You Can Change

If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that I went up to Townsville this weekend to see A - in the middle of his 4 week roster away from home.  Well about an hour after I left Brisbane, he received a phone call to say that he would have to do call testing the whole weekend.  After "Hullo Love, how are you ? Thank you so much for coming up to see me" -his next words were "I just got a phone call to say that I have to work the whole weekend."  I said that it was OK, so long as we could spend the time together (not really sure that it was OK but not wanting to rock the boat just after landing there !!!).  We went to his unit and then walked to the local hotel to have ribs for dinner - talking nineteen to the dozen and catching up on stuff that we never seemed to talk about on the phone.

At 5.45 (earlier than I get up during the week !!!) we were up and moving on our way to Ayr where A had to pick up an inverter and drop off something with another tech.  Then we were on our way to Bowen where he had 'on the job' training for about 90mins for the work he had to do over the weekend.  As I have said before - they couldn't organise a p*ss up in a brewery ! 

I couldn't believe the amount of roadkill on the road - I haven't seen anything like that in my travels around the country - in fact the last time I had seen that much roadkill was back in South Africa !!!

Then we drove back to Ayr to start the data testing !!!  Six and a half hours later we had not completed one test - it turns out that the transmitters he had been given to do the testing with, did not have the latest software loaded.  Of course they didn't !

We couldn't move as they had to be in the same place while the new software was loaded.  By the time we could move it was close to 8.30 and I was getting just a little bit cranky.  A was very apologetic even though I kept telling him that it wasn't his fault.  We got home just on 9.30 and it was all I could do to have a spa and get into bed.  We landed up having a ice-cream and a bottle of coke for dinner !

We were up at about 6.15 the next morning and set off for Ayr.  If I was frustrated on Saturday, Sunday pushed the bounds of my patience like they have never been pushed before.  I have always had a very high regard for A and his work ethic and a rather low regard for the company he works for.  Sunday saw my admiration of him rise even more while my thoughts regarding the company he works for, drop even lower.  To say that the one hand does not know what the other hand is doing is a total under statement.  We were sent from one project to the other only to get there, get everything set up and then be told to go back to the first project.  His powers of patience are to be commended because I told him that if I was him I would have told them to take their job and shove it long before now - how he has not done this I have no idea !

So, not only do they not know what they want him to do, they have sent him down to work on the project that he has no training in (bar the 90mins he had on Saturday morning) and then they complain because the testing is taking so long.  I would bet my bottom dollar that not one of them has ever done any field work so trying to find a spot within 100m of a pin on google earth (where there are no road names so if anyone can tell me how to get road names on google earth I would really appreciate it), then get another two figures within specific parameters all while driving a car - yes, it takes a while to find the exact spot they want.  And then when you find the spot, it isn't his fault if the test doesn't pass - he didn't lay the fibres or do the rigging work in the first place !!!! He is just there doing the testing.  Ringing a gazillion times to ask how it is going will not get you a quicker answer - in fact it only slows the process down.  Getting three other people to phone to ask how the testing is going, doesn't speed up the process either - all we could do was set the test to run and then wait for it to pass and when it didn't, set it to run again because apparently if the test fails, and you try it at least another 4 or 5 times, it may pass after that !

A wanted to leave Ayr by 4pm, I said 5pm - eventually we left at 5.20pm and managed to get me to the airport with about 5 mins to spare.  I did feel particularly 'boganess' when I climbed out the ute in my 3/4 jeans, T-shirt and thongs - carrying the cr*p that I had had in the front of the car with me that needed to go in my suitcase, opening said suitcase on the side of the pavement to pack everything in and then running across the road pulling my carry on bag, my bag over my shoulder and my boots in my hand !!!!  I got through security, dashed into the toilet for a pee and to put my longs and jeans on only to find I had left my jumper in the car ! Heading into Brisbane on a cold, wet and windy night was not my idea of fun !!  But, my folks were there to collect me and take me home (if only Dad had turned the aircon down just a little I probably wouldn't have frozen quite so much !!!)

After dropping me at the airport,  A went and got a change of clothes, drove the hour back to Ayr, and worked until 12.30am to get the site over the line before the end of the financial year (well technically it wasn't before but they were happy to accept it as before).  He then stayed the night with some of the riggers who had a place not to far from Ayr to save him from having to drive back to Townsville.  He was back on site at 7am only to get a phone call from the OH&S guy saying that he had broken all sorts of OH&S rules and he had to go home.  Honestly - there is no pleasing that company.  They are only allowed one techy to do call testing even though it is unsafe i.m.o. given how you have to drive around looking at the computer screen trying to see if you are in the right spot or not, the boss basically told him he had to go and do it and now they are saying he was practising unsafe OH&S procedures - go figure !! Again, I take my hat off to him and my admiration for his coolness grows and grows because, if it had of been me, I would have probably lost the plot with the OH&S guy and landed up getting fired !!

On our way back to Townsville on Sunday (after having tried to change my flight and not being able to because the next flight was Monday night at 6.55pm) we were talking about the weekend.  A apologised, again, and I told him, again, that it wasn't his fault.  He really did go out of his way to make sure that I was as comfortable and well taken care of as I could be in the circumstances.  I apologised for getting a little cranky on Saturday night and he laughed and said it was nothing - he had expected a lot worse from me.  He was thinking about the wife he left behind when he first went to Townsville, or the wife he used to have about 5-6 years ago - the one who wasn't very flexible about things, the one who liked to know exactly what was going to happen and when it was going to happen, the one that you didn't spring surprises on because she couldn't deal with things not being ordered, the one who lived and died by lists and doing what was on those lists.  What he has instead is a wife who is much more flexible, who realises that plans change and life is about going with the flow and not stressing when things don't turn out quite like planned, who accepts that sometimes we can't control what happens to us, we can only control how we react.

You can change who you are - you can change how you do things - you can change your perception of things because if I can do it, anyone can do it - you just have to want to do it.

How much do you like who you are and how much

would you like to change ?

And if there are things you would like to change,

why haven't you ?

 

Because it is Tuesday that means it is time to join in with Jess from Essentially Jess for #IBOT.  Have you joined in today ?

Have the best week E.V.E.R. !!

 

TFTD : Time decides who you meet in your life. Your heart decides who you want in your life. But your behavior decides who will stay in your life.