On a hot afternoon at my work site

It’s really hot outside and I had just finished my lunch and taking rest in my cabin cooled by the air-conditioner and listening to music from my laptop rather than being in the scorching sun at my work site. But my rest is always interrupted by that phone calls from my sub-contractors and also again from morning my connection to the net is off thanks to the heavy rains last evening.

My mind is always wondering and I just made a call for an interview for another job and I have got one coming up this Thursday at 9.30 a.m., could be a power breakfast chatting over a job prospect. I am really fed up sitting and waiting for things to happen at my work site as I have to be where the action is, in the midst of work, pressure and adrenalin flowing. Is that really asking for something too much?

The other alternative that I would rather be doing on a hot sultry afternoon would be sitting under the trees on an easy chair, with my iPod and a chill glass of beer with my favourite book. Now that would be asking for too much is it? But the thought did crop up and I know when I was working on the east coast by the sea, I’d really enjoy the afternoon at a seafood restaurant by the beach having a nice chill beer feasting on deep fried baby squids and deep fried prawns. But I guess everyday is not a Sunday and sometimes I have no choice but just to day dream about it as that’s the closest thing that I can get to.

Now what would you do on a hot afternoon? Take a nap? But then I can’t as I am at work or rather trying to get some work done. Even when I had my lunch just now, I had an earful from one of the purchasers who was pretty upset as no work has really started on his house. I really have no answer for him as I myself have no answer to our (company’s) impending problems.

There are so many questions but not many answers and eventually the problems would get solved by itself naturally by hook or crook. Is that what I learned from my MBA classes, this must be Management by chance or luck?

I was with my boys just now outside my cabin and we were chatting on the weather and trying to place bets on when the first rain drop would start to come down and I told them it’s at 5.00 p.m. and the others had said that it was 4.00 p.m. and so forth and it’s already 3.45 p.m. now and still no sign of rain even though the dark clouds are hovering above. When you are working on a site, you should see the guys betting habits and I know my supervisors would spend a lot of their money buying 4 digits lottery hoping to strike someday. That’s a different ball game altogether as I remember those days when had the “Site God”, whom we offer prayers without fail so that he would take care of us (our safety) and when we are about to close the site after the project had come to an end, we would ask the “site God” for lucky numbers and we all would buy as much as we feel we could afford and sometimes if you are lucky, you would strike but luck wasn’t with me most of the time. Maybe I should write a piece on my experiences on my site and about the incidents and accidents that I have had during my years of working as a site person.