The Fourth of July part is coming up and I am getting out of town. Looking forward to it. As I’ve mentioned, I did not want to get roped into working it. It’s the third such event since I’ve been here, and I took a GIANT role in the first and a big role in the second. My intention was to only work the actual event and no preparation, but due to some factors I won’t get into here, I decided it was better if I stayed away. Let’s just say I had no intentions of getting sucked in to save the day.
So the best way of going about that came in the form of a
flight ticket, which, so far – knock on wood – hasn’t yet been canceled. My
luck with flights right now isn’t going to get me into the Hall of Fame. I’m
only one for four of late, with the one departing on Wednesday still set but
three others canceled. That’s only .250. No Cooperstown
for me.
Anyway, back to the Fourth. A couple of weeks ago, when I
was working in the Big Boss’ office, she asked what my “plans” were for the
Fourth. I said I was leaving town. She seemed surprised that I wasn’t planning
on working the event. Rather than tell her my thoughts on its organization –
the main reason, worded nicely, that I’m not taking part – I said last year I’d
done a big role with the intent of sitting back and letting the newbies take
over. Quite truthfully, this is what people told me happened at post. You’re
there for two years and in the first year you enthusiastically work it and the
second year, you sit back and let the newcomers do it.
Well, apparently, this year, a bunch of the newcomers opted
to get out of town or simply declined to volunteer, so they’ve been scrambling
for help. And, as I am a sucker, I did decide to help – but not the day of.
Today, I spent five hours in the sweltering weather as the
contractors put up the tents. I guess it wasn’t too bad, and even though I was
out there at 6 a.m. it’s probably better that it went off on a weekend than as
it had been planned originally, which was Tuesday from 5 p.m. until midnight.
The volunteer coordination has been so haphazard it’s not
funny. Part of that is that the coordinator has been getting some bad
information from all areas. Poor guy got notified Friday about 4:15 that he
needed volunteers to work all day Sunday, six people every hour from 5 a.m. to
8 p.m. He got a handful of people signed up and then the time changed from 6
a.m. to 11 p.m. I felt so sorry I volunteered for both 6-11 shifts.
When I showed up this morning, things changed again.
Somehow, they didn’t need as many people as they originally thought and two
folks got dispatched to some other department’s overtime for the weekend (in
the air conditioning, lucky bastards!). I stuck to my five-hour shift but when
I left it didn’t look like there was any way in heck the work would last until
11 p.m. (Contractors are paid a flat rate per day; it’s not an hourly rate, so
it’s really in the workers’ best interest to get stuff done quickly and
efficiently.)
I’d left my contact information just in case I was needed,
but it’s not even 8 p.m. and from what I can tell – I can see the tent from my
window – it’s completely done. I don’t see any people milling around.
So I’m quite content with my overtime workload this time
around. I hope that I am able to escape Guangzhou
on Wednesday and that everything goes all right. I’m honestly out of practice
leaving the country. I thought about packing today and had a complete mental
block on what I was supposed to take.
So far, I’ve thrown extra underwear and a spare T-shirt and
pants in a bag. That’s it. I really can’t remember what all I am supposed to
bring.
I’m out of practice. Gotta fix that.
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