The Saga of James Part 1
Everyone in the class was getting along fine, people had different skill levels and people worked at different paces but that was fine, we all helped each other out, then one day about 2-3 weeks into the course James arrived.
James smells bad, and I don't mean that in a "he smells" kindergarten kind of way. I mean when you walk past him you grab a bit of his stench and drag it with you to the other side of the room and you wonder to yourself "is that smell me?" then a few minutes later you can't smell it anymore and you remember you had a shower that morning as usual, and there was no reason that you could have smelt that bad and your clothes are clean on that morning and then you realise, "Ohhhh that's right I just walked past James"
Either he doesn't wash himself or his clothes or both, I haven't paid close enough attention, but I think he always wears the same clothes, I will have to make a point of noticing to be sure.
James is a self declared "Mad Stoner" last Thursday James turned up to theory class (late as usual), slept at his desk till lunchtime, then declared he had better things to do than make up the wood sample coasters that we were to spend the afternoon making and declared he was going home to get pissed and stoned.
When James isn't doing things like this, he is making a god awful mess of whatever project he's supposed to be working on, when he's not doing that he's damaging the equipment, this morning he pressed the picture framing stapler down with no wood in it which pressed a staple up into the plastic rest that sits on the face of the picture frame which is supposed to be smooth he then tried to remove the staple with pliers to no avail, then he tried to hammer in the staple, as far as I know that staple is still in there waiting to press a staple shaped cut in the top of the next frame to be stapled in it.
Last week James jammed a piece of metal into the compressed air hose fitting (probably in a very bloody dangerous attempt to fire it across the room with the compressed air), and broke the fitting, in his defence he did report this to the tutor, in his prosecution he didn't tell the tutor why he had jammed a bit of metal into it, though I have a feeling the tutor has a fair idea.
Courtney is the poor girl who unfortunately shares a workbench with James, I am buying Courtney a present at the end of the course as a award for being a human shield, because mostly James bothers Courtney. On the first day James somehow figured out what school Courtney went to and somehow found her on facebook and facebook stalked all her friends and her. We have an idea James likes Courtney, Courtney has a boyfriend, we don't think James groks this, and we somehow think James thinks he is 'in with a chance' with Courtney, because she's so far, been too polite to tell him to fuck off, she's getting less polite day by day because James, at the same time as being monumentally inept, somehow thinks he has skills and likes to "teach" Courtney how to do things.
If you're at your bench working away and a classmate walks past with a stupid grin on their face, this generally means "I just saw James do something stupid, you saw it too didn't you?"
Today we were making a cute little side table, the whole class cramped the short ends before morning tea, then in the afternoon assembled the rest because otherwise it will go together all wonky, James ignored this sage advice and this afternoon proceeded to cramp all four sides together at the same time and consequently one of the legs is 10mm higher off the bench than the others, which are probably not level either, then he proceeded to paint it with a dark brown stain, instead of painting a part of it and then wiping off the excess stain, he left it on, causing the wood grain to disappear and it to look like a painted outdoor picnic table, also for some reason the three bits of wood that make up the lower shelf on the table were all joined together rather than having a 15mm gap, still have no idea how he managed that, also he had to band saw off a set of four dowels because he drilled them into the wrong side.
To be continued.....
James smells bad, and I don't mean that in a "he smells" kindergarten kind of way. I mean when you walk past him you grab a bit of his stench and drag it with you to the other side of the room and you wonder to yourself "is that smell me?" then a few minutes later you can't smell it anymore and you remember you had a shower that morning as usual, and there was no reason that you could have smelt that bad and your clothes are clean on that morning and then you realise, "Ohhhh that's right I just walked past James"
Either he doesn't wash himself or his clothes or both, I haven't paid close enough attention, but I think he always wears the same clothes, I will have to make a point of noticing to be sure.
James is a self declared "Mad Stoner" last Thursday James turned up to theory class (late as usual), slept at his desk till lunchtime, then declared he had better things to do than make up the wood sample coasters that we were to spend the afternoon making and declared he was going home to get pissed and stoned.
When James isn't doing things like this, he is making a god awful mess of whatever project he's supposed to be working on, when he's not doing that he's damaging the equipment, this morning he pressed the picture framing stapler down with no wood in it which pressed a staple up into the plastic rest that sits on the face of the picture frame which is supposed to be smooth he then tried to remove the staple with pliers to no avail, then he tried to hammer in the staple, as far as I know that staple is still in there waiting to press a staple shaped cut in the top of the next frame to be stapled in it.
Last week James jammed a piece of metal into the compressed air hose fitting (probably in a very bloody dangerous attempt to fire it across the room with the compressed air), and broke the fitting, in his defence he did report this to the tutor, in his prosecution he didn't tell the tutor why he had jammed a bit of metal into it, though I have a feeling the tutor has a fair idea.
Courtney is the poor girl who unfortunately shares a workbench with James, I am buying Courtney a present at the end of the course as a award for being a human shield, because mostly James bothers Courtney. On the first day James somehow figured out what school Courtney went to and somehow found her on facebook and facebook stalked all her friends and her. We have an idea James likes Courtney, Courtney has a boyfriend, we don't think James groks this, and we somehow think James thinks he is 'in with a chance' with Courtney, because she's so far, been too polite to tell him to fuck off, she's getting less polite day by day because James, at the same time as being monumentally inept, somehow thinks he has skills and likes to "teach" Courtney how to do things.
If you're at your bench working away and a classmate walks past with a stupid grin on their face, this generally means "I just saw James do something stupid, you saw it too didn't you?"
Today we were making a cute little side table, the whole class cramped the short ends before morning tea, then in the afternoon assembled the rest because otherwise it will go together all wonky, James ignored this sage advice and this afternoon proceeded to cramp all four sides together at the same time and consequently one of the legs is 10mm higher off the bench than the others, which are probably not level either, then he proceeded to paint it with a dark brown stain, instead of painting a part of it and then wiping off the excess stain, he left it on, causing the wood grain to disappear and it to look like a painted outdoor picnic table, also for some reason the three bits of wood that make up the lower shelf on the table were all joined together rather than having a 15mm gap, still have no idea how he managed that, also he had to band saw off a set of four dowels because he drilled them into the wrong side.
To be continued.....