Monday, April 14, 2014

Organized Lazy

I was working an overnight strike a few weeks back. Taking down a large truss structure by myself. I had some assistance from the AV guys who work for the hotel. When the next shift came in at 5 am things should have gone faster. It didn't. I was busy doing my job and one of the guys who was fresh and not up for 20+ hours didn't really help. He sort of organized the things they needed to do. Things they would do after I've left.

The thing that irked me is I needed help right then. I didn't need to know that they had to go get a lectrun, the clear one or that after that... Having a plan is great but it's tough to move onto the next things when the task at hand is not complete. And when you see someone struggling lend a hand.

But his organizational skills... Wow, kept him from hard work...

Work Gloves


Sometimes when I work I wear gloves to protect my hands. I have had a lot of gloves over the years. They end up looking like my gloves pictured below. This was a pair of gloves I had for a long time. I don't know how long. Not really. I would use them; lose them in the car or at home, and then find them again. It was kind of a theme. When it comes to losing gloves I generally misplace the right glove. I have a number of left hand gloves. I never know where the right hand gloves go. To the same place as socks in the dryer I imagine.
I had these glove for well over a year maybe longer. But as I was using them the other day I would stare at them when I had a moment. They were soaked with oil from motor chains. The fingers on one glove had multiple repairs done with gaff tape. At one point my hand looked like the Infinity Gauntlet from comic books because I had repaired the holes using brightly colored gaff tape. A different color on each finger.




 On the back side you can see a bit of green gaff tape under the white tape on the right middle finger...





As I was looking at them the other day I thought, "I want to burn these gloves." This became an easily obtainable goal because I was going to a party in 2 days that would have a bonfire. So I went out and bought a package of 3 work gloves to replace the soon to be ash gloves and put the gloves to be burned back in the car.

At the party I lit the bonfire and piles some wood on the duraflame log which was used to start the fire. When it was merrily burning I tossed on the left glove. I didn't make it a big deal, no reason to call attention to my pyromanical urge. The glove caught fire quickly like you would expect oil infused leather leather to do. What I didn't consider is how much it would smoke. Black smoke, like you see when an oil well is burning.

The fire quickly consumed the glove. It was reduced to ash in minutes. I tossed the other glove on. It went up fast but didn't belch out as much black smoke as the first one. It too was turned to ash.

I think I'll do this again in a few years when retiring the next set of gloves. When they are too damaged and covered in oil to be useful, I'll repeat the immolation. A Viking funeral, as it were...