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Why I hate Mondays


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Have you ever got that sinking feeling that the work day was going to be bad? Like you woke up on the wrong side of bed and realized there was only one side to wake up to? That churning turning burning feeling in your gut? That you just knew somehow some way Murphy was going to laugh, giggling while you stared in disbelief?

 

Well I just had one of those days....got an emergency call that an antenna was on fire....on fire? on FIRE !

Of course the Fire dept was there but since it was 500 feet up it was slightly beyond the reach of the ladder truck. Guess the antenna arced over and blew apart. Parts of the fiberglass radomes littered the ground and up top it was actually burning.

 

Since there was 50,000 watts going up to it, no way I was climbing. Had to shut the transmitter down, which isn't easy as I had to break in and disable the generator back-up and battery back-up. With no key, it was time for a little crowbar fun.

 

I got it de-energized and went up and cleared what debris I could. Looks like a local fm radio station will be down awhile. Plus those antennas are mega-expensive

 

Just another day at the office :P

 

Before

ant-b4_zps145298bd.jpg

 

After

ant-after-1_zps7c621c9f.jpg

 

 

ant-after-2_zps9bcacc77.jpg

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LOL, woah! Robb, NEVER had a monday like that in my life! Does this cry out danger pay? is there such a thing in your already dangerous line of business?

Take off your shoes, pop up a brewski and sit in some good ole air con for a while and suck in the relax.

 

Glad yo'ure safe

 

:)

 

gogo

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Nah just regular pay really....what made it terrible was it was 90°F no breeze and high humidity/dew point. The air was simply oppressive. Totally baked and soaking in my own sweat. Right now I got an A/C pointed right at me and a nice Vodka Collins saying hello :drunkards:

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Firefighters are smart. aren't they?

We did a rulebook for our local volunteer firefighters, remember it is a small village.

Solar modules, wind energy, antenna...: If we didn't get an introduction or the blueprints from the owner, as long as their is no life in danger: controlled burn down.

Solar modules may still produce energy even if power is switched off. Often they block access to a fire in the roof. If we have blue prints, depending on type, using black paint spray to turn them off. We have all blueprints of the neighbour villages. We used black paint 3 times and explosives to open an access to a roof 1 time.

Antenna: as you mentioned, backup energy is a problem, so without blueprint, controlled burn down. With blue print, turn off energy, control the fire, wait for experts. Had this once, but only around 250 feet antenna mid in a forest on a hill. It was dry so preventing a forest fire had higher priority than saving the antenna.

Wind energy: With blueprints we would try to do a manual neutral setting for the rotors, controlled burn down. Never happened.

 

The problem is normally summer breaks. Because of vacances the radius to be covered by a volunteer fire department is higher than normal and so it is more probably that you meet buildings you had no training with.

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Nah I never expected them to use their truck in any way. They were called because of the falling debris. Many pieces falling were still on fire and since it is a heavily wooded area we wanted to make sure no fires started.

 

I've known the guys on the dept for a long time. Worked on their radio system for over 20 years and in that time several have become good friends including the chief. I just was giving them a hard time since they have been soooo proud of their new ladder truck. Actually it's called a tower truck since it has a platform on top of the ladder. So having a tower truck at a tower site and it couldn't be used? I had to give them a hard time about that :) The irony was pretty funny to me.

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So they have more or less the same rule book: turn off power, secure the perimeter and call for experts.

 

With a platform it is called Hubrettungsbühne here. Telescoping rescue platform would be the translation, main focus is rescue, fire fighting only secondary. Our district capital has one with 43 metres and 800 pounds cargo. Was bought for the hospital which was build in the seventies when building into the height was modern. Modern ones have no more than 4 stocks, our old hospital had 9.

Think the record for such a rescue platform is around 100 metres.

Our department has just a ladder for 3 stocks, but more isn't needed. We have more water tankers than normal and a 4-wheel command/scout vehicle with water impulse guns for forest fires = my special toy.

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Nah just regular pay really....what made it terrible was it was 90°F no breeze and high humidity/dew point. The air was simply oppressive. Totally baked and soaking in my own sweat. Right now I got an A/C pointed right at me and a nice Vodka Collins saying hello :drunkards:

ahahaha, this is really what I wanted to hear. Keep on with the power relax...dont forget to flex those toes every once in a while too kay?

 

:P

 

So they have more or less the same rule book: turn off power, secure the perimeter and call for experts.

 

With a platform it is called Hubrettungsbühne here. Telescoping rescue platform would be the translation, main focus is rescue, fire fighting only secondary. Our district capital has one with 43 metres and 800 pounds cargo. Was bought for the hospital which was build in the seventies when building into the height was modern. Modern ones have no more than 4 stocks, our old hospital had 9.

Think the record for such a rescue platform is around 100 metres.

Our department has just a ladder for 3 stocks, but more isn't needed. We have more water tankers than normal and a 4-wheel command/scout vehicle with water impulse guns for forest fires = my special toy.

We get all the secret inny on the skinny Chattius...something I've wanted to ask too, does this department have to maintain a kind of physical fitness, or testing throughout the year?

 

:)

gogo

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No, you can even sit in a wheelchair. But insurance wants that chief is informed about handicaps or illnesses. The chief is responsible to prevent people with asthma using breathing systems at chemical burns and such. Why should a girl in a wheelchair be disallowed, if she is better than anyone else to do telephon and radio duty? A 70 year old is psychical better fitted in collecting bodyparts than a 18 year old, ...

Physical fitness:

Normally we do some tournaments with other departments and the will to win is enough to train for it ;)

Paid firefighters you must be able to jump from stand with 5 jumps covering 12 metres (I can still do 13.50m, just a question of keeping the speed) , swimming patch in silver (I have gold in repetition, thanks under water rugby), ...

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Paid firefighters you must be able to jump from stand with 5 jumps covering 12 metres (I can still do 13.50m, just a question of keeping the speed) , swimming patch in silver (I have gold in repetition, thanks under water rugby), ...

 

Now I'm curious about montreal firefighters physical standards and regimen... can you lose your job if you dont "pass" an exam one year? Or will you be relegated to desk job?

 

:)

 

gogo

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  • 1 month later...

Well gonna update and say I hate weekends too....at least this last weekend....nothing I could have done would have prevented anything so all I can do is whine and complain which is why I'm posting lol :P

 

Friday night:

Been having issues with my back again and to add 'fuel to the fire' I fell off a ladder...well me and the ladder fell. Had it too close to a trench we had opened up to run new conduits/wiring to a new generator at a tower site. The trench side wall collapsed and the ladder footing went bye-bye followed by me taking a ride. So anyways went to have an MRI taken Friday night. I got insurance and thought it was pretty good but to my surprise I got hit with a 750 dollar bill. Now the doc never mentioned this so when the MRI receptionist asked if I was prepared to pay..I'm thinking a small co-pay of 25-50 bucks not 750! She was actually angrier than me and said she would call doc's office about preparing people for the bills. So I pay that off and think well that's the bad news for the weekend...

 

But I was wrong....

 

Saturday:

Woke up and found water all over the kitchen. Seems the refrigerator died during the night. Of course as luck would have it, I had just bought groceries a couple days before. So had to throw out about 200-300 dollars worth of food and can't get new one til Wednesday. New one is costing me 1400 bucks....and I think well can't get any worse...

 

But I was wrong....

 

Later in the day I got a call from my boss saying my work van was broken into. So go to work and see they took every tool I had in the van....easily 4-5K worth of tools. We got pretty good video of the Barstewards! on camera but I doubt I'll ever see the tools again even if the police can find the guys. Boss is gonna help with replacing, but really don't need the hassle of replacing them all - some are special order which will take a couple weeks to get. We got insurance so I can possibly recoup some of the money. And this doesn't even include the shop owned equipment, like my antenna analyzer and rf monitor. Those will cost about 25K to replace.

So I'm thinking this weekend has to be one of the worst ever...but it can't possibly get any worse...

 

But I was wrong...again....

 

Sunday:

While browsing for tools, I lost internet connection....after a little troubleshooting I find that my router decided to die. Considering the way the weekend has gone so far...this is a minor annoyance....but really didn't need any more bad news....And the day is still young.....

 

Starting to look forward to Monday right now :D

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Sounds like bad luck.

 

Your Friday

Hmm, if the ladder fall was at work, here it would be a working accident and the costs covered by the health and accident insurance a company has to do for its workers. So best delete this I had it too close and replace it with: the ladder was at a distance considered to be safe...

Fighting with insurance companies you have to choose your words carefully.

 

Your Saturday

Refridgerator: We store food in a deep clay cellar. One day 5 years ago a badger decided to dig through the wall. It was eating too mucn and it couldn't escape, there was a concrete buttom one feet high. So it paniced and played skunk. It even visited the room with the washing machine. We had to throw it all away, food, clothes, books,... Then doing enzym room cleaning... Were like 5000 Euros. No insurance paid for damage done by wild animals. Luckily I wasn't bitten while catching it, with your luck I would beenm getting painful injections against rabies and to be called a day later that the badger hadn't it.

Car: My wife bought a new car 7 years ago. It was stolen after just a week while visiting an ill person at night. 11 weeks later the police found the car: nearly total damage. A group of 13 years old used it for driving tests and their parents were unembloyed. So court forced 50 Euro a month for 3 years = 1800 Euro as payment. The damage was at 8000. The stupid thing was: if the car would be brought back after 3 month the insurance would have paid the full price of a new car... So they considered the 14000Euro car as only 11000Euro because it was used ...

That was like 3000 dollar price loss for one week driving. How much is a 2 week ship trip with a luxus liner?

 

Your Sunday

Living at a place where my internet is a direct radio beam from a pole near house to a pole on firefighter-tower in village. I never have access to internet at storm. Stupidly at a rain storm it would be the normal time to sit at a computer while not be able to work outside.

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Thx :)

 

Well falling off the ladder wasn't the reason I originally had a MRI scheduled but it didn't help....worst thing is the back will never get better but it's amazing what you get used to after a while. The back of my right leg has been numb since 2005. I still have some feeling but I liken it to this. Say I went to scratch my back thigh...to me it feels like I'm trying to do it through 15 blankets.

Took a long time to get used to the numbness...would always think I was half off a chair when I sat down. But I've adapted and really I don't consciously think on it any more.

 

This weekend really sucked but no one was hurt and everything can be replaced so no lasting harm done :)

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Robb...

 

You DID look at the calendar... Right? Friday the 13th...

 

But I can feel your pain - tho my string of bad luck started on the 12th. My power supply in my PC decided to frizzle and fry. Right when I was in the middle of doing something - of course...

 

So I grab my tablet and figure I can at least watch RWBY - which I managed to after several restarts. Bleeping tablets..!

 

And I thought that was the worst it could do.. Nope. It decided to pack itself in while I was trying to sort something else out. It turned itself off and refused to come back to life after a reboot. DOH! So there I as without anything to access the internet with for a day and a half. At least I managed to get those two items sorted out...

 

OK.. In light of what you said - my problems don't seem to be that serious. But look at it this way - it could have been worse. MUCH worse.

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you know with everything going on I totally forgot about Friday being the 13th...this weekend was just a perfect storm on wrongness.....but I was only without the internet for maybe 15 minutes....bypassed the router so I was back on pretty quickly...but my daughter and xbox - well that was off for a few hours :P

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Oh.. DOH! I forgot to mention the coup de grace in all of this mess.

 

My cell phone got whacky. It would make calls without problems - but the phone book/contact list got wiped out. Or so I thought.

 

Fortunately my info was OK - it's just the phone that said I couldn't have any contacts stored on the SIM chip. Put the SIM into another phone and my numbers were still there. BIG major sigh of relief..

 

Mercury must be in retrograde... (as a friend of mine who was heavy into astrology would say)...

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That is some bad damn luck.

 

My internet was out all weekend too, for no reason I could discern. Then this morning, just before a technician was supposed to arrive, it started working again. After I made sure I would be home and everything...

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That is some bad damn luck.

 

My internet was out all weekend too, for no reason I could discern. Then this morning, just before a technician was supposed to arrive, it started working again. After I made sure I would be home and everything...

That would be "normal" - its defined as one of Murphy's Laws.. I think it's the 2nd one..

 

Any device that is malfunctioning will suddenly start working properly whenever the mechanic/repairman is either observing the device or is on his way to repair said device.

 

The corollary also states:

 

The device will resume malfunctioning as soon as the repairman/mechanic has been dismissed and/or is no longer observing the device.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hmm, saw the title and thought I would add my 2 cents.

I hate Mondays because I don't have a job to go to any more ... since mid-2009.

Am thinking abut just retiring but I don't think I could afford the medical. :dntknw:

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thx...yeah I am so glad he was stupid...the cop told me first thing they do is canvas all the local shops...even though this one is about 70 miles away. Plus we had serial numbers to prove it was ours.

 

So glad I know the police very well...typically they hold evidence for a time but I was able to get everything back after they took pics of everything. The cop said he hated taking the pics and I burst out laughing....he looked at me weird and I said 'ever work on a wiki?' which was followed by an even stranger look.

 

I decided not to explain :D

 

@ spock...tough spot there....wish I had some advice I could offer besides 'don't get sick!'. Hope everything sorts itself out for ya.

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@ Spock ... tough spot there .... wish I had some advice I could offer besides 'don't get sick!'. Hope everything sorts itself out for ya.

Thanks, I'm sure it will eventually work out. I have a small pension from the Government that keeps our head above water, barely. Hope Congress resolves their impasse before the country goes broke.

 

Glad to hear that you got all your tools back. Losing so much all at once could easily put someone who is self employed out of work. Glad the perp was caught red-handed but we both know he will be out again in no time doing the same thing again. :(

Edited by Spock
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