new engineer, kind of

Surprisingly two people interviewed for the Construction Engineer (EAIII) position in our office. It naturally went the engineer that has been working here for the past year. But the other engineer did get the same position but at the district office. Except he won't jump right into the new job, he'll be a EAII learning how KDOT works for a year before he can take over. Though for some reason he is actually being put to work under our EAIII, and he has a desk in our office, despite working in the office an hour away. I guess he's somehow supposed to learn from our new EAIII, who is actually still learning from our Specialist.

Days

I spent the past week watching pile driving. I wasn't too bad. The senior on the project was surprisingly helpful, and gave me good advice for my upcoming project. This is the same senior that was in charge of my first project last summer, that never talked to me. I got some reading done, bridge work is very slow and only requires supervision only for certain parts.

While on the bridge, my helper came out because they thought they would need extra workers for the concrete pour. We set a schedule for the project. I'll unfortunately be working from 5:45am to 6:15pm. Since I'm the coordinator it would be best if I was around during the day so I could consult my superiors. Plus any concrete and asphalt would be done during the day. I could just be my way of thinking, but as the project coordinator, I feel I should have the most responsibility and work on this job. My helper plans on coming in at 5pm, even though he doesn't need to be out on the road until 6pm. I personally think 5:30pm is early enough for him to come in, but I guess I'll be nice and not take his 5 hours of OT away, since I almost make double his pay.

I'm slowly getting all the paperwork ready for this job. I need to get certification for every little thing, including the nuts and bolts used. My helper and I went out and looked at the bridge. He asked a lot of questions, that I really didn't care about. Probably because I assume the contractor knows a lot more than me, and can take care of it. Though thanks to him we did notice something extra that might need replacing. I'll go out tomorrow to take pictures, which will be reviewed Topeka.

New Regime

Today is the first day under the construction engineer. Rather than vacate the office, the old acting construction engineer, the Specialist, he setup a small desk in the front office. He also setup some of his stuff at my old desk. That was the purpose of me moving so he could have my old one. He spends most of his time in the front office, and only comes to the back to use the internet, since the front is only wired for one computer right now.

They've been stealing my truck for the past couple work days, because it has a tow hitch. There's a truck with a tow hitch that belongs to a senior that hasn't shown up for work in about a month. My truck was being driven by our accident prone trouble-making transfer from maintenance. Immediately after bringing back my truck this afternoon, he got in accident in his own state truck. There was apparently something in the road, and drove over it. It got stuck under the suburban, I have no idea how much damage if any was cause to it.

I didn't do anything all day except add more music to my state cell phone. Starting tomorrow I'll be working on the bridge I was originally assigned to long ago. Since the previous project coordinator has become the big boss, she can't be out on the road as much. I'll have the joy of watching pile driving.

Moving

Today I'm move my desk to the other side. I already like it better, there's people to talk to. The only problem is that it's next to the designated food table. I can smell the doughnuts right now it very tempting. They're trying really hard to fatten me up. Our office administrator went to Braum's for some reason, so she decided to bring back some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with cones.

Luckily yesterday I got quite a bit of walking in helping out with the asphalt paving west of here. I even managed to get some overtime which is nice. I have an opportunity for more overtime this weekend, but I going out of town for several friends' graduation at K-State.

Aside from moving desk, I went out and took some more pictures of my bridge. There's some utilities connected the bridge which may cause some problems to the contractor. I am pleased to say that my bridge still currently bum free. Though there is evidence that someone used to live there

Milling

Last week I helped with a milling job. The project coordinator went on vacation so I was called in to help out. I am currently the only person the office not working on a project. Starting tomorrow I'll be sent out to help out on another project out of town, because the workers from that office are busy since there were several tornadoes out west.

My own project will start in 25 days. I was finally assigned a helper, though I'm not too fond of the person. I figure we will work 12.5 or 13 hour shifts. I'm not sure how much recapping of information will be necessary, and the project is 1.5 miles from the office so drive time isn't an issue. since it is a consecutive day project, if I go with 12.5 hour/day, I'll work 87.5 hours in a week. I'll almost get more overtime on my 10-day project than I did all last year.

Screwed

My emergency bridge repair project is schedule to start on June 1 at 6pm, which is the worst time for me. The project will be day and night for 10 straight days, so no weekends for me. The contractor couldn't start until they have all the materials and the piece isn't supposed to arrive until May 18th. And they didn't want to close the ramp on the Memorial Day weekend, so June 1 the earliest date. This really screws me, because I had a wedding rehearsal on the evening of the 1st, and a wedding on the 2nd, then a trip to Japan on the 4th. I'll take day off for the actual wedding, but I'll miss everything else. We're currently shorthanded, so I can't take more days off, plus I want to do this job, because it's my first. I am currently the only person scheduled to work on this project which is impossible, since I can't be out there for 24 hours a day. Though I will get to work at night like I wanted. Slowly I've been getting the paperwork for this job. We've already had to make a change to it, because there was some extra damage that wasn't accounted for in the original estimate.

Lately our office has been going crazy with doughnuts. For the past two weeks, some one has brought two dozen doughnuts. Last Friday, there were five dozen doughnuts from 3 different places. This was the only day I actually ate the doughnuts, because it was day the schedule for my project was decided and I was feeling down. I told myself no sweets at work unless they were homemade.

catching up

Last week, I finished the last of my training classes in Salina, Aggregate Field Testing. The class was taught by this old 70 year old civil engineer. I feel asleep during most of the lecture parts, which luckily there wasn’t much of. There were a lot of hands on tests that had to practice of the course of 4 days.

When I got back I had a shiny new laptop. It’s a widescreen one with a full number pad on the keyboard. This is definitely good enough to play FFXI, but I don’t have any reason to travel anymore. Maybe if I’m able to go to Japan, I’ll take it with me. 3 others in the office got new laptops too.

Yesterday, my boss put me in charge of doing a 402 (estimates) for a striping job. I went out with another ET and measured the lengths of the lines on a 6 mile stretch. Did the easy stuff in the morning and after lunch we decided to count the skip marks. That was a bad idea, because it was putting us to sleep. Eventually I had to count out loud to keep us both awake. At around 2:30pm, we had to quit because we got a flat tire. We were driving on the shoulders and medians so at some point we drove over a metal spike. Coincidently it was the same tire that I just replaced the day earlier. I was actually the first time I’ve ever changed a tire, and I got to do it twice in two days.

Today I didn’t do anything since the car needs a new tire, and I don’t know what other vehicle is equipped to use the DMI (Digital Measuring Instrument). Plus my boss lent out my truck to be used on another project. I’ll try to finish it up tomorrow. I felt a little bad, not doing anything today when I actually had an assignment to complete.

In my boredom I was looking at the State civil service job openings. I noticed that they opening another EA1 position in Wichita, and the EAIII position which they closed when our engineer arrived. Looks it’s time for a regime change in this office. I should probably move my desk to the other side so my boss will have a spot on this side.