Sunday, November 18, 2018

Hospital Construction Job


11-13-2018
This millwork installation laboring gig started Aug. 15 this year, and the boss man tells me that it will take another 4 weeks. I am OK with that as it pays a whole lot better than vineyard work. But the general contractor has this intense drive to not only keep up appearances of completion by Dec. 15, but goes to ludicrous lengths to move the trades' supplies and distributed installation materiel around, as if this was some kind of broad hint. The latest is that all trades materiel, tool boxes, and temporary offices must be off the site by Nov. 24. This is patently absurd given the level of progress, and the best one can hope for is that they allow us to operate from the adjacent parkade, unheated as it is. This too is a problem, as some trades require their materials to be at room temperature so glues will properly set. And the general contractor's habit of piling one trade on top of another and creating logistical inefficiencies hasn't gone unnoticed either. Nor their seeming indifference to permitting ready egress to the building. For example, three level one (ground) accesses (all of them) were blocked by trade work today, and we had to enter and exit via level 2, via the parkade. This wouldn't be permitted under the safety regulations in the first place, and it just seems so utterly absurd they they don't seem to know which access is blocked when. Everyone 's patience is stretched to say the least, and I am a relative latecomer so I am nowhere near as burnt out as most.

Today we discover, that someone came in yesterday on a statutory holiday and applied caulking to the chair rails we had been installing these past five weeks.Owing to the premature arrival of the office furniture we have been hampered in making progress in getting the chair rails done earlier. We are nearly done the chair rail installation today and were getting geared up to do caulking, and now find someone did a totally shit job, first by using the wrong caulking type. They used a clear type, which if ill applied (usually the case) actually magnifies the gaps and makes them look worse. Naturally the general contractor never told my boss, or the wall covering boss, that this was in the works, and proceeded unilaterally with this shit job all in the name of expediting their notion of "completion". As it "happened" even the supervisor level general contractor personnel were remarking on the awful caulking job as I was exiting a room.

Last week the hospital beds arrived, and I suppose this is a big deal as they look very high tech with lots of features etc. And of course each one is very expensive, so I imagine there was a tight inventory count as well. Today the TV screens arrived, a special "health care" version that doesn't allow germs on the inside. Don't ask me how much those each cost.

Anyhow, I find it most curious as to how all this is going to go down with the client in the end, and how much of it the general contractor is going to wear.

And so today, as we were finishing up on chair rail installation on the final level, we find that there was a stash of our chair rail stock on another floor. As it "happened" last week, in the middle of moving all this stock to the next floor, the painter "happened" to arrive in the middle of this job and then blocked the door and effectively prevented us from getting all of it moved. Today, while collecting our stock I discover we had extra on the floor below in this same room. Some fucking idiot had stashed about 15 3' boards, each 8" wide on a new patient bed for crissakes when they had been on the floor and perfectly out of everyone's (other trades) way. Who would do something so fucking stupid? Not only that, but when I entered this room, this male painter was sitting on the bed (3' high off the floor) beside these chair rail boards and doing absolutely squat, except staring out the window and swinging his legs. I made about five trips to retrieve the chair rail stock that was on the floor in this room and moved it to the elevator lobby in advance of taking it downstairs to a central location, but this painter kept on sitting on the patient bed all the while. Eventually (over a time span of 15 minutes) I had to move the chair rail boards that were beside him, and did the obligatory apologies and "excuse me's" etc., and removed them. Like WTF; this painter (an extreme red flag as he may have fresh paint on his clothes) sits on a new patient bed (which never should be done by any tradesman whatsoever as these things had only been delivered last week) and then sits there for 15 minutes while I retrieve this chair rail stock (8" wide boards) from the room, and then the shorter boards from the bed beside him (where they never, ever, should of been as they were in an innocuous location on the floor nearby only two days ago). And apart from him verbally responding to my apologia, he doesn't get off the bed, and just sits there facing the window, explaining nothing. It was IMHO, an utterly bizarre Fellini film-like perverse behavioral/context juxtaposition if there ever was one, just in a construction context. Go figure.

Even now, some five hours later as I write this, I cannot believe that someone would be posted (stalking essentially) in such idiotic circumstances, with such an idiotic set of precursory actions. That is, why would anyone put all these chair rail boards on the bed in the first place when it was clear that all the painters had to do was put a drop cloth on them when the boards were on the floor in an innocuous location. Which is in fact what the painters initially did last week. And then the prior "bad timing" of having the painters arrive and block egress to the room (twice in two days) when we wanted to remove all the chair rail boards in the first place. And then the subsequent "memory failure" of me and my co-worker (who has an excellent memory) in "forgetting" these chair rail boards were in this patient room when we had moved all the long boards upstairs immediately beforehand. In fact, earlier today, I remarked to my co-worker as to where did all the shorter chair rail boards go as we had plenty on the floor below. All I got from him was some vague blather that they all got used up (as he was doing the retrieving for cutting them to length). Talk about an orchestrated shit show, and this took place in consecutive increments over five days. It was yet another happen-chance and coincidence confluence with a finale of utterly bizarre behavior (the painter sitting there on a new patient bed and doing nothing but looking out the window). And of course this character never explained one bit as to what he was doing during all of this. I don't get treated to these Fellini film moments very often these days, but this was one for the ages.

[And given the extensive number of typos, not to mention countless screaming at the assholes for this wholesale fine motor skill assault, with added sneezes at a much greater than usual frequency, while composing the above "Fellini" bizarre-ness, and the constant edit box pop-ups for no seeming reason, it just seems that the Psychopaths have an inordinate interest in having me recount their utter inanity, scripted to the enth degree no doubt].

And to get it back to "normal' for the Psychopathic perps; just leave me the fuck alone, I have suffered enough. A lifetime of ADD and all the cognitive difficulties is more than enough, never mind the callous First Feral Family assholes all the while, and in on this insane travesty with additional imposed adversity. Then the Psychopathic berserk/overt abuse-athon began in 04-2002 and it hasn't let up since. I will take watching a Fellini film any day, rather than being a scripted stooge for an insane Psychopathic Confederate agenda.


11-15-2018
Does the intense stalking at the construction site ever end? Now with less trades dudes around, it seems the stalking duties are falling on fewer, who re-double their efforts to make up for less dude flux. And the number of dude-events that "happen" to pop around the corner just as I am making the same corner has increased considerably. And too, the ones who follow me up and down the stairs, along with the tag team play, where one takes off another comes along to replace him. Ditto for the elevator lobby. I also get plenty of help at doors, which I am grateful for as I am usually packing a dolly with 6-9 8' MDF boards, which is a heavy load.

Another continuing stalker plague are the group of E. Indians who are responsible for cleaning. And they have developed a new tactic to deal with me when I am transiting two floors with relative frequency. I was working on level 6, and had to get material on level 1, and back and forth a number of times. And what do they do? Why, they split apart with  about 3-4 each on level 6 where I was working, and then on level 1 just outside our trades office. Well done. The Portable Plague of Gangstalkers, this time with an ethnic focus.

And still the pit lamping on me from headlights in the morning when I get out of my vehicle at 0630h. Same deal as before; just leave me the fuck alone, I have had enough.

Enough bullshit for a week, and onto to getting this one posted.

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