The Pandemic, Midwest Edition - Stage Four
Day One of working from home:
Log onto server. Check email. Get SIX emails from a project manager asking me to respond to several RFI's (contractor questions) and review a couple submittals by this Friday. This, of course, happens to be for the one project I didn't expect to be working on any time soon, so I neglected to bring home the set of plans for it or any of the other pertinent resources.
Put on pants. Drive to deserted office. Retrieve necessary documents and use plotter while there (might as well). Drive back home.
Two hours later: get frantic call from same PM wanting a conference call this afternoon with our geotechnical engineer. Apparently the hundreds of soil anchors that need to be installed at the site need to be totally redesigned because the poor soil conditions are causing the test anchors to FAIL due to creep. And construction is onging.
In fact, construction has sped up! Because so many people are home and not driving around, concrete trucks can arrive faster and deliver 50% more concrete to the site! Hurray! So, I am even more busy than usual. And oh yeah - the project is operating under a consent decree from a judge, so project delays cause court-mandated financial penalties!
So it's up to ME to save the project from potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines!
"I'll put in the time," I told the project manager, "as long as I am not sick. But if I start running a fever, all bets are off."
"Oh, that's OK. I guess." he replied.
Meanwhile, I get an email from my barber, improbably enough. FURTHER RESTRICTIONS: the governor today ordered the closing of all spas, salons and barbershops until further notice.
Guess who is relieved, and inordinately gratified, that he went and got a haircut just last week? This guy!
Log onto server. Check email. Get SIX emails from a project manager asking me to respond to several RFI's (contractor questions) and review a couple submittals by this Friday. This, of course, happens to be for the one project I didn't expect to be working on any time soon, so I neglected to bring home the set of plans for it or any of the other pertinent resources.
Put on pants. Drive to deserted office. Retrieve necessary documents and use plotter while there (might as well). Drive back home.
Two hours later: get frantic call from same PM wanting a conference call this afternoon with our geotechnical engineer. Apparently the hundreds of soil anchors that need to be installed at the site need to be totally redesigned because the poor soil conditions are causing the test anchors to FAIL due to creep. And construction is onging.
In fact, construction has sped up! Because so many people are home and not driving around, concrete trucks can arrive faster and deliver 50% more concrete to the site! Hurray! So, I am even more busy than usual. And oh yeah - the project is operating under a consent decree from a judge, so project delays cause court-mandated financial penalties!
So it's up to ME to save the project from potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines!
"I'll put in the time," I told the project manager, "as long as I am not sick. But if I start running a fever, all bets are off."
"Oh, that's OK. I guess." he replied.
Meanwhile, I get an email from my barber, improbably enough. FURTHER RESTRICTIONS: the governor today ordered the closing of all spas, salons and barbershops until further notice.
Guess who is relieved, and inordinately gratified, that he went and got a haircut just last week? This guy!