Work is still pretty slow we are working on MWRAPs mostly. Getting them ready for the soldiers.
After work I started watching the rest of Sons of Anarchy. I am about half way through the first season, I like watching it because for a little while I get to feel like I’m not in Afghanistan. Plus there are a ton of movies to watch over here. All the guys who have been contracting for a while bring portable hard drives full of movies stolen off the internet. And then it’s just a bunch of sharing of movies with thumb drives. You just kind of carry them with you and if you talking to somebody about a movie and they say they have it, then you give them your drive and the next day you have a new movie.
I got a box from my mom and another box from Amazon. A bunch of snacks and some nice coffee which was so great. Still no alcohol, that’s what I ask for every time she asks, still dry. The box from Amazon is a bible, no alcohol just Jesus for me.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
1-15-10
Moving Day!
We didn’t move management here is full of shit. They don’t know what’s going on, and they don’t care. We live in a shanty town and the entire night shift guys aren’t getting any sleep because the guys on day shift are coming in here being loud in the middle of the day. I don’t get it; I don’t go in the tent in the middle of the night on my lunch just to bullshit with my friends and be loud. And management doesn’t care; they don’t live down here with us.
I got a box from Amazon today and one from my Wife. The one from Amazon was a book I have been wanting to read “Tokyo Vice” and in the box was coffee and a French press and treats. It was like Christmas, I got a little misty eyed it was so great.
We didn’t move management here is full of shit. They don’t know what’s going on, and they don’t care. We live in a shanty town and the entire night shift guys aren’t getting any sleep because the guys on day shift are coming in here being loud in the middle of the day. I don’t get it; I don’t go in the tent in the middle of the night on my lunch just to bullshit with my friends and be loud. And management doesn’t care; they don’t live down here with us.
I got a box from Amazon today and one from my Wife. The one from Amazon was a book I have been wanting to read “Tokyo Vice” and in the box was coffee and a French press and treats. It was like Christmas, I got a little misty eyed it was so great.
1-14-10
When we went to work tonight one of the senior mechanics on day shift told me and Georgia that we needed to go steal some parts off of trucks at South Park. I said I wasn’t going to spend any time in the brig. He said word came down from DOD that we could take parts off the blown up rows. He said we should tell the MP’s that we were told by him to do it. So we waited until late to go and get them because even with permission we don’t actually have paperwork and I have no desire to be held by the MP’s while they sort it out.
Tonight my x-wife has been giving the wifey hell about the schedule. She is threatening to take this to court. It is so frustrating; she thinks that I didn’t research this to find out if I could legally do this. At best I would have to spend a bunch of money on court/lawyer costs and at worst I would have to come home early, but nothing will change. I was complaining to the guys about it and Joe told me I should go talk to JAG (judge advocate general). The guys who have been doing this a while said yeah they are free legal advice.
So after work I asked around and found out where there office is and walked down. The guys at JAG were nice but they said that because I am not military and not a DOD contractor, I am not officially eligible for their help. But we sat and talked for about 30 min about my situation, in the end he said all I can really do is wait and see if she files anything. But they did get me a power of Attorney and even gave me an oversized envelope. They were really nice.
Tonight my x-wife has been giving the wifey hell about the schedule. She is threatening to take this to court. It is so frustrating; she thinks that I didn’t research this to find out if I could legally do this. At best I would have to spend a bunch of money on court/lawyer costs and at worst I would have to come home early, but nothing will change. I was complaining to the guys about it and Joe told me I should go talk to JAG (judge advocate general). The guys who have been doing this a while said yeah they are free legal advice.
So after work I asked around and found out where there office is and walked down. The guys at JAG were nice but they said that because I am not military and not a DOD contractor, I am not officially eligible for their help. But we sat and talked for about 30 min about my situation, in the end he said all I can really do is wait and see if she files anything. But they did get me a power of Attorney and even gave me an oversized envelope. They were really nice.
1-13-10
The shit hit the fan with those bolts today. A few minutes after we got to work we were told there was going to be a meeting in the break room at 8:00. We got yelled at for about 20 min, and then we all had to sign a thing saying we had all received a verbal warning and that we understood it as a verbal warning. There seem to be a lot of threats of firings here; I don’t really like that so much. It feels a bit adversarial.
1-12-10
We were working on the turrets that go on top of the military trucks tonight. A couple of guys totally fucked up and cross threaded bolts. Usually not a huge deal but instead of backing them out they took an impact gun and tried to force them in. Which snapped off the heads, once is shitty but they just kept going and broke all four in one kit. Oh it was bad. Mostly because the bolts were cross threaded because the kit wasn’t lined up on the top of the truck. It would have been a pain in the ass but they needed to get the crane to lift the turret up to line it up better.
I had another package from mom again this morning. It had coffee in it which is great. Still no alcohol! I have asked everybody and there cousin for booze and nothing. My wife rocks! She sent me some but it’s not here yet. It’s not like I want to depend on the charity of others for booze but what the hell, I’m in the worlds litter box. At the very least 1500 miles from a liquor store, if I could I would go buy my own! The only time I have wanted a drink more than right now was when I had to go to AA meetings.
I had another package from mom again this morning. It had coffee in it which is great. Still no alcohol! I have asked everybody and there cousin for booze and nothing. My wife rocks! She sent me some but it’s not here yet. It’s not like I want to depend on the charity of others for booze but what the hell, I’m in the worlds litter box. At the very least 1500 miles from a liquor store, if I could I would go buy my own! The only time I have wanted a drink more than right now was when I had to go to AA meetings.
1-11-10
The company I work for… pays less than their competition, doesn’t provide housing for us (they rely on the military to do that, when other contractors who pay more provide trailers to live in) and also they don’t buy the parts that we will obviously need ahead of time. The speculation is that they will be losing the contract so they are trying to squeeze every last penny. I mean they refused to give the Indians there annual three percent pay increase. This was the final straw for the two really good Indian mechanics in our shop at night. They wanted me to come with them literal a quarter mile down the road and apply. I didn’t do it because if I am going to jump of this contract, I want to get the hell out of Afghanistan. But the other company is offering a little over 2700 a month to TCN’s (better than double what they make here).
Well the down side to the company not buying parts is that you can have a truck that only needs a bolt but can’t “sell” it. And management doesn’t care that it’s their fault there’s not enough parts here, the only thing they care about is us getting our 21 trucks per week sold. So the other night our boss (Red) told me and Georgia we could go out and procure parts from holding yard in South Park. He said if we were going to do it make sure we don’t take them off a truck that has already been inspected and passed, get them off a truck that’s waiting to go in the shop. Joe heard us talking and said “Make sure you don’t get caught!” and Red said “you don’t have to go, it’s up to you” but really being bored at the shop or going on a mission. We chose the mission. I drove because Georgia has such a poor since of direction. I took us to the rows of blown up or rolled over MWRAP’s and we got the parts we needed and came back. Later on Joe told me it’s a felony to take parts off of one truck and put on another. He said you can do it but you need paperwork from the DOD for a controlled substitution. I asked why he didn’t tell me before I went out there; he said he tried to warn me. He said if anybody tells you to go get a part make sure other people hear it. So that you can tell anyone who asks you were told by your boss to do it.
Well the down side to the company not buying parts is that you can have a truck that only needs a bolt but can’t “sell” it. And management doesn’t care that it’s their fault there’s not enough parts here, the only thing they care about is us getting our 21 trucks per week sold. So the other night our boss (Red) told me and Georgia we could go out and procure parts from holding yard in South Park. He said if we were going to do it make sure we don’t take them off a truck that has already been inspected and passed, get them off a truck that’s waiting to go in the shop. Joe heard us talking and said “Make sure you don’t get caught!” and Red said “you don’t have to go, it’s up to you” but really being bored at the shop or going on a mission. We chose the mission. I drove because Georgia has such a poor since of direction. I took us to the rows of blown up or rolled over MWRAP’s and we got the parts we needed and came back. Later on Joe told me it’s a felony to take parts off of one truck and put on another. He said you can do it but you need paperwork from the DOD for a controlled substitution. I asked why he didn’t tell me before I went out there; he said he tried to warn me. He said if anybody tells you to go get a part make sure other people hear it. So that you can tell anyone who asks you were told by your boss to do it.
1-10-10
There has been a lot of time at work lately for standing around and bullshitting. It is fun to get to know these guys, I like them. We probably never would have been friends in the outside world. The four guys who are turning into pretty good buddies are Georgia, Joe, Brian and Red. So the way our nights have been going is that we get about 95% of our work done by 2:00am and then we stand around and drink coffee with tools in our hand (or at least nearby) so when anybody comes in you can start turning a wrench on something. Then at 6am when the day shift supervisor gets there, we start stretching out the last five percent until 6:50 then we get cleaned up for the 7:00 am safety meeting, which has yet to be informative.
This morning at the safety meeting I saw the guy who hurt his back at work. I thought for sure that guy was headed for Germany. He is close to retirement age, way too old to be taking a pummeling like that. And I didn’t ask him if they took X Rays, I doubt they did.
This morning at the safety meeting I saw the guy who hurt his back at work. I thought for sure that guy was headed for Germany. He is close to retirement age, way too old to be taking a pummeling like that. And I didn’t ask him if they took X Rays, I doubt they did.
1-9-10
I woke up today and had a couple of boxes from my mom. One had gone to Bahgrahm and had to be rerouted down here and the other had come straight here. I LOVE getting packages! The guy who does the mail is a friend, Dallas, who came down here in the same group of mechanics. His mother in law is kind of a big deal in HR here, which I am pretty sure is why he got the job assignment he did. Not that it’s particularly great, it’s just really light on actual responsibilities and oversight by the dozen or so bosses we all have.
After I opened them Josh got up, it was about 2:30. We decided we would walk down to the bizarre and check it out. The bizarre happens once a week; it’s where they let the locals on base to pedal their wares. Well Josh and I went walking down there and we walked all over and finally found somebody who could tell us where it was but the downer was that it was over so we walked around the boardwalk and looked in the shops that the locals had set up. Georgia really wanted to send a package home so he bought a few little bits of brick-a-brack, and I told him how to get to the post office and I went back to the tent.
At work tonight the mood has been pretty intense. The feeling of wanting to get out has been growing. Everybody is talking about who pays more, and who might be hiring in Iraq or Kuwait, anywhere but here. We are all miserable but getting online is such a challenge. You could easily go to MWR and wait hours to get online and have to leave before you get you turn. The internet at the boardwalk is just fast enough to get your email, there’s really no way you could check company’s websites and apply online.
1-7-10
At work tonight it was pretty slow, like look busy for nine hours because your work was done early kind of slow. So the day shift had given us a list of trucks they needed picked up.
Note: there is no one that has a whole picture of what is happening here. We all get pieces of it. No one here for instance knows where any given vehicle is, they only have an idea where it might be. There is no one keeping track of this stuff as far as I can tell.
So we took six people plus one to drive the van. You have to have one driver and one guy who walks the truck out to make sure you don’t run anyone over or run into anything.
The process for getting trucks is to drive row by row and look at the hand written numbers on the doors of the trucks. The problem with that is, in the middle of the night you can’t see anything. So you use a flashlight and drive really slowly but they park the trucks super close together and everybody piles out and starts walking the rows trying to remember the numbers to the three trucks you’re looking for.
An hour and a half later we found two of the three and I drove mine back to the shop with my ground guy John. Oh yeah, you also have to wear reflective belts and hard hats. Everyone is required to wear reflective belts from dusk to dawn because there are no street lights and no sidewalks, a soldier was killed a couple of months ago walking down the road. The CID hasn’t found who did it either, these trucks are so massive whoever did it probably didn’t know they hit anyone and just kept on driving.
That was our night getting trucks and looking busy.
Note: there is no one that has a whole picture of what is happening here. We all get pieces of it. No one here for instance knows where any given vehicle is, they only have an idea where it might be. There is no one keeping track of this stuff as far as I can tell.
So we took six people plus one to drive the van. You have to have one driver and one guy who walks the truck out to make sure you don’t run anyone over or run into anything.
The process for getting trucks is to drive row by row and look at the hand written numbers on the doors of the trucks. The problem with that is, in the middle of the night you can’t see anything. So you use a flashlight and drive really slowly but they park the trucks super close together and everybody piles out and starts walking the rows trying to remember the numbers to the three trucks you’re looking for.
An hour and a half later we found two of the three and I drove mine back to the shop with my ground guy John. Oh yeah, you also have to wear reflective belts and hard hats. Everyone is required to wear reflective belts from dusk to dawn because there are no street lights and no sidewalks, a soldier was killed a couple of months ago walking down the road. The CID hasn’t found who did it either, these trucks are so massive whoever did it probably didn’t know they hit anyone and just kept on driving.
That was our night getting trucks and looking busy.
1-6-10
After work today I had the day shift guy who drives our shop van shuttle take me to South Park. South Park is the part of the base that has all of the company’s other stuff, work related anyway. Meaning a huge shop for heavy wheeled trucks, and tents they use to inspect the trucks and a huge shop for minor repairs (TPE) the tire shop/billeting/HR/security and all the offices. Plus the other companies that are here doing the same thing we are. South Park is also where the 10 man tents that we have been promised are. It is also where hundreds of tactical vehicles are sitting waiting, grouped by model. Think of the biggest car lot you have ever seen, now instead of cars it’s full of trucks the smallest is a HMMWV up to the size of a tank. Scattered throughout are about 12 shops to work on these trucks. The shops have a foot print of a football field, with a top that looks like someone cut a giant tin can long ways and stuck it on top.
So I caught a ride over there and went to human resources where they gave me the phone number of the person who knew the name of the guy who carried my bag from Bahgrahm. I got his name Ed. It took HR a while but they told me Ed worked in Heavy wheel. I walked about half a mile over to Heavy wheel, there were three Ed’s. I asked them and none of them knew anything about my bag, then I asked if any of them had just come from Bahgrahm. Ed said he had then I asked if he brought an extra bag that wasn’t his and he said yes. Sometimes you really have to lead people! He said that transportation had picked up him and an Indian guy from the airport, and he left it on the bus with the Indian guy. Ed told me where the Indian guy worked, another half mile walk and I tracked down the Indian guy. He told me he left it on the bus, so I said “Transportation has it?” he said yes. Another half mile walk to HR, so I can call the transportation guy. He says that his guy dropped my bag off at property; I tell him I need a ride to property.
They send a short but to come and get me. It turns out that property’s office is in the back of my shop. I had no idea; you have to go through a door in the back of the break room. The property guy isn’t there; he is out at South Park unloading a connex with tools in it. I take my short bus back to South Park. I start going from shop to shop looking for a guy unloading tools from a connex. Finally I find him and I let him finish and explain the situation. He told me that the transportation guy told him that it was my bag and that it didn’t come with me. So he figured that I had gone on leave and left it with property to store. A lot of people will do that because if you going to be gone for three weeks and you want your stuff to be safe you leave it with property. So he took me over to his storage, luckily he had his own gator (a cross between a golf cart and four wheeler, they are all over here). There it was my bag!
The property guy was even nice enough to give me a ride back to my tent. What a good day!
So I caught a ride over there and went to human resources where they gave me the phone number of the person who knew the name of the guy who carried my bag from Bahgrahm. I got his name Ed. It took HR a while but they told me Ed worked in Heavy wheel. I walked about half a mile over to Heavy wheel, there were three Ed’s. I asked them and none of them knew anything about my bag, then I asked if any of them had just come from Bahgrahm. Ed said he had then I asked if he brought an extra bag that wasn’t his and he said yes. Sometimes you really have to lead people! He said that transportation had picked up him and an Indian guy from the airport, and he left it on the bus with the Indian guy. Ed told me where the Indian guy worked, another half mile walk and I tracked down the Indian guy. He told me he left it on the bus, so I said “Transportation has it?” he said yes. Another half mile walk to HR, so I can call the transportation guy. He says that his guy dropped my bag off at property; I tell him I need a ride to property.
They send a short but to come and get me. It turns out that property’s office is in the back of my shop. I had no idea; you have to go through a door in the back of the break room. The property guy isn’t there; he is out at South Park unloading a connex with tools in it. I take my short bus back to South Park. I start going from shop to shop looking for a guy unloading tools from a connex. Finally I find him and I let him finish and explain the situation. He told me that the transportation guy told him that it was my bag and that it didn’t come with me. So he figured that I had gone on leave and left it with property to store. A lot of people will do that because if you going to be gone for three weeks and you want your stuff to be safe you leave it with property. So he took me over to his storage, luckily he had his own gator (a cross between a golf cart and four wheeler, they are all over here). There it was my bag!
The property guy was even nice enough to give me a ride back to my tent. What a good day!
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