Log 23: Nuts n’ Bolts
This was one of those (now rather rare) mornings where no one really has any work for me to do. There were no counters ready to be cut, no rivets to be riveted, and no frames that needed labeling. As a last resort, I made my way upstairs to Greame’s office and asked him if he had anything for me. Graeme didn’t react or respond to my question for a good fifteen seconds - that’s pretty standard behavior. Then he pulled a stack of papers from his desk drawer and held them out to me. “This is the company’s annual budget review papers (or something like that). I want you to take it into the break room, look through it, and give me your observations.”
When I sat down in the break room to begin my analysis, I was struck by how long it had been since I’d seen graphs, spreadsheets, and calculations. Am I even going to be able to understand this? I thought worriedly, trying to make sense of the financial jargon and values in tables. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the company was doing quite well, compared to a competitor’s numbers shown side by side in the documents. When I relayed this observation to Graeme, he informed me that the second set of numbers was the company’s performance in the previous year, not another random company’s budget information. “Even better,” I said cheerfully.
Later in the day, I ended up walking back into Graeme’s office looking for another job to do, ideally one similar to doing the budget review in the cool, comfy break room. After a bit of contemplation, my uncle told me that I was to work on frame B for a large exhibit that was being set up on the show floor, handing me a packet with some paperwork. “Okay, sounds good!” I replied, taking the papers and strolling out of his office. Then I paused in the hallway, turned around, and re-entered the office.
“Wait, so what exactly am I supposed to do with the frame?” I asked Graeme. “Go find Robbie and he’ll give you the nuts and bolts,” he instructed me. As the foreman, Robbie tends to know all the logistics on any given job in the office. I went downstairs to look around for him, and found him standing over by José’s work table. Since I still was relatively confused on what kind of work needed to be done on “frame B,” I figured it was best to quote my uncle directly, lest anything be lost in translation. “Hey,” I called. “Graeme told me to find you to get the quote ‘nuts and bolts’ for frame B.” In the delivery of this sentence, I not only said the word “quote,” but also included some finger quotations.” “Oh yeah, I’ve got them over here,” Robbie replied, leading me over to a cart next to the exhibit. He pulled a plastic bucket from the cart and handed it to me. I peered down into it. It was literally full of metal nuts and bolts.
