Never Again

Finally, shutdown week is over. If I never put a paint brush to cement floor or tape off two inch lines ever again, I'll die a happy man. It wasn't completely horrible, no, but it wasn't any goddam fun either. And so, next year when shutdown rolls around (assuming I'm still working there then) I'm taking my vacation pay and not going in there, no matter how they try to convince me otherwise. Twice is enough and I've learned my lesson. There are better ways to spend my time.

It's bad enough getting dirty, splashing paint on myself, and breaking my ass on those cement floors, but I also had to put up with Bob and Cooter. Bob, when in charge of the painting crew turns into a pretty good replication of Hitler, and Cooter is Cooter. Of course, like last year, as soon as the week began I started the countdown clock on when the two of them would finally have it out. Anybody have Thursday in the pool? Well, ding ding ding --- you are teh winner.

And, naturally, it started over something stupid. Cooter was painting one of the walls, and cutting the trim around the edges, and Bob found a spot where some white paint had splashed onto one of the metal hinges, so he got all in Cooter's face about it. He wanted Cooter to come look at it, and Cooter refused, and it escalated to the point where Cooter threw down his paint roller and walked off. I thought he was going home, but he ended up just going off somewhere to cool off. It was heated, and even as amusing as it was, I decided right then and there: never again.

Bob almost got me, too, later on. He was under stress to paint one of the main corridors, which the Powers That Be wanted done. The problem with that was customer service was in, and they use that hallway, and all week long people were working back and forth on it, leading up to today, the last day, and it still wasn't done. My suggestion was to just say fuck them and do it, but Bob wanted to wait. He even wanted us to stay late, after they all left, and do it then, and while that sounded like an all right idea earlier in the week, by today I was itching to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. We finally did start it, going along the sides and whatnot, shortly before lunch, and god dammit he did get me to stay a little later than the end because I was cutting around the edges on the floor and didn't want to leave until that was done.

However, I was going around benches and Bob started giving me shit about this other area that he wanted to do, so I went over there and cut around that .... which then led to him giving me shit because I hadn't cut around all the benches yet. Seriously, it was all week like this. You can't make the guy happy. So I got testy and mouthy, but got the shit done. Then he started crabbing about this paint line that we taped off together. We taped over the edge of a yellow line that we painted the other day, but in the middle of it the tape had come out a bit and there was concrete exposed. So naturally, that was *my* fault. My fault, even though all I did there was line up the corner of the first edge, and then he unrolled the tape to the other side of the line and decided it was good, but it's my fault.

Which led to this: "Oh yeah. I tried to tell you it was a little crooked, you miserable fuck. Don't listen to me, though. Oh, but my name isn't Tim (insert plant manager's last name here), so MY OPINION doesn't fucking matter."

Bob gets a lot of crap from people, especially Brad, about sucking up to this Tim guy, and that crap is not without merit. Cooter thought my outburst was really funny, too. He thought that I totally pwned Bob there, but really I was just mad. Given some time to think, I could have been a lot more harsh.

In between all of this the three of us all left for lunch together in my car. See, it's the nature of this place that we can all be horrible to each other and yet still get along most of the time. Bob needed a cigarette, so he rode along with Cooter and me on our trip to Dunkins, because I was in dire need of an ice coffee. First, though, we had some free pizza that the company generously provided for us. Then we set off and were in no real hurry to return. I even pulled over into a spot in front of the post office across town so Bob could have a third cigarette.

Anyway, the point is this -- if for whatever reason *at all* I decide to work next shutdown, I hope someone hits me with a taser and shocks me back to my senses, because it really sucks.