Gah, just a day of frustration
Jun. 27th, 2023 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThis summer I have Brother-the-Younger's son for work. It's less work than you think because even though he's college-aged (like 20? 21?) he only works four days a week unless he has doctor appointments, house sitting for his parent's two week trip to the UK, or whatever.
It's also less work than I thought because the boy is lacking Work Ethic 1.0 and MORE WORK than I expected because he must be supervised and corrected and etc. in order to get appropriate quality work out of him.
I kinda knew this was coming. Brother the younger had me on speaker phone earlier this year, during the boy's spring break. And he was "Boy, if you do not secure a degree-related internship for this summer, you will have to go work for my sister. Do you understand me?" And boy was "Yes, I understand." Now I am not great at sussing out how people work and motives and stuff, but I didn't get any other read from that speakerphone thing than "If you don't go get an internship, you get the hammer." (I am the hammer.)
The first day I had the boy, I gave him a hammer and a cold chisel and had him tear down a brick chimney. Tearing down chimney is a great activity because you can't skive off. I can *hear* the hammer and the bricks hitting the bed of the dumptruck. I can *see* the chimney getting shorter. Also it's miserable fucking work on a roof in the hot sun. :)
Today, I had him cutting the grass at 200. Cutting the grass (pushmower parts) at 200 takes about 45 minutes if you hustle. If you dawdle, it's more like an hour. Boy cut the grass (remember, this is a boy OLDER THAN 19 who has, yes, operated a mower previously) and left... like... little grass mohawks in between the mower tracks. Repeatedly.
Boy is not high or drunk on the job. That's not the problem. Boy is Asperger-ish (he has a diagnosis but he also has a driver's license and is a college student, verbal, continent, etc. There is sufficient functionality on tap for competent fucking mowing.) and hustles through work he doesn't like while doing the shittiest possible half-ass effort -- no self checking or evaluating the quality of his work. This has not changed since he was like fifteen.
It was very humid today. Like, you sweated while walking around in the shade.
I looked at the mohawk'd lawn. I tamped down my temper. I called the boy over.
Do you see the little grass mohawks?
Him: I do now.
This is not the quality of work that I expect. Mowing is not a complicated job, but even simple jobs deserve to be done competently. When you cut the grass, I expect you to produce a smooth and mohawk-free surface when you are done. Your mowing should look AT LEAST as good as mine. Cut. It. Again.
To his credit, he did.
If the boy is going to produce half-assed bullshit efforts, then I will bring the fucking pain until he figures out it is easier to do it right the first time... slower, more thorough, with self-assessment for quality of effort. Or he can ragequit. Either is fine because I don't care.
I called Brother-the-Younger (he is a judge, his wife is an attorney) and told him that I made the boy cut 200 twice in brutal humidity because he did such a fucking shitty job the first time. Brother-the-younger: "Good."
Then it poured rain at lunch so I sent the boy home (he does yard work for me because he cannot be trusted with a paintbrush or power tools or anything that won't grow back after whatever hack job he performs) and continued working on my work, which was floors at TA11.
I ran the power floor scrubber (like the ones in movies, big round-n-round thing that will run away from you if you're an idiot, typically employed to comedic effect) yesterday but I didn't have time to rinse and wax the floors yesterday. I scrubbed them and shopvac'd the water off (quickest route to a dry floor) but I didn't have time to rinse. So today I rinsed (damp mop with clean water) and dried the floors.
I don't know if you've ever seen anime where they have kiddos in school going all zoukin gake ( 雑巾掛け ), but it's A Thing. And, as I was alone at work with no judge-y eyes cleaning the floors in an empty apartment, I was like does that shit actually work?
While it requires more abs than generally I feel comfortable deploying, it 100% does work for a fifty-three year old person whose doctor regularly makes noises about at your age and so on. More work than expected, also more fun than expected. So, I guess, winning. And then I waxed the floor standing up like a normal adult.
After work, I went to put the pushmower away in the garage at 623. The garage door there is a human-powered garage door with big garage door springs to help with the lifting of the garage door which I am here mentioning in a foreshadowing manner. It's a very old garage door, has been on the building since at least we bought it in the eighties and probably before. The chains holding the springs are old and they get some wear and tear every time we use the garage door.
Turns out that if you generate a small amount of wear and tear on garage door chains every time you use it, eventually the chains wear out. One of the chains broke from accumulated wear a couple of years ago and I lobbied to get a new chain at that time but Dad was all "We will get a link-repair thing and do that." *sigh*
That worked for about a year and a half, until this afternoon. This afternoon, I unlocked the garage and went to raise the door and there was a POP and suddenly the garage door weighed like four times what it normally "weighs". So I shoved the door the rest of the way up and propped it there with a spare board. The chain broke about four links from the previous repair. I unhooked the two pieces of chain and took them to the hardware. I bought a new length of chain and installed it and then the garage door worked properly. This made me late getting out of work and by the time I got home to play horse, it was raining again. *sigh*
So I went home and played apricots. I have a stainless steel mixing bowl clear full of finished apricot butter and a smaller bowl that needs more work. (It tends to get a bit scorch-y once it starts to boil down so I do it in smallish batches. Easier to evaporate, also if you do scorch something, you don't kill the whole batch.) I wanted to get it all done today but it's after midnight and I just can't. I'll get the last of it cooked down tomorrow after lesson.
Once it's apricot butter, I need to can it. Lala probably wants pints instead of half pints. I'll have to check with her to see what she wants. Mom might like some back at her (they do "apricot jam" but it's lumpy and way too sugary and a totally different product) if I remember when I head out at Potato Time. My mother is never going to batch process and boil down apricots into a so-thick-it-sheets-off-the-spoon and can be piled up in the pan fruit butter product but I bet she'd EAT the hell out of that fruit butter product if it was set before her. I also have to round up a fresh gasket for my pressure canner.
It's also less work than I thought because the boy is lacking Work Ethic 1.0 and MORE WORK than I expected because he must be supervised and corrected and etc. in order to get appropriate quality work out of him.
I kinda knew this was coming. Brother the younger had me on speaker phone earlier this year, during the boy's spring break. And he was "Boy, if you do not secure a degree-related internship for this summer, you will have to go work for my sister. Do you understand me?" And boy was "Yes, I understand." Now I am not great at sussing out how people work and motives and stuff, but I didn't get any other read from that speakerphone thing than "If you don't go get an internship, you get the hammer." (I am the hammer.)
The first day I had the boy, I gave him a hammer and a cold chisel and had him tear down a brick chimney. Tearing down chimney is a great activity because you can't skive off. I can *hear* the hammer and the bricks hitting the bed of the dumptruck. I can *see* the chimney getting shorter. Also it's miserable fucking work on a roof in the hot sun. :)
Today, I had him cutting the grass at 200. Cutting the grass (pushmower parts) at 200 takes about 45 minutes if you hustle. If you dawdle, it's more like an hour. Boy cut the grass (remember, this is a boy OLDER THAN 19 who has, yes, operated a mower previously) and left... like... little grass mohawks in between the mower tracks. Repeatedly.
Boy is not high or drunk on the job. That's not the problem. Boy is Asperger-ish (he has a diagnosis but he also has a driver's license and is a college student, verbal, continent, etc. There is sufficient functionality on tap for competent fucking mowing.) and hustles through work he doesn't like while doing the shittiest possible half-ass effort -- no self checking or evaluating the quality of his work. This has not changed since he was like fifteen.
It was very humid today. Like, you sweated while walking around in the shade.
I looked at the mohawk'd lawn. I tamped down my temper. I called the boy over.
Do you see the little grass mohawks?
Him: I do now.
This is not the quality of work that I expect. Mowing is not a complicated job, but even simple jobs deserve to be done competently. When you cut the grass, I expect you to produce a smooth and mohawk-free surface when you are done. Your mowing should look AT LEAST as good as mine. Cut. It. Again.
To his credit, he did.
If the boy is going to produce half-assed bullshit efforts, then I will bring the fucking pain until he figures out it is easier to do it right the first time... slower, more thorough, with self-assessment for quality of effort. Or he can ragequit. Either is fine because I don't care.
I called Brother-the-Younger (he is a judge, his wife is an attorney) and told him that I made the boy cut 200 twice in brutal humidity because he did such a fucking shitty job the first time. Brother-the-younger: "Good."
Then it poured rain at lunch so I sent the boy home (he does yard work for me because he cannot be trusted with a paintbrush or power tools or anything that won't grow back after whatever hack job he performs) and continued working on my work, which was floors at TA11.
I ran the power floor scrubber (like the ones in movies, big round-n-round thing that will run away from you if you're an idiot, typically employed to comedic effect) yesterday but I didn't have time to rinse and wax the floors yesterday. I scrubbed them and shopvac'd the water off (quickest route to a dry floor) but I didn't have time to rinse. So today I rinsed (damp mop with clean water) and dried the floors.
I don't know if you've ever seen anime where they have kiddos in school going all zoukin gake ( 雑巾掛け ), but it's A Thing. And, as I was alone at work with no judge-y eyes cleaning the floors in an empty apartment, I was like does that shit actually work?
While it requires more abs than generally I feel comfortable deploying, it 100% does work for a fifty-three year old person whose doctor regularly makes noises about at your age and so on. More work than expected, also more fun than expected. So, I guess, winning. And then I waxed the floor standing up like a normal adult.
After work, I went to put the pushmower away in the garage at 623. The garage door there is a human-powered garage door with big garage door springs to help with the lifting of the garage door which I am here mentioning in a foreshadowing manner. It's a very old garage door, has been on the building since at least we bought it in the eighties and probably before. The chains holding the springs are old and they get some wear and tear every time we use the garage door.
Turns out that if you generate a small amount of wear and tear on garage door chains every time you use it, eventually the chains wear out. One of the chains broke from accumulated wear a couple of years ago and I lobbied to get a new chain at that time but Dad was all "We will get a link-repair thing and do that." *sigh*
That worked for about a year and a half, until this afternoon. This afternoon, I unlocked the garage and went to raise the door and there was a POP and suddenly the garage door weighed like four times what it normally "weighs". So I shoved the door the rest of the way up and propped it there with a spare board. The chain broke about four links from the previous repair. I unhooked the two pieces of chain and took them to the hardware. I bought a new length of chain and installed it and then the garage door worked properly. This made me late getting out of work and by the time I got home to play horse, it was raining again. *sigh*
So I went home and played apricots. I have a stainless steel mixing bowl clear full of finished apricot butter and a smaller bowl that needs more work. (It tends to get a bit scorch-y once it starts to boil down so I do it in smallish batches. Easier to evaporate, also if you do scorch something, you don't kill the whole batch.) I wanted to get it all done today but it's after midnight and I just can't. I'll get the last of it cooked down tomorrow after lesson.
Once it's apricot butter, I need to can it. Lala probably wants pints instead of half pints. I'll have to check with her to see what she wants. Mom might like some back at her (they do "apricot jam" but it's lumpy and way too sugary and a totally different product) if I remember when I head out at Potato Time. My mother is never going to batch process and boil down apricots into a so-thick-it-sheets-off-the-spoon and can be piled up in the pan fruit butter product but I bet she'd EAT the hell out of that fruit butter product if it was set before her. I also have to round up a fresh gasket for my pressure canner.
