration with me. I know there's a learning curve and it can go slowly but I think this was a bit too close to overkill. I was so disappointed in myself. But then I remembered that it could be worse, and it has been in the past, so I tried best I could to leave my ego in the gangbox, suck it up, and deal with it.

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