It was a damn beautiful day today. Clear, blue skies and the nature starting to awoke to its green beauty. I love the smell of summer. That smell has only good memories attached to it. And now to think of it, I don't think that the winter smells like anything really - unlike summer and autumn. The smell of summer is a fresh odor - it has something pure and new in its tender fragrance. Something to do with the wind, I'd say.
Today was the last day of the hunting license-lectures. This old guy appeared, and he had 11 firearms with him to show to us all. 9 rifles of various (more or less hunting) calibers along with a pair of pistols. The instructor brought his Sako TRG (wow !) and a normal Valmet 412 S double-barreled shotgun with him. Those were real nice pieces of hardware that he had with him, but I'd say that for me personally the old guy's two pistols were of more interest. He had a 9mm Cz75 pistol, which was a real treat to handle. And he also had that interesting little James Bond - pistol, the Walther P22 there. I recently read that Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, had a P22 with him. That pistol is alot smaller in size as to when compared to many others, but I'd guess that it can be a very lethal sidearm at close ranges - and especially if aimed at the head of a person. Still though, the P22 felt like a damn kids toy when compared to the Cz75. I'd be real interested of taking that thing to the range and squeezing off a few rounds with it - the P22, I mean.
Then there were almost a dozen different hunting rifles with scopes. Mostly chambered to .306 and .308 calibers. After you had seen one, you had pretty much seen them all. And the absence of a pump-action shotgun really bugged me. I would've been real interested of seeing one, since my interest in pump-action shotguns is ever growing. Then we watched a few DVD's concerning moose- and deer-hunting, too.
Today I've also been playing C&C: Renegade. That game is surprisingly good coming from a game company that has never made any FPS-games before. So far I've only completed a few levels, but the way the guys at Westwood have managed to transform the strategic action of the older games into an FPS-enviroment is just exiting to say the least. Renegade is indeed one of the best games in that questionable Electronic Arts C&C Collection.
Now though, I think I'll go and have a bloody good and refreshing walk in the nocturnal night.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
No Rest for The Wicked
Turns out those guys from the municipality called me again yesterday. They offered me another two weeks of sanitation + gardening duty, but I declined of the offer. I've got another job coming though: my girlfriend's parents need some help with the dismantling of their former summer cabin - and I'll be the one to clean the site up.
This is good news for two reasons: they'll be paying me a full 6 euros an hour - compared to the municipal 'standard' of just 5.30 euros an hour. And what's best, is that no matter what these guys aren't very strict and tight-assed about work regulations. I landed a very potent summerjob this year, I'd say.
Yesterday I went to one of those hunting license-lessons again. The stuff presented there for us wasn't very interesting, but I tried to hang on for three hours. We're supposed to learn the names of several birds for the final exam a week from now. It seems that one has to be a bloody ornithologist in this country in order to just to be able to hunt. I'm really not that confident of my knowledge of birds - yet they're bound to ask of them during the exam. Fuck.
I watched Terminator 3 yesterday, as well. I haven't watched it in a while, but I felt like seeing it, despite the fact that it isn't exactly the best Terminator movie out there. Naturally T3 screwed with the official canon alot - but I'd still call the movie's subplot of ensuring John Connor's survival somewhat brilliant - I obviously didn't see the end playing itself out quite like that back in the day.
This is good news for two reasons: they'll be paying me a full 6 euros an hour - compared to the municipal 'standard' of just 5.30 euros an hour. And what's best, is that no matter what these guys aren't very strict and tight-assed about work regulations. I landed a very potent summerjob this year, I'd say.
Yesterday I went to one of those hunting license-lessons again. The stuff presented there for us wasn't very interesting, but I tried to hang on for three hours. We're supposed to learn the names of several birds for the final exam a week from now. It seems that one has to be a bloody ornithologist in this country in order to just to be able to hunt. I'm really not that confident of my knowledge of birds - yet they're bound to ask of them during the exam. Fuck.
I watched Terminator 3 yesterday, as well. I haven't watched it in a while, but I felt like seeing it, despite the fact that it isn't exactly the best Terminator movie out there. Naturally T3 screwed with the official canon alot - but I'd still call the movie's subplot of ensuring John Connor's survival somewhat brilliant - I obviously didn't see the end playing itself out quite like that back in the day.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Workday 9: The Grand Finale
Sometimes even a shitty summer job like the one I've been in for the past two weeks is actually worth doing. Today was indeed that day.
We were ordered to go plant grass again, but as it once again rained, me and my new friend were ordered to do indoors work today. A pretty ironic thing it was, since on our final day of work, we finally got ordered indoors. Figures, I guess.
So we were ordered to assist a bunch of construction workers doing a major renovation of a nearby elementary school. The guy we were supposed to report to was the same guy I had met last week while helping out at the plumbing renovation near the city hall. So anyway, we were told to get a pair of brooms and start cleaning up the floors of this thick, fine white dust which pretty much covered all of the floors. We did the job for awhile, and then descended a staircase down to this lower level, which included showers and gymnastics halls. There was a further staircase down to a thick-looking steel door - and it was left open. The guy who worked with me had been at that elementary school when he was alot younger, and he told me about the steel door. It had always wondered him. Now, naturally we could both guess that the place was a civil defence disaster shelter of some sort. So we went in - especially since the construction workers had alot more important matters on their hands than babysitting a pair of summer workers on their final four hours of work.
As we went in, I quietly hit all the light switches on the way, and a small hall of some sort opened up before our eyes. Apparently it had not been used for awhile, since there were even thicker layers of white dust littering everything. The little control room had several tables, maps, and a chalk board with stuff written on it along with a pair of messy desks. On the back there was a door leading further down the hall and a small alcove featuring an ancient telephone exchange along with a switchboard were inside. The stuff was real ancient - I'm talking about WWII-era and 50's gear.
The walls were littered with all sorts weird plans and maps: some of them included unit tags labeled with names such as "radiation monitoring crew" and "logistics team 1". The maps on the walls had all sorts of marks on them - and I'm purely guessing that the markings represented other shelters and civil defence shelters in the area. At that point we both understood, that we had quite probably stumbled upon an old emergency operations center for the municipality administration. The place was a strange mixture of 60's and 70's technology along with some 90's stuff as well. We saw one computer - but with no monitor connected, though.
We proceeded on, and came upon another small room. The room included a small kitchen and these rooms with beds. Disposable sheets and blankets were laying on the beds. We found kitchen utensils wrapped in plastic. Iodine pills and some sort of a military-published instruction manual on "upholding of communications on municipal level" was there among an old transistor radio.
The final room was a storage: radiation suits, geiger counters, hardhats, gasmasks of various models, medical kits, stretchers, clearing equipment and the sort were placed in neat little rows in bookcases, cubboards and shelves. The equipment looked quite old - I'm guessing that the stuff was mainly from the sixties and seventies. We found road maps still wrapped in plastic from 1984. The Geiger counters were last checked on 2003. All the documents found from the shelter pointed towards some sort of an exercise which had been held in 1995. As we sweeped through the shelter for the first time, it was nearing lunch break. We decided to call the search off while and have ou break. I also decided to visit my apartment quickly and get my digital camera for future documentation. Me and my co-worker buddy took a pair of protective glasses with gas-proof lenses with us as souvenirs.
So after the lunchbreak, we returned in full force. I took photos, and then we searched through the place. This time we found an order dated 1979 from some sort of a civil defence big shot all the way from Helsinki, urging to get rid of the older model M/39 etc. gasmasks. The shelves sure included alot of different models of masks - and the one I opened was indeed a model M/39 - which dates from WWII. Naturally they had slightly newer masks - models M/62 and M/65 there too. The had several dozens of these newer models from the 60's there - all piled into neat little rows on the shelves. I opened one gasmask container, and took a photo of the contents. Then we proceeded to open up the medical kits and inspect their contents. All the stuff you'd expect to be inside were there.
After searching for awhile, I made a quick conclusion about the place: most of the stuff there was completely outdated and in the event of a real disaster - highly dangerous to use. We speculated for a long time about the place's function. Was it still used ? It seemed like the place could've been operational - and perhaps the rescue operations would be led through these smaller shelters by orders from the shelters of the bigger cities of the area i.e. Seinäjoki and Vaasa. The place had all sorts of small notes with numbers and codes for the operational centers of the other neighbouring municipalities. So, we had indeed stumbled upon just one link in a long line of command center shelters in the area. Pretty crazy, huh ? We also attempted to pinpoint the locations of the other shelters from the map, but we figured that the maps could've been way too old and thus inaccurate. The place fascinated me in a very strange way - finding a semi-functional shelter like this was like my adulthood and childhood dreams had came true at the same time.
After taking photos, we naturally left and turned over our neon vests and a couple of other things. Our two week stint as sanitation division etc. workers ended and 1:30 PM on a rainy friday afternoon. Naturally our boss never knew about our exploration of the municipality administration shelter. It is pretty scary to think about that installation though, since the equipment there was so damn Cold Warish - and thus in questionable condition. If some sort of an accident were to happen here, then I'd guess that we'd be screwed. The gasmasks at that storage were clearly in no condition to be used. And to think that in the event of a crisis that 50's or 40's telephone exchange would actually used ? My god, we'd be literally more than screwed here.
Still though, the experience of seeing all that stuff there and actually managing to locate a real life shelter are once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. The discovery of the shelter was both fun and educational - or should I also note a warning of the state of civil defence in this municipality.
On a final note, I've got about 50 pictures of that place on my other computer. I'll probably make a Winzip file out of them and put them - after some legal consultation and consideration - for free download. So stay tuned for the next chapter.
We were ordered to go plant grass again, but as it once again rained, me and my new friend were ordered to do indoors work today. A pretty ironic thing it was, since on our final day of work, we finally got ordered indoors. Figures, I guess.
So we were ordered to assist a bunch of construction workers doing a major renovation of a nearby elementary school. The guy we were supposed to report to was the same guy I had met last week while helping out at the plumbing renovation near the city hall. So anyway, we were told to get a pair of brooms and start cleaning up the floors of this thick, fine white dust which pretty much covered all of the floors. We did the job for awhile, and then descended a staircase down to this lower level, which included showers and gymnastics halls. There was a further staircase down to a thick-looking steel door - and it was left open. The guy who worked with me had been at that elementary school when he was alot younger, and he told me about the steel door. It had always wondered him. Now, naturally we could both guess that the place was a civil defence disaster shelter of some sort. So we went in - especially since the construction workers had alot more important matters on their hands than babysitting a pair of summer workers on their final four hours of work.
As we went in, I quietly hit all the light switches on the way, and a small hall of some sort opened up before our eyes. Apparently it had not been used for awhile, since there were even thicker layers of white dust littering everything. The little control room had several tables, maps, and a chalk board with stuff written on it along with a pair of messy desks. On the back there was a door leading further down the hall and a small alcove featuring an ancient telephone exchange along with a switchboard were inside. The stuff was real ancient - I'm talking about WWII-era and 50's gear.
The walls were littered with all sorts weird plans and maps: some of them included unit tags labeled with names such as "radiation monitoring crew" and "logistics team 1". The maps on the walls had all sorts of marks on them - and I'm purely guessing that the markings represented other shelters and civil defence shelters in the area. At that point we both understood, that we had quite probably stumbled upon an old emergency operations center for the municipality administration. The place was a strange mixture of 60's and 70's technology along with some 90's stuff as well. We saw one computer - but with no monitor connected, though.
We proceeded on, and came upon another small room. The room included a small kitchen and these rooms with beds. Disposable sheets and blankets were laying on the beds. We found kitchen utensils wrapped in plastic. Iodine pills and some sort of a military-published instruction manual on "upholding of communications on municipal level" was there among an old transistor radio.
The final room was a storage: radiation suits, geiger counters, hardhats, gasmasks of various models, medical kits, stretchers, clearing equipment and the sort were placed in neat little rows in bookcases, cubboards and shelves. The equipment looked quite old - I'm guessing that the stuff was mainly from the sixties and seventies. We found road maps still wrapped in plastic from 1984. The Geiger counters were last checked on 2003. All the documents found from the shelter pointed towards some sort of an exercise which had been held in 1995. As we sweeped through the shelter for the first time, it was nearing lunch break. We decided to call the search off while and have ou break. I also decided to visit my apartment quickly and get my digital camera for future documentation. Me and my co-worker buddy took a pair of protective glasses with gas-proof lenses with us as souvenirs.
So after the lunchbreak, we returned in full force. I took photos, and then we searched through the place. This time we found an order dated 1979 from some sort of a civil defence big shot all the way from Helsinki, urging to get rid of the older model M/39 etc. gasmasks. The shelves sure included alot of different models of masks - and the one I opened was indeed a model M/39 - which dates from WWII. Naturally they had slightly newer masks - models M/62 and M/65 there too. The had several dozens of these newer models from the 60's there - all piled into neat little rows on the shelves. I opened one gasmask container, and took a photo of the contents. Then we proceeded to open up the medical kits and inspect their contents. All the stuff you'd expect to be inside were there.
After searching for awhile, I made a quick conclusion about the place: most of the stuff there was completely outdated and in the event of a real disaster - highly dangerous to use. We speculated for a long time about the place's function. Was it still used ? It seemed like the place could've been operational - and perhaps the rescue operations would be led through these smaller shelters by orders from the shelters of the bigger cities of the area i.e. Seinäjoki and Vaasa. The place had all sorts of small notes with numbers and codes for the operational centers of the other neighbouring municipalities. So, we had indeed stumbled upon just one link in a long line of command center shelters in the area. Pretty crazy, huh ? We also attempted to pinpoint the locations of the other shelters from the map, but we figured that the maps could've been way too old and thus inaccurate. The place fascinated me in a very strange way - finding a semi-functional shelter like this was like my adulthood and childhood dreams had came true at the same time.
After taking photos, we naturally left and turned over our neon vests and a couple of other things. Our two week stint as sanitation division etc. workers ended and 1:30 PM on a rainy friday afternoon. Naturally our boss never knew about our exploration of the municipality administration shelter. It is pretty scary to think about that installation though, since the equipment there was so damn Cold Warish - and thus in questionable condition. If some sort of an accident were to happen here, then I'd guess that we'd be screwed. The gasmasks at that storage were clearly in no condition to be used. And to think that in the event of a crisis that 50's or 40's telephone exchange would actually used ? My god, we'd be literally more than screwed here.
Still though, the experience of seeing all that stuff there and actually managing to locate a real life shelter are once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. The discovery of the shelter was both fun and educational - or should I also note a warning of the state of civil defence in this municipality.
On a final note, I've got about 50 pictures of that place on my other computer. I'll probably make a Winzip file out of them and put them - after some legal consultation and consideration - for free download. So stay tuned for the next chapter.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
One more for the road
I slept until 10 am today, and it still feels like I'd need more. For the time being, though, I don't feel like sleeping. Maybe later.
Anyway, this post is supposed to be about my experiences at work. Now, first of all, let me state the obvious: the pay sucks. We're ordered to do things there that would normally be tasks designed for machines. We're also ordered to do things which won't even normally be done by the normal municipal workers. We're the expendable crop - and that old geezer of a boss can order us to do the most vicious things for us to do.
Now, the pay sucks, and your work experiences greatly differ if you've got a different boss. So far, the old guy we've had has had fun on ordering us to do all sorts of shit on all sorts of weather. He won't come and checkp up on us, though. Instead he just drives around his pick-up and drinks alot of coffee in the fancy little restaurants we have here. This guy is not the worst of the worst, as you can probably imagine - since he is not one of the Nazi-kind. There's this female supervisor there who is much worse and strict. She's a real pain in the butt. And I saw her near the office the other day - and she verbally jumped on me and my buddy. The first thing out of her mouth was: "Why the hell are you just sitting there ? This will be deducted from your pay !" she said. Luckily the janitor of the place, a real cool guy, saved our butts by telling her that we had just been sitting there for a few minutes. What a crappy job. Hopefully I won't have to work under her this summer.
But, to get to the good and bad sides of the job, here's a few:
The Good
Anyway, this post is supposed to be about my experiences at work. Now, first of all, let me state the obvious: the pay sucks. We're ordered to do things there that would normally be tasks designed for machines. We're also ordered to do things which won't even normally be done by the normal municipal workers. We're the expendable crop - and that old geezer of a boss can order us to do the most vicious things for us to do.
Now, the pay sucks, and your work experiences greatly differ if you've got a different boss. So far, the old guy we've had has had fun on ordering us to do all sorts of shit on all sorts of weather. He won't come and checkp up on us, though. Instead he just drives around his pick-up and drinks alot of coffee in the fancy little restaurants we have here. This guy is not the worst of the worst, as you can probably imagine - since he is not one of the Nazi-kind. There's this female supervisor there who is much worse and strict. She's a real pain in the butt. And I saw her near the office the other day - and she verbally jumped on me and my buddy. The first thing out of her mouth was: "Why the hell are you just sitting there ? This will be deducted from your pay !" she said. Luckily the janitor of the place, a real cool guy, saved our butts by telling her that we had just been sitting there for a few minutes. What a crappy job. Hopefully I won't have to work under her this summer.
But, to get to the good and bad sides of the job, here's a few:
The Good
- The job can be a real pleasure if you're given the right supervisor (bossman/woman)
- Coffee tastes the best after a hard a physical day of work
- If you've got the right supervisor, you might have more breaks than real jobs - thus leaving more time to do almost anything.
- If you're given the wrong supervisor, your work experience can change into a very shitty survival game resembling life in Nazi Germany
- Sometimes you can be given really shitty jobs i.e. planting grass seeds in the middle of a huge storm
- Meaningless jobs are quite common in this temporary profession. Get used to it and try to orientate yourself according to the shittyness of the job. Sometimes it's just best throw your hands in the air and unofficially the take rest of the day off.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Workdays 5,6,7,8 - Hurricane Season
For the past four days our work has been extremely boring, and perhaps even unproductive. We've mainly spent our time drinking coffee and just talking about stuff. On monday and tuesday we were put on shrub-collecting duty, which meant that about 300 cut hawthorn bushes had to be removed from one spot at the back of the library and placed into neat vertical rows. Why it couldn't have not been done by machines, I have no idea. But we were put to work on it anyways. We accomplished it with great cursing and bitching, and I even managed to negotiate ourselves some benefits: we managed to leave work an hour earlier today (wednesday). The thorn-ridden bushes sucked terribly, too.
Yesterday and today we were also ordered to walk around this place again and plant seeds for grass. The target areas were on the sides of highways and stuff - which couldn't concern me much. Yesterday the grass-planting felt just boring, but on wednesday it just became pure torture. We had a very windy and stormy day, and it rained trenching buckets here. Yet our beloved bossman wanted to send us out to plant seeds. Me and my new friend took his car, and just threw seeds out of the window and into the strategic strips of land. Our little Problem was solved, and everyone was happy. Except maybe the bossman, if he had known.
After doing some strategic cropping, we returned back to the "office", and spent the rest of the day just drinking (coffee), eating and drinking. The only girl on duty today had apparently spent her time just raking outside in the terrible storm. Luckily we got out at three.
Yesterday and today we were also ordered to walk around this place again and plant seeds for grass. The target areas were on the sides of highways and stuff - which couldn't concern me much. Yesterday the grass-planting felt just boring, but on wednesday it just became pure torture. We had a very windy and stormy day, and it rained trenching buckets here. Yet our beloved bossman wanted to send us out to plant seeds. Me and my new friend took his car, and just threw seeds out of the window and into the strategic strips of land. Our little Problem was solved, and everyone was happy. Except maybe the bossman, if he had known.
After doing some strategic cropping, we returned back to the "office", and spent the rest of the day just drinking (coffee), eating and drinking. The only girl on duty today had apparently spent her time just raking outside in the terrible storm. Luckily we got out at three.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Workday 4: Working Hard - or Hardly Working ?
I was at an exam back at the university on thursday, so naturally I wasn't at work that day. I did return back on friday, though.
We didn't do much that day. Me and the fat guy were instructed to go to the park again. And I'm talking about the long-forgotten shitty park at the edge of the town again. So there we were, anyways. This time the boss ordered us to load up the small flat-bed trailer full of leaves we had been raking up into these small or big piles. As we proceeded to fill the trailer with the crap, he just took off to drink coffee again, I suppose. It didn't take long for me and my lovely co-worker to fill it up, and thus we proceeded to just talk about stuff. We talked about different countries and trips to different places - pretty much just proceeded to have fun. For the next two or three hours, the boss just kept on driving us between this sewage treatment plant and the park - our duty was to empty the trailer of the leaves to a small field near the plant. The work was boring. While we were driving to the plant and back the boss kept on telling us about his trips to Russia. I found it extremely boring. He also promised to let us leave at 11:30 AM, but now it seems like he was just full of shit like usual.
So then after taking the final load back to the plant, the guy just drove us back to the small shack near the local fire station. We proceeded to wait the for a few hours, and after some time had passed, we were just ordered to go pick up trash again. We didn't do that for long, though. And went home at pretty much the same time we were supposed to.
We didn't do much that day. Me and the fat guy were instructed to go to the park again. And I'm talking about the long-forgotten shitty park at the edge of the town again. So there we were, anyways. This time the boss ordered us to load up the small flat-bed trailer full of leaves we had been raking up into these small or big piles. As we proceeded to fill the trailer with the crap, he just took off to drink coffee again, I suppose. It didn't take long for me and my lovely co-worker to fill it up, and thus we proceeded to just talk about stuff. We talked about different countries and trips to different places - pretty much just proceeded to have fun. For the next two or three hours, the boss just kept on driving us between this sewage treatment plant and the park - our duty was to empty the trailer of the leaves to a small field near the plant. The work was boring. While we were driving to the plant and back the boss kept on telling us about his trips to Russia. I found it extremely boring. He also promised to let us leave at 11:30 AM, but now it seems like he was just full of shit like usual.
So then after taking the final load back to the plant, the guy just drove us back to the small shack near the local fire station. We proceeded to wait the for a few hours, and after some time had passed, we were just ordered to go pick up trash again. We didn't do that for long, though. And went home at pretty much the same time we were supposed to.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Workdays 2 & 3: Unexpected assignments & forgotten parks
Me and my trusty friend, the fat guy, were ordered to this fairly rotten old park at the edge of town yesterday. It was located pretty close to the local water tower. The bossman transported us there.
Once we arrived to the scene, we saw the grim reality of our assignment: an old children's park located at the very edge of town - unlikely that anyone even used it. We started our jobs anyway, which was among a few other things, raking the yard clean of fallen leaves and branches. Pretty damn boring stuff. I did the job for an hour, and after that the bossman turned up again in his dark orange pickup. The fat guy broke the handle of his rake. The bossman told me to enigmatically leave my work as it was and get inside the vehicle. Then he just grimly ordered the other guy to continue his job.
I was then given a new assignment: a small apartment building located at the back of the city hall was getting its plumbing replaced. I was going to be ordered there. Luckily it was an indoors job, though.
So then I arrived to the building, and immediately was sent to work. The leading construction worker there had been drilling these huge holes to the floor, and he was searching for the exact location of the sewage pipes. I hauled all the small and large pieces of stone flooring and the separate crap out of the hole and the floor as he drilled. Then I had to drill a bit too. I was also ordered to put several batteries for an electronic buzzsaw for loading. The work was hard, but happened to take place indoors - which was always a bonus. I was also ordered to return to the site tomorrow - which I happily agreed to. I mean, just look at the options: either raking crap or spending time doing this sort of stuff indoors. I don't really know why the fat guy couldn't have handled the work there - which brings me to the main question: why me ? Was the post at he construction site a punishment or a reward ?
Anyway, the third day of work begun at the same site. I showed up at seven. Sadly the other workers didn't. Turned out that they turned up at eight - so naturally the bossman drove up and ordered me back to sanitation duties for an hour. He took me to this elementary school and told me to clean up all the trash around a certain fence. All these little kids were running around, but for some strange reason they didn't pay too much attention to me. Which is good.
As my work was done at a record time, the bossman finally took me back to the site. I proceeded to do pretty much the same stuff as I did yesterday, although the workers there broke up a few waste pipes which I had to carry out. You wouldn't believe the lovely odors they emitted. So, at noon we had finished. The work at the municipality-owned apartment was done, and sadly enough I was transferred back to raking at the god-forgotten park. It also started raining, and me and the guy just stopped working and started talking. We were even issued these disposable raincoats - which helped a bit in surviving the massive rainfall.
For the next three hours, we just spend talking about all sorts of things there. Forgot about work, and just let everything hang out. It was cool - and mostly important too. Then a few of his friends showed up, and my girlfriend showed up at the park too ! So, we just started to drink coke that she had brought with her and pretty much just chewed the fat, as the said. We all forgot about "supposedly important work" - but at least we had fun. After the clock was nearing 14:30, I split and walked back to the bossman's office and turned in the rake and went for home.
Anyways, that was for days 2 & 3. Tomorrow, thursday that is, I won't be going to work because of an exam I've got to take in the university. So here's me wishing all you a good time and best wishes until friday. Rock on !
Once we arrived to the scene, we saw the grim reality of our assignment: an old children's park located at the very edge of town - unlikely that anyone even used it. We started our jobs anyway, which was among a few other things, raking the yard clean of fallen leaves and branches. Pretty damn boring stuff. I did the job for an hour, and after that the bossman turned up again in his dark orange pickup. The fat guy broke the handle of his rake. The bossman told me to enigmatically leave my work as it was and get inside the vehicle. Then he just grimly ordered the other guy to continue his job.
I was then given a new assignment: a small apartment building located at the back of the city hall was getting its plumbing replaced. I was going to be ordered there. Luckily it was an indoors job, though.
So then I arrived to the building, and immediately was sent to work. The leading construction worker there had been drilling these huge holes to the floor, and he was searching for the exact location of the sewage pipes. I hauled all the small and large pieces of stone flooring and the separate crap out of the hole and the floor as he drilled. Then I had to drill a bit too. I was also ordered to put several batteries for an electronic buzzsaw for loading. The work was hard, but happened to take place indoors - which was always a bonus. I was also ordered to return to the site tomorrow - which I happily agreed to. I mean, just look at the options: either raking crap or spending time doing this sort of stuff indoors. I don't really know why the fat guy couldn't have handled the work there - which brings me to the main question: why me ? Was the post at he construction site a punishment or a reward ?
Anyway, the third day of work begun at the same site. I showed up at seven. Sadly the other workers didn't. Turned out that they turned up at eight - so naturally the bossman drove up and ordered me back to sanitation duties for an hour. He took me to this elementary school and told me to clean up all the trash around a certain fence. All these little kids were running around, but for some strange reason they didn't pay too much attention to me. Which is good.
As my work was done at a record time, the bossman finally took me back to the site. I proceeded to do pretty much the same stuff as I did yesterday, although the workers there broke up a few waste pipes which I had to carry out. You wouldn't believe the lovely odors they emitted. So, at noon we had finished. The work at the municipality-owned apartment was done, and sadly enough I was transferred back to raking at the god-forgotten park. It also started raining, and me and the guy just stopped working and started talking. We were even issued these disposable raincoats - which helped a bit in surviving the massive rainfall.
For the next three hours, we just spend talking about all sorts of things there. Forgot about work, and just let everything hang out. It was cool - and mostly important too. Then a few of his friends showed up, and my girlfriend showed up at the park too ! So, we just started to drink coke that she had brought with her and pretty much just chewed the fat, as the said. We all forgot about "supposedly important work" - but at least we had fun. After the clock was nearing 14:30, I split and walked back to the bossman's office and turned in the rake and went for home.
Anyways, that was for days 2 & 3. Tomorrow, thursday that is, I won't be going to work because of an exam I've got to take in the university. So here's me wishing all you a good time and best wishes until friday. Rock on !
Monday, May 07, 2007
Workday 1: Getting started
Today my spring/summerjob officially started. I showed up at the workplace at around seven, and three other people came there as well. I half-knew one of them.
The man in charge was a weird old fellow constantly chewing something and taking long pauses after saying just a few words. We spent five minutes just watching the dude draw little stickmen on a piece of paper. He had drawn - or at least I'm supposing it was him - a large breasted stick figure on the paper as well. It didn't seem to bother the ladies of the group, though. So then he asked us to guess how long it would take for him to draw as many little stickmen on the paper as there were people in China. What bullshit.
So then we were sent to the streets. We were issued these neon-colored vests and a really handy little tool for picking up trash from the street. The "pike", as I call it, even featured this really sharp bayonet-like stick. We were also given big plastic waste bags - and on our way we were.
The center of town was full of trash littering the streets: empty packs of cigarrettes, candy wrappers, napkins, receipts, broken beer bottles and pretty much everything you'd figure as trash. We spent walking through the center of the town through the early hour traffic like a pair of ghosts wearing neon vests. We picked up trash. An old grandma asked me about the trash-picking device a.k.a. "The Pike". Then I talked to a pair of construction workers also working for the municipality. One of the workers said that his son was also studying at the university. Cool.
We spent several hours just walking around the town. The work itself today was quite independent in the sense that we were just told where to go and get the area cleaned as soon as possible. The weather today was a bit too hot for me though. I had a black long-sleeved T-shirt ion top of a normal T-shirt. And on top of it all was a normal running jacket.
We spent several hours carrying our sticks and the black trashbags with us. I hadn't packed any drinks or food with me. Sure wish I would've.
So then we just retraced our steps back to the little house which we started from. As my partner, a fat dude, called the boss as he had left someplace - we received a new assignment: large heaps of trash had somehow formulated to the back of a supermarket and a small hotel at the center. The sanitation department - which meant us - had been getting complaints about the untidy state of the place. We had been at the location earlier, but most of the trash had pretty much escaped our tidy moves. So we went there. I found a full bottle of beer from the hotel's side entrance, but I just had to throw it in the bag. Didn't feel like keeping it.
We spent most of the day cleaning the back of the hotel and the supermarket. There were these large heaps of trash located at a small ditch at the back - and by the looks of it - some of the stuff we found must've been from the freakin' 80's ! Pretty bizarre.
After we had finished there, we just left a pair of garbage bags there for the mobile units to pick up. Then we proceeded yet again to walk back to the little building. This time we were just ordered to comb through a few highways near a small factory complex. Didn't find too much trash from there - and to tell you the truth - after six hours of just walking around in the heat I really didn't feel like finding any either.
The day ended at 15:30 PM. After turning in our vests and pikes, I was so beat that I just went home with my girlfriend and took a long shower. Then went to bed and slept until eight PM.
Interesting stuff found from the trash on 7.5.2007:
The man in charge was a weird old fellow constantly chewing something and taking long pauses after saying just a few words. We spent five minutes just watching the dude draw little stickmen on a piece of paper. He had drawn - or at least I'm supposing it was him - a large breasted stick figure on the paper as well. It didn't seem to bother the ladies of the group, though. So then he asked us to guess how long it would take for him to draw as many little stickmen on the paper as there were people in China. What bullshit.
So then we were sent to the streets. We were issued these neon-colored vests and a really handy little tool for picking up trash from the street. The "pike", as I call it, even featured this really sharp bayonet-like stick. We were also given big plastic waste bags - and on our way we were.
The center of town was full of trash littering the streets: empty packs of cigarrettes, candy wrappers, napkins, receipts, broken beer bottles and pretty much everything you'd figure as trash. We spent walking through the center of the town through the early hour traffic like a pair of ghosts wearing neon vests. We picked up trash. An old grandma asked me about the trash-picking device a.k.a. "The Pike". Then I talked to a pair of construction workers also working for the municipality. One of the workers said that his son was also studying at the university. Cool.
We spent several hours just walking around the town. The work itself today was quite independent in the sense that we were just told where to go and get the area cleaned as soon as possible. The weather today was a bit too hot for me though. I had a black long-sleeved T-shirt ion top of a normal T-shirt. And on top of it all was a normal running jacket.
We spent several hours carrying our sticks and the black trashbags with us. I hadn't packed any drinks or food with me. Sure wish I would've.
So then we just retraced our steps back to the little house which we started from. As my partner, a fat dude, called the boss as he had left someplace - we received a new assignment: large heaps of trash had somehow formulated to the back of a supermarket and a small hotel at the center. The sanitation department - which meant us - had been getting complaints about the untidy state of the place. We had been at the location earlier, but most of the trash had pretty much escaped our tidy moves. So we went there. I found a full bottle of beer from the hotel's side entrance, but I just had to throw it in the bag. Didn't feel like keeping it.
We spent most of the day cleaning the back of the hotel and the supermarket. There were these large heaps of trash located at a small ditch at the back - and by the looks of it - some of the stuff we found must've been from the freakin' 80's ! Pretty bizarre.
After we had finished there, we just left a pair of garbage bags there for the mobile units to pick up. Then we proceeded yet again to walk back to the little building. This time we were just ordered to comb through a few highways near a small factory complex. Didn't find too much trash from there - and to tell you the truth - after six hours of just walking around in the heat I really didn't feel like finding any either.
The day ended at 15:30 PM. After turning in our vests and pikes, I was so beat that I just went home with my girlfriend and took a long shower. Then went to bed and slept until eight PM.
Interesting stuff found from the trash on 7.5.2007:
- 1 full, unopened bottle of beer. According to the label, it would've only expired three months from now.
- A broken - but still pretty cool-looking old-style cigarette lighter
- Various trash from the by-gone eras
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Yllätysten yllätys: sainpa sittenkin töitä. Olen nyt virallisesti Kauhavan kunnan palveluksessa - kaikesta huolimatta.
Kun kävin kyselemässä työpaikan saantia jätettyäni hakemuksen jo yli kuukausi sitten, oli vastaus tyly: nimeäni ei ainakaan ollut listassa. Viime viikolla sitten onnisti, kun minulle soitettiin ja tarjottiin töitä. Siispä päätin ottaa tarjouksen vastaan. Ainoa varjopuoli tällä hetkellä on kaiketi se, että työni alkavat heti huomenna aamulla kello seitsemän. Varoituaika oli siis kaiketikin aika lyhyt. Onpahan nyt kuitenkin sitten aika varhain aloitettu kesätyöpaikka. Which means money. Hurray.
Vappu meni täällä ainakin melko päin ahteria. Vaasassa kansa juhli todella upeassa räntäsateessa ja kylmäkin oli kuin missäkin taka-siperiassa. Seinäjoella käydessämme ilma oli hiukan parempi, vaan juhlakansa oli kyllä ainakin siellä näyttänyt jäävän aika pitkälti vain kotiin. Pohjanmaan vapun pilannut elementti oli siis pelkästään huono sää. How typical.
Lähdin myös viime perjantaina, eli n. 2 päivää sitten käymään Helsingissä ja samalla tietysti vanhempien luona Sipoossa. Lauantaina sitten tuli tehtyä melko harvinainen baarikierros kolmen muun kaverin kanssa, jonka aikana oli kyllä todellakin asiallista meininkiä ilmassa. Toisin sanoen oli siis kiva tavata kavereitaan pitkästä aikaa. Varsinkaan kun ei ole muutamia heistä nähnyt pitkään aikaan.
Nyt täytyy kuitenkin lähteä tästä hieman lepäilemään huomista täyttä työpäivää varten. Teenpä taas tähän loppuun lupauksen kirjoitella enemmän - vaan nythän sitä asiaakin luulisi olevan enemmän.
Kun kävin kyselemässä työpaikan saantia jätettyäni hakemuksen jo yli kuukausi sitten, oli vastaus tyly: nimeäni ei ainakaan ollut listassa. Viime viikolla sitten onnisti, kun minulle soitettiin ja tarjottiin töitä. Siispä päätin ottaa tarjouksen vastaan. Ainoa varjopuoli tällä hetkellä on kaiketi se, että työni alkavat heti huomenna aamulla kello seitsemän. Varoituaika oli siis kaiketikin aika lyhyt. Onpahan nyt kuitenkin sitten aika varhain aloitettu kesätyöpaikka. Which means money. Hurray.
Vappu meni täällä ainakin melko päin ahteria. Vaasassa kansa juhli todella upeassa räntäsateessa ja kylmäkin oli kuin missäkin taka-siperiassa. Seinäjoella käydessämme ilma oli hiukan parempi, vaan juhlakansa oli kyllä ainakin siellä näyttänyt jäävän aika pitkälti vain kotiin. Pohjanmaan vapun pilannut elementti oli siis pelkästään huono sää. How typical.
Lähdin myös viime perjantaina, eli n. 2 päivää sitten käymään Helsingissä ja samalla tietysti vanhempien luona Sipoossa. Lauantaina sitten tuli tehtyä melko harvinainen baarikierros kolmen muun kaverin kanssa, jonka aikana oli kyllä todellakin asiallista meininkiä ilmassa. Toisin sanoen oli siis kiva tavata kavereitaan pitkästä aikaa. Varsinkaan kun ei ole muutamia heistä nähnyt pitkään aikaan.
Nyt täytyy kuitenkin lähteä tästä hieman lepäilemään huomista täyttä työpäivää varten. Teenpä taas tähän loppuun lupauksen kirjoitella enemmän - vaan nythän sitä asiaakin luulisi olevan enemmän.
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