The A/C on the Sunbird is great, except for the leak. I met Mike Bilello, a young fellow that reminds me a lot of myself. Young, broke, and passionately misinformed. But not as misinformed as whoever put in the timekeeping system here. It is a series of digital clocks that look like padlocks. The worker presses a plastic tag onto the face to log his work hours. Has anyone reminded people that one of the attractions of construction work has traditionally been the lack of this kind of nonsense and managerial clock watching. But it is here, full of errors and not too useful yet. The sofware reads in the clock data from a palm pilot, one of the more useless inventions in the past decade. Somebody has to regularly go around the whole building downloading readings from these clocks.
The system has glitches, in fact it seems to create a new set of problems over the old problems they say are solved. For example, on Friday the team has to attend a safety meeting. Thus, if they log off on the 23rd floor, they lose the travel time back to the office. If they don’t log out, they have to ride back up to the 23rd floor after the meeting instead of heading home. The quick fix is to have another clock at the office, the permanent solution is to spend a few extra bucks and get a digital radio system that works in real-time. These “clocks” can be relocated as the tower rises, but have to be returned to base to change the location code. The units are about the size of a padlock, and are equally easy to walk off with, as has already happened.
Did I tell you the burglars went through Cory’s wall to get the safe at Fuddrucker’s? Talk about your inside job. They returned again the next night, broke through the wall again, and this time they got the safe. Let me see that employee list again…
I rode the bus to Ponche and got the Caddy. Now I’m stuck with three cars, a bit of a record as John would say. Of course, just because I’m in a rush changing jobsites, the back office wants the Taurus moved. How do morons have such good timing, that sixth sense of when you don’t need them around? I dropped in to visit John, whose cable has been disconnected. It is true, the “$15 a month” cable cost him $48. Truth in advertising, Florida style. Manuel may have a buyer for the Sunbird on Thursday.
[Author's note 2023: blogs this old may contain pictures that match the text by the month only. That's okay, read the whole month, these were normally short entries. It seems Google has again quit supporting older photos, and there is no possible time to go back and change the formats. Here a picture of a military airplane that crashed into a cornfield on this day 19 years ago.]
Nothing in the books for today, but here is an ad I believe is from the 2004 Onion store. If you don't know what that store is, go there for a look. I was trying to figure out what this ad was for. Cardigan sweaters? Dipshit haircuts? Then I read the logo. They must sell this by the case on South Beach, Florida.
Here was the original holding entry:
