Carmen Electra is Single

Everyone, from time to time, needs an escape during the day and I'm very happy to report that I have the Quality Control and Safety office hooked on Popsugar. By the time we leave here I'm going to have half the Det adicted to celebrity gossip.

Dolly Had it Pretty Good Working 9 to 5

Our days are long and they're about to get longer. On Monday our hours of operation expand to 4:45 am through 7:30 pm six days a week. I'm not excited. I already spend enough time with these jokers.

Because We are Human We are Equal

I spent one summer living with a neo-nazi lesbian who complained of the inherent inequity of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy and who also hung posters in her room that read in German “Love Your Race”. We were a forced match but managed to get along for a few months despite the fact that for dinner she would fry a pound of bacon, toast a loaf of white bread, butter each piece, and then make sandwiches. She would eat them all in one sitting and never managed to clean up the splattered bacon grease clinging to the walls and low ceiling. The best way I can describe her is that she was a test of my patience and my ideas of acceptable human behavior. But even with our summer of ignorant comments and smeared pork fat I have never been around as much blatant racism as surrounds me here. There are many examples I could site; they slap me in the face every day. But there was something this morning that pushed me over the edge.

We ride around in the back of pick-up trucks (I understand why dogs are so happy in trucks: I love it back there with the wind in my hair and an unobstructed view) and this morning on the way to lunch the group in the back was treated to the following joke:

Q: What’s God’s gift to black people?
A: Sickle cell anemia.

Just typing it makes me feel sick. I glared at SW3 and told him he crossed the line, but I didn’t know what else to say. He returned my eye contact and said, “I’m sorry if I offended you”. His tone didn’t suggest regret but that any offence on my part was because of a weak stomach and a naive outlook.

It seems like everyone is exhausted from Mad Dog’s tricks. He never lets up and even though he preaches an open door policy and has no problem letting a person speak, he chooses not to listen and doesn’t address the issue weather it’s about wearing flip-flops or the mission of the project. He’s black, and I think the racist comments are an attempt by the troops at criticism when they’re out of logical arguments but are too angry to give up the rant.

I want to see the good each person and to be able to explain the behavior away so I can continue. I want feel OK with myself and I want to ignore the problems. I'm not sure where that puts me.

Placing Blame

Because there was some confusion about the first reasonable day for the crane operator to show up for work, and because Mad Dog is all about scolding and never about mentoring, several of us were treated to a closed door Importance of Communication lecture.

I'm a big fan of communication and gorge on it daily. But even as a confessed addict I can admit that there are times, now and then, when the last thing I care to think about is the list of people (some of whom are smelly and slow on the draw and not that much fun) who would benefit if I walked across the compound and clued them in. I know I could be more proficient and so I think the Importance of Communication lecture is always worthwhile. It’s a good reminder even if it’s annoying.

However…

It’s odd when the advice your chief, the man who is directing your job and scheduling your life, tells you in the midst of a Communication lecture that a big problem we’re facing is that no one wants to place blame or point fingers:

You peoples problem is that you don’t blame nobody. Stop taking the blame on yourself and start pointing fingers or nothin’s going to improve around here. You understand me?

I’m going to have an obnoxious amount of fun writing about this deployment and I blame Mad Dog.

A Day Off

I’m here and it’s very, very hot. It’s so hot that I don’t have much of an appetite, almost no thirst for beer, and I certainly don’t want to go to the gym. What does sound appealing during my off time is to sit in air conditioning and listen to music, read a book, or knit. And that was the original plan for my first two weeks. But at the last minute it was decided that we wouldn’t have to work today, and announced that it’s the weekend of Jamaican independence, which is a big deal on this side of the island that is home to 1,500 Jamaicans. So after a little arm-twisting I went out last night with a bunch of guys from work. It was way too hot and humid to have a good time but I wanted to do my part to contribute to the celebration so I drank a few Red Stripes and talked a little trash before I went to my air-conditioned room. I was asleep before 2 am.