Rainy Aftermath

So on the new project I'm working on, we are doing tons of drainage stuff and well, rain is not good.

This is supposed to be a check dam and the water isn't supposed to be flowing.... oops. This caused for flooding in a different part of the project. Serious problems on this site.

Taken Wednesday August 7th.

Dangerous Weather

On Wednesday, our dirt work operations were stopped due to the rain. Then, as you'll see in the video, our crane work was stopped due to lightning.

(And yes, that was a seriously lucky shot. I was just recording rain and bam!)

Clouds Behind Four Winds' Tower

Even while doing something as boring as measuring pavement markings, it's important to look at the world around you.

Big Hole

This hole is really big. The engineer that designed to keep all the soil and sand out didn't anticpate this much weight though and... well... the steel started to buckle. All work had to stop, and people were fleeing. Not much work can get done when workers refuse to go where they need to do the work.

They could legit die if just one panel was to break. Each panel is 1/2 inch of steel.

Yessssss

This makes my inner nerd surface!

A excavator lifting an excavator (well... technically it's a backhoe, but it excavates... so...)

A W E S O M E!!

Just a Little Girl

Sorry for the long hiatus, but work as been a source of depression this last week. I want to just write silly posts judging bathroom and oogling at big equipment, but sometimes this job gets serious, and team members don't work together.

What happened is the kind of thing that makes women scarce in this field. It's the stereotypical danger in hiring a woman. It's what all that sensitivity training that people roll their eyes at is for.

I was yelled at and disrespected and harassed. [If you want the story, message me.] Long story short, I talked to my supervisor after trying to brush aside the whole thing, and I got removed from the jobsite (at my supervisor's advice and to my agreement.)

Problem solved! Yay right? Nope, I've been on boring projects ever since, and even though there is a need for me on that jobsite, they have to overwork a different co-op to cover my absence.

The worst part is now I feel people are watching me harder, like judging my personality or the way I approach others to see if I could have brought this harassment on myself.



Today I was at a jobsite, and I was working with a new engineer and two inspectors. The engineer was female, and one of the inspectors was an old MDOT employee. The engineer said talking to the inspectors, "I had lunch today with your boss." And the old MDOT guy said, "Oh, did you sleep with him?" She was embarrassed at his comment, but she just continued on the conversation. It's just obnoxious. She's a married woman and a mother. She's their boss for goodness sake.

Sometimes I have to really remember why I am going into this field, filled with idiots who will never respect me, no matter my title, education, or experience.

Eric Bridgman Cafe Closet Bathroom

Now, sometimes I just weird.

I went into the dollar store to use the bathroom (since I needed to buy dollar store items) and because it was an old downtown building, there was no bathroom. Err, well, there was a bathroom? The back of the store had a door to go upstairs since it built in a time when people lived above their shops. So it did have a bathroom, it's just someone's... house.

I was being really not social and I just wanted to use a bathroom. I bought my items and left with as little human contact as possible. Only, I really needed to go. Like terribly so.

I dropped my items into the car, and dashed to the nearest building that might have a bathroom. It was a small cafe: Eric Bridgman's.

Now, when I mean small, I mean tiny. It was a really kozy place for old people. Well, I had lunch waiting in the car and little time to be away from the job site, so I quickly scanned the room for a door or hallway, and the woman across the room (maybe 30' away) asked if she could help me.

"Do you have a bathroom?"
"Do we have a bathroom? Well, sure we do. *sighs* It's in the back of the kitchen."

I dashed as fast as I could, but was stopped in order to sqeeeeeeeeze between the kitchen applicances and few workers. It was the size of a bathroom. Then as I'm almost a foot away from the back exit, I see this less-than-normal sized door leading into a room truly smaller than a closet. Found the bathroom!

I think a port-a-potty would have been bigger. I will say it was cleanish though. Hot, no air, so it was really hot and sticky in there. When I got out, there was an old man standing in the kitchen half-smiling at me, waiting to use the bathroom as he was pinned against the wall between the cook trying to wash a dish or two. As quickly as I had entered I made a mad dash. I knew I wasn't going to buy anything. I thought about giving them a dollar or two for using their bathroom, but I thought that would be more weird, and the lady who greeted me was busy.

I was very thankful for the bathroom even though I probably seemed like the biggest weirdo.

Yes, I straddled the toilet on one foot to take this picture.

Yes, I sat on the sink to take this picture.

Verdict: Not going back. Waaaay too small for comfort and I embarrassed myself with my hit-and-run, so I don't want to show my face around there again.