Work Stories

I work in a dominantly male profession which is slowly changing. For example, in my group one draftsperson, our stamping engineer, and the current structural lead (who is also the transportation group lead so really our stamping engineer is the structural lead) are all male. The other draftsperson and 3 EI's (Engineering Intern or Engineer in Training) are all female. Additionally most of the sales people are female. So, upstairs and downstairs there are 2 restrooms. The upstairs ones were made over to the boys leaving the one downstairs for the woman. This has been a source of contention, especially as the females are growing in number. The other day an email went out and these signs were posted to the door.

I thought it was pretty hilarious so I wanted to share!

The other funny thing that happened the other day at work happened on a site visit. The background: While lowering the road at Lamb Blvd by the new Lamb Bridge up north, the construction people discovered a Water Vault (manhole for the water main) right under the road. (Hopefully it wasn't our company that forgot it!). They had to lower it by hacking 10" off the walls and removing the manhole rings. We were brought in to see if this was possible. I was invited to go out with Arvid to see what happened when the pulled the lid off since I was working on it. Obviously Arvid had been there before so of course he knew where he was going... Not so much! The construction trailers were on the other side of the tracks and there was no way the little work Prius was going to get over them. We met an old black guy in a construction van who said to follow him.... he headed out way to the north but when we got to where he thought we should go, it was a pretty rough road and then he told us he didn't think this was a good way to go. So we headed back. Arvid thought he knew so he went his own way and ignored the old guy when he tried to pull up and give us more directions. We went WAY south and got stuck behind construction at another bridge where we had to wait for the backhoe to finish his work and the sign people let us through. We finally got to head west and north again.. all the while trying to see the bridge through all the houses and businesses to the east. We came up to a barrier and squeezed though in the little Prius. The poor man had been waiting to show us the manhole for 2.5 hrs! On the plus side, I got to jump in and take the pictures. Mm.. I could put one here! That would be fun. But here is the funniest part of the story. If we had just followed Kens directions, we would have been there in just a few minutes.

This is where I climbed in.

This is what I was taking a picture of (we didn't want to effect the air vent).

Here u can see the cracking under the manhole from yanking the lid off.

And this is the floor of the vault.

As u can see.. it was muddy. The drain is the sump drain, and the cables are fiber optic. The pipe on the right is one of 2 connections from the water line for the air vent.

I'm sure this was all very interesting to u.. too bad! u can just ignore the pictures and enjoy the story.