Sunday - Bloody Sunday!!
Sunday:
The day when even the good Lord rested and looked on his creation and smiled. The good Lord was evidently not in Ghana when he created.
Took the trip to Accra on Friday to drop the Nessers off for her journey back to “a balmy 5 degrees” (as she put it in her SMS), and with heavy heart took the trip back to Bogoso on Saturday – weighed down in the car by 11 welding machines.
There is a reason why Accra is quiet on a Sunday and no-one is on the roads. That’s due to the fact that every man and his wife – together with 4.8 children get out of Accra to the bush on a Saturday. It took me 2 hours to travel the 38km to the market out of Accra. A further 4 hours to Tarkwa and resigned to my fate, sitting in the car reading the newspaper while the Tarkwa road was closed off for 45 minutes due to Taysec filling in a mighty big hole near the mine entrance.
I got back to Bogoso knackered and reasonably short tempered.
I was greeted by emails of varying degrees of “work required” importance.
A cease and desist emailing snotty emails to an old man, numerous “please balance these accounts as it is year end” and the odd “please do this urgently” type.
They were filed for Sunday!
Saturday night was our second fines meeting. I unfortunately was not in the mood to party at all. I had around 5 Captains and was in bed by around 11:30. I slept until 4. Fark I hate waking up early at the best of times – on a Sunday it is just that much worse.
I was fined for a few things: Saying I do nothing of consequence to earn a fine was one of them, breaking the chair at the fines meeting was another – one must learn not to ride cheap plastic chairs – Being the calmest person on site - if you can keep your head while all those around you are losing theirs, you do not understand the problem: - and my favorite fine – taking one month to finally roundly curse the client for their abysmal planning.
I have – due to the growing number of additional jobs handed to us – taken over what is known as “site instructions”. These are little pieces of paper, asking us to do something that was not in our original contract. Mainly small fabrication stuff, which I can handle quite competently.
One item which has made my shit list was a sealing ring. This item is around 6 meters in diameter and is made of plate and widgets to prevent dust and dirt from sliding past the crusher. (Don’t’ you just love it when I talk technical)? It appears that everyone quite happily forgot that our crusher needs one.
Ergo – when people realised that they need one – we must fabricate one. URGENTLY!!!
Design and drawing given to us – I even understand the drawing! And I give it to my lads to fabricate. Urgent I say!
Now the design calls for 200mm pipe. No worries say the client – we will procure the pipe. 8 days later – I get asked why I have not procured the pipe. After quietly explaining that I was told not to, I get told to.
The next day is a public holiday in Ghana – the only way I know it is a public holiday is when the workers get paid triple time – so I can only procure the day after.
The day after I get told – no cancel the order we are changing the design.
I smile and 30 minutes later am explaining a new design to my lads doing the fabrication and asking them to cut off holding sections now no longer required.
By now we 10 days from original URGENT and the job is now CRITICAL!!
So we rope in my workshop in Tarkwa to work late and roll flat bar, have the fabrication guys work night shift to weld the flat bar, and everything should be done by Saturday!
When I walk in on Saturday afternoon, one of the first things I ask of is the progress of the job. Carl hands me a drawing with what can only be looked on as an apprehensive smile on his face.
Well - Color my arse purple and call me a gummy bear!!! They changed the fucking design again!! This time the design bears no farking relation to what we originally made and at that moment……. I swore…….. I swore with feeling ….. I swore loudly….. I used language that would have made my mother – bless her – disown me.
And I went home!
Today – Sunday – it was time to work out all the accounting stuff that has fallen through the cracks. However… I decided to pop into the client’s office to discuss our new design.
I was friendly – I was nice – I was sarcastic.
I pointed out that what they were asking was impossible. I was not allowed to employ 5 year old welders, and I needed 5 year old welders to weld a flat bar, rolled on edge, with gussets, through a 80mm gap.
I walked out, when I was told not to worry they were working on another “simpler” design.
I did my accounting today
I balanced!!!!
I went home and napped!
I got bored
I posted this blog
The day when even the good Lord rested and looked on his creation and smiled. The good Lord was evidently not in Ghana when he created.
Took the trip to Accra on Friday to drop the Nessers off for her journey back to “a balmy 5 degrees” (as she put it in her SMS), and with heavy heart took the trip back to Bogoso on Saturday – weighed down in the car by 11 welding machines.
There is a reason why Accra is quiet on a Sunday and no-one is on the roads. That’s due to the fact that every man and his wife – together with 4.8 children get out of Accra to the bush on a Saturday. It took me 2 hours to travel the 38km to the market out of Accra. A further 4 hours to Tarkwa and resigned to my fate, sitting in the car reading the newspaper while the Tarkwa road was closed off for 45 minutes due to Taysec filling in a mighty big hole near the mine entrance.
I got back to Bogoso knackered and reasonably short tempered.
I was greeted by emails of varying degrees of “work required” importance.
A cease and desist emailing snotty emails to an old man, numerous “please balance these accounts as it is year end” and the odd “please do this urgently” type.
They were filed for Sunday!
Saturday night was our second fines meeting. I unfortunately was not in the mood to party at all. I had around 5 Captains and was in bed by around 11:30. I slept until 4. Fark I hate waking up early at the best of times – on a Sunday it is just that much worse.
I was fined for a few things: Saying I do nothing of consequence to earn a fine was one of them, breaking the chair at the fines meeting was another – one must learn not to ride cheap plastic chairs – Being the calmest person on site - if you can keep your head while all those around you are losing theirs, you do not understand the problem: - and my favorite fine – taking one month to finally roundly curse the client for their abysmal planning.
I have – due to the growing number of additional jobs handed to us – taken over what is known as “site instructions”. These are little pieces of paper, asking us to do something that was not in our original contract. Mainly small fabrication stuff, which I can handle quite competently.
One item which has made my shit list was a sealing ring. This item is around 6 meters in diameter and is made of plate and widgets to prevent dust and dirt from sliding past the crusher. (Don’t’ you just love it when I talk technical)? It appears that everyone quite happily forgot that our crusher needs one.
Ergo – when people realised that they need one – we must fabricate one. URGENTLY!!!
Design and drawing given to us – I even understand the drawing! And I give it to my lads to fabricate. Urgent I say!
Now the design calls for 200mm pipe. No worries say the client – we will procure the pipe. 8 days later – I get asked why I have not procured the pipe. After quietly explaining that I was told not to, I get told to.
The next day is a public holiday in Ghana – the only way I know it is a public holiday is when the workers get paid triple time – so I can only procure the day after.
The day after I get told – no cancel the order we are changing the design.
I smile and 30 minutes later am explaining a new design to my lads doing the fabrication and asking them to cut off holding sections now no longer required.
By now we 10 days from original URGENT and the job is now CRITICAL!!
So we rope in my workshop in Tarkwa to work late and roll flat bar, have the fabrication guys work night shift to weld the flat bar, and everything should be done by Saturday!
When I walk in on Saturday afternoon, one of the first things I ask of is the progress of the job. Carl hands me a drawing with what can only be looked on as an apprehensive smile on his face.
Well - Color my arse purple and call me a gummy bear!!! They changed the fucking design again!! This time the design bears no farking relation to what we originally made and at that moment……. I swore…….. I swore with feeling ….. I swore loudly….. I used language that would have made my mother – bless her – disown me.
And I went home!
Today – Sunday – it was time to work out all the accounting stuff that has fallen through the cracks. However… I decided to pop into the client’s office to discuss our new design.
I was friendly – I was nice – I was sarcastic.
I pointed out that what they were asking was impossible. I was not allowed to employ 5 year old welders, and I needed 5 year old welders to weld a flat bar, rolled on edge, with gussets, through a 80mm gap.
I walked out, when I was told not to worry they were working on another “simpler” design.
I did my accounting today
I balanced!!!!
I went home and napped!
I got bored
I posted this blog
1 Comments:
Mr Gummybear ;)
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