I am back on days. I was told that I would be working on a 402, so far I have done nothing work related. I looked up my choices for hotels that I could stay in while I'm on my rotation. I started reading Snow Crash, and I watch 3 episodes of Justice League Unlimited during my lunch break. Periodically I have to step outside to warm up. After working in 90-100 degree heat, 70 degrees feels a little cold. I found a nice clean spot beneath our radio antenna, where I can sit, read, and even lay down. If I remember I'll stop by the bookstore and pick up a GRE study guide. My goal is to take it 3 months, and be enrolled n grad school for the spring semester.
Yesterday when I was out warming up, the other engineer was out there also warming up. We had a nice long talk regarding our office and its future. She generally as the same opinion that I do, there's bad leadership and we engineers are being under-utilized. She is slated to take over, but there is no concrete date, and the current acting construction engineer, who isn't actually an engineer, is trying to delay the inevitable. He has assigned her to lead a project next year, that I'll be working on along with the project manager of my first project. He is supposed to be training us to lead projects. Though he is an idiot, and didn't want anything to do with me when I was working on his project. In my opinion he's the worst person to be training us. He's good buddies with the acting construction engineer, which is why he was assigned to us. Since I'll be on this project, I'll still not get to manage projects. The other engineer in the north office is already managing projects, and he's been around for a month longer than me. This project has an early start date in March and is 120 working days. They expect to tie us up for a while.
Oh, I'm proud to say, that I have yet to fall asleep at work.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Flame on
Back on another equipment related break. They started an hour late and 10 minutes into working, they had problems which caused a 15 minute delay, then they worked for another hour, before they had to head back to their shop. I was slowly falling asleep waiting for them to repair the shot blaster. So I started playing Soul Rebirth. I decided the next game will be Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, because I want to get it out of the way before FFIII and FFV come out this November.
Last night, they laying down the markings for the stop bars. The basically put down plastic sheets and melt them onto the pavement with mini-flamethrowers. Then they sprinkle glass beads to add to the reflectivity. It was rather entertaining, because the workers seemed to enjoy playing with fire. Plus seeing the public reaction was fun too, since they were stopped in the next lane waiting for the light. Since we were working on the stop bars, we were setting off the sensors for the traffic signal, and exiting traffic has priority on these lights. So people were getting annoyed with extra long red lights. Late in the night, people would start running them. One guy on a motorcycle did it right in front of a police officer, and we all had a good laugh. I'm not sure what was going on last night, but there were police everywhere. Saw about 4-5 pass by every hour. It good to see them out.
Last night, they laying down the markings for the stop bars. The basically put down plastic sheets and melt them onto the pavement with mini-flamethrowers. Then they sprinkle glass beads to add to the reflectivity. It was rather entertaining, because the workers seemed to enjoy playing with fire. Plus seeing the public reaction was fun too, since they were stopped in the next lane waiting for the light. Since we were working on the stop bars, we were setting off the sensors for the traffic signal, and exiting traffic has priority on these lights. So people were getting annoyed with extra long red lights. Late in the night, people would start running them. One guy on a motorcycle did it right in front of a police officer, and we all had a good laugh. I'm not sure what was going on last night, but there were police everywhere. Saw about 4-5 pass by every hour. It good to see them out.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Faulty equipment
Since there is only one crew working, if something goes wrong, we get a break. We also get breaks whenever they need to dump the trucks. There's breaks usually take 30 minutes. I generally take that time to return to the office and charge my phone and mp3 player. Today they seem to have a lot of problems, so I took that time to finally beat Final Fantasy II, and now I'm starting on the Soul of Rebirth. After that I'm debating playing Golden Sun or Advanced Wars. I have a lot of other games to play, but I need to something that I can play with one hand easily.
Last night, the contractor did come out. I was just sitting around watching Justice League Unlimited until 10pm, because that would keep me on track to get 40 hours for the week. On my way out, I notice that the office was empty. I thought maybe the other guys were out doing something else. I lock up and head home. I drive through the project on my way home, and I see the contractors and my two co-workers. I, of course, continue on home, because they don't need me out there anyways.
They're actually finding stuff for me to do now, so it looks like I'm going to stay on this project. Mainly they leave me out there alone, while they catch up on paperwork, which is fine by me.
Last night, the contractor did come out. I was just sitting around watching Justice League Unlimited until 10pm, because that would keep me on track to get 40 hours for the week. On my way out, I notice that the office was empty. I thought maybe the other guys were out doing something else. I lock up and head home. I drive through the project on my way home, and I see the contractors and my two co-workers. I, of course, continue on home, because they don't need me out there anyways.
They're actually finding stuff for me to do now, so it looks like I'm going to stay on this project. Mainly they leave me out there alone, while they catch up on paperwork, which is fine by me.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Switching projects
The project manager of the striping job is back, so they don't need me anymore. I assumed I would be put back on the old concrete patching project, but I've received no instructions. I was going to go back to that project anyways, but striping manager told me that I should stay, since they're not working tonight. The striping must not like working or something, because they didn't work last Thursday. I was brought to this project, because the manager was on vacation and the other guy was talking time off. So I was going to be left alone on this job, and the one night that I'm in charge, the contractor takes the day off.
I like this striping job almost as much as I like working in the batch plant. In the plant I just sit around in an air conditioned room, listening to mp3s and playing games. On the striping job, I just sit in my air conditioned truck, listen to mp3s, occasionally play games, chat on IRC, and the best part, I don't have to wear shoes. I just slowly follow a grinding truck, driving under 1 mph. Since this is a one person job, the other guy records where they grinded, and I do nothing.
I'm still trying to figure out my schedule. There was talks of me going back to days, but I don't know when. The FEA is trying to get me in the rotation as soon as possible. Since I'll be staying Topeka, I'll probably make frequent trips to Manhattan and Lawrence to visit friends.
I like this striping job almost as much as I like working in the batch plant. In the plant I just sit around in an air conditioned room, listening to mp3s and playing games. On the striping job, I just sit in my air conditioned truck, listen to mp3s, occasionally play games, chat on IRC, and the best part, I don't have to wear shoes. I just slowly follow a grinding truck, driving under 1 mph. Since this is a one person job, the other guy records where they grinded, and I do nothing.
I'm still trying to figure out my schedule. There was talks of me going back to days, but I don't know when. The FEA is trying to get me in the rotation as soon as possible. Since I'll be staying Topeka, I'll probably make frequent trips to Manhattan and Lawrence to visit friends.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
rotation
They temporarily put me on the striping job that I originally was supposed to be on because the project manager went on vacation. Striping is very boring but it's a small crew and there's quite a bit of downtime. The other guy I'm working with goes out early, and just calls me when I need o be out there. He also sleeps quite a bit on the job, which I don't mind, since this is really a one man job.
I finally got some information regarding my engineering rotation. There are 6 sections; construction, road design, bridge design, materials and testing, transportation planning, and traffic engineering. Construction is mandatory and we have a choice of 3 sections. Each section is 4 weeks and is conducted at KDOT HQ in Topeka. Though based on the letter from our FEA (Field Engineer Administrator) you can take more courses but for a shorter period of time. He wants us to do road and bridge design for 4 weeks each, and a week each for materials and traffic. I personally want to spend more time on traffic and take transportation planning. I need to talk to my boss to find out when I'll be free from projects so I can start my rotation.
On a sad note for me, the token black guy is leaving and starting a job in Lawrence. Now there is no one in the office that I can really talk to. We have a new Senior in our office, kind of. She transferred to our office a month before I started, because there were promotion opportunities. Then in June, she transferred to North shop to get closer to the Metro Engineer, and now she's back.
I finally got some information regarding my engineering rotation. There are 6 sections; construction, road design, bridge design, materials and testing, transportation planning, and traffic engineering. Construction is mandatory and we have a choice of 3 sections. Each section is 4 weeks and is conducted at KDOT HQ in Topeka. Though based on the letter from our FEA (Field Engineer Administrator) you can take more courses but for a shorter period of time. He wants us to do road and bridge design for 4 weeks each, and a week each for materials and traffic. I personally want to spend more time on traffic and take transportation planning. I need to talk to my boss to find out when I'll be free from projects so I can start my rotation.
On a sad note for me, the token black guy is leaving and starting a job in Lawrence. Now there is no one in the office that I can really talk to. We have a new Senior in our office, kind of. She transferred to our office a month before I started, because there were promotion opportunities. Then in June, she transferred to North shop to get closer to the Metro Engineer, and now she's back.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Rained Out
It's been a while since I last updated. This current project doesn't give me much free time, since it's being run by the north office, and I refuse to update on my own time. I never got to work on he striping project. They put me on full time on the patching project that I was assisting on. I started as four 10-hour days, but switched to 5 days for two week, then they were ahead on schedule so they switched back to mon-thurs again. We got rained out tonight, so I'm stuck doing nothing for 10 hours. Kinda annoying because the guys from the other project stayed until midnight. They usually work until 6am, and get to work before 5:30p, they probably could have left by 7:30pm. My project starts at 6pm, but I have to be in the office by 5:30pm. Their project starts at 7pm, but are in the office before 5:30pm. I'm too honest to get any overtime here.
I usually inspect the preparation of the patches, but periodically fill in for the plant guy when he has to take a gradation. I normally work until the project manager "dismisses me". He basically gives me the option of staying for overtime or going. As much as I would like overtime, I can't justify staying. I don't see the point of two people doing the work of one. Starting tomorrow, I'll be watching the grinders. This project has been much better than the previous one. I'm working with people from the north office, which are much better than the people we have here. There's actually communication, and I actually feel somewhat useful out on the road. It's strange how the west office gets all the perks, even though all the higher up engineers work out of the north office.
Well everyone else is finally gone and the rain is really noisy here. So I'm going to go home early. I really wonder if the cameras here are even on. Oh yeah, my mom is finally back so I get delicious homemade bento to bring to work now. Life is good.
I usually inspect the preparation of the patches, but periodically fill in for the plant guy when he has to take a gradation. I normally work until the project manager "dismisses me". He basically gives me the option of staying for overtime or going. As much as I would like overtime, I can't justify staying. I don't see the point of two people doing the work of one. Starting tomorrow, I'll be watching the grinders. This project has been much better than the previous one. I'm working with people from the north office, which are much better than the people we have here. There's actually communication, and I actually feel somewhat useful out on the road. It's strange how the west office gets all the perks, even though all the higher up engineers work out of the north office.
Well everyone else is finally gone and the rain is really noisy here. So I'm going to go home early. I really wonder if the cameras here are even on. Oh yeah, my mom is finally back so I get delicious homemade bento to bring to work now. Life is good.
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