Work-tastic

So my first day of work started off to a rocky start. I didn't sleep too well because I had slept so late the day before and wasn't very tired when I should have been. In addition, I kept expecting my roommates home which never showed, OH!...also I managed to blow up my alarm clock and phone charger by plugging them in and flipping the light switch (also known as the electronics’ death switch) which left me with know alarm to wake up in the morning. So I pulled up an internet alarm clock and tested it and hoped for the best. Luckily my dieing phone somehow survived and the alarm went off...not sure what I'm gonna do tonight.

Anyway, so I woke up early and showered and met the roommate I hadn’t met yet, Hugo Rocha. He showed me where some cereal was so I got a little breakfast and when I asked him if the others with the car where here he said yes, so that was a relief....except that he didn't actually know if they were here and when he checked on his way out we realized we had no car...which isn't problem for Hugo cause he rides his bike, but I have nadda. We kinda go back and forth on what to do and I finally say I'll just walk it. He gives me directions that consist of "straight, straight, straight, always straight and then he started to leave. He made it to the elevator and I figured I needed to hurry so I grabbed my things and rand down the stairs.

He had just made it to the door and when I caught up I asked which way again and he said he would just walk with me...nice guy. So about 35 mins later we show up and I'm sweating and gross from the trek but I made it. I headed up stairs to see what I would be doing only to find the rest of my roommates, minus Adrian already there, apparently they had come straight to the loft from France. Had a little awkward moment when Camille did the euro-cheek-kiss thing with Hugo then leaned over to me. Awkward only because I was sweaty and gross and as I tried to tell her that she went for the cheek anyway and realized what I was trying to get at. Wasn't that big of a deal though and she just asked me how I had gotten to the loft. So a few more people showed up and it was work time.

I got all suited up with my tool belt thing and some much needed knee-pads and Bastien and Camille started showing me how things are organized. We went and got an incoming sail and laid it out and Bastien showed me how and were to put tack lines. Which basically entails reading what color and how many strips of tape go on the sail and drawing a line and trying to lay the tape along that line. Easy enough right? WRONG! I think I was just being to careful about it and kept having to start over. Once the tape, especially thicker ones, gets off track its hard to keep it smooth and get back on the line...which you shouldn't have to do cause it makes the line curve anyway, either way its like the most intense arts and crafts time in kindergarten ever and I'm sweating again from stress and trying to move around on my knees in a barely air conditioned room. After doing both sides of the sail, and adding some numbers (which I am better at but still stress about if they are straight or not), we move on to drawing the leech line, which is supposed to be more or less straight except for just at the top (I think). Well there is already a computer line that we are more or less trying to match but apparently its so messed up we can't really set a batten along it.

However, trying to get it right, and lining it up gave me a little rest and had a little fun with Camille and Bastien while we tried to figure it out. We had to get one of the floor managers named....shit, what’s her name....Eulanda or something like that. Anyway she looked at it and confirmed it was messed up and went to talk to a designer and reset it. So me and Bastien went to put some more numbers on sails in which he kinda set up one and told me to finish it. Which really isn't a big deal, just a bit of stress when your not that sure what your doing and your putting final touches on a close to finished product. Anyway I get them on by I have a "W" that is a little of but I am reassured its fine and you can't tell (it was off by a grand total of about 2 mm). So about then I'm informed that it's the 15 min coffee break so I head downstairs and get some much needed water.

I drink several glasses of water and just kinda stand around while some people talk and some eat some food that they had brought. It was nice to take a break but at a certain point I'm just standing around and I need to go put that last number on.

So we keep working on more of the same sort of stuff, I just shadow Bastien for the most part and try not to drop my scissors through my foot (I came close a few times). So eventually its lunch time and I'm starving so I ask around what the plan kinda is and end up fallowing Bastien and Camille to a little shop and getting a "basqueta con pollo" which is a pretty good chicken sandwich on a long piece of French bread. Bastien tells me they have to go to the bank so they'll see me back at the loft. (I'm starting to think he and Camille have kinda a "thing" goin, they're kinda flirty during work and seem to spend a lot of time together). So I head back, enjoying my sandwich on the way and finish up with a few glasses of water and hang outside and talk to James a bit. After he and the other smokers are done, they head inside to sit down and I fallow. The rest of the hr (which is quite a while) is spent sitting around listening to various conversations that I don't understand any words. I don't know if I'm just that tired or I zoned out but I kinda start falling asleep till Adrien shows up.

Apparently he had been kayaking and seeing his girlfriend in France and had been late making it back. James made a little "buenas Tarde" remark but everyone just kinda hung out and talked till the end of the lunch break where I'm told now I'll be shadowing Adrien.

So it turns out the roommate-at-work hierarchy goes something like this: Camille and Bastien are pretty much the bottom of the totem pole and work on taping down corner patches and numbers and different things like that. Adrien is the step up in knowledge and works on measuring out and cutting what will be the final lines of the sail, as well as adding leech lines and other things. James seems to be the most experience and spends a lot of his time off kinda by himself taping panels together to be sown together and more or less putting sails together by himself.

Shadowing Adrien was fun but a bit intense. He's a really nice guy and playful will a lot of the people around the loft, but he also has a pretty good handle on what he's doing and how it should be done. He tells me a lot about reading the design specifications and different measurements, but on paper it all kinda gets lost in my head. Then we start measuring out and drawing lines and cutting sails (also stressful, a wrong cut when you’re measuring in millimeters is a big deal). Oh but first we had to put on batten pockets which turned out to be a nightmare....well more for Adrien than myself once I figured out something was wrong. Apparently the pocket was only about 4 cm deep and completely glued together. So after about 5 mins of fighting with it, I call Adrien, and after about 10 mins he calls James (totem pole established) who has suggestions but basically diagnosis it as defective. And we end up taking pictures of it to send back to Melasia with a "you-ruined-my-day" card clipped to it.

Then he showed my how to measure out and draw the cut line on the luff which is another 4 important millimeter measurement that he has me do after he shows me kinda how. I thought I did alright, but apparently a few of the lines didn't match up as well as they should, but he was able to fix it as he fallowed along with tape. Then another overly difficult mundane task....cut along the tape...how hard could that be? Well after about ten mins I had only gotten about a forth of it done and was sweating while Adrien had finished the rest around me. He stopped to show me how to get the scissors to cut better in long stokes which helped. I felt like it looked like shit but we were putting a few layers over it so it wasn't the end of the world.

We did a few other things but it was all about the same sort of deal, a lot of numbers I don't remember and was advised to get a little notebook about. And a lot of cutting and taping and shuffling around on my knees that are now red, but ok. I'm home now and pretty tired, from the day and not sleeping last night, I should get back on schedule by tomorrow. I really need to go get a phone but I was gonna wait for Adrien to talk about where to go because apparently he did it recently. Oh well, I'll figure it out....tomorrow is another day.