Man in Tweed dot Com

Juxtaposition

This post was written by Mike

This past week has been a series of differences.

I went from my shortest commute ever to the longest.

I went from healthy to sick.

I went from a closed in site with plenty of obstructions to a wide open wing with next to no blockages.

I went from frustrated with my work to enjoying it.

Instead of working a fifteen minute walk from my house I was sent to a site two and a half hours away in Woodstock, Ontario. Normally when someone works that far away they get an allowance for room and board. The problem is that the site was two and a half hours from my house not downtown Toronto. From city hall the trip is an hour and somewhat under a half. That means it is technically in the furthest travel section, not the first room and board section. Most of the guys on site are still treating it like a room and board. I decided to drive it. Why? Good question.

For starters, I have no idea if I could drive that far without problems each and every day. The trip out wasn’t bad. I woke up at 3:15 and left by 4:00 getting to the site around 6:00 when I would either nap or say a couple decades of the rosary depending how much caffeine I required to get me there in the morning. Only one day out of the week was I desperately chugging coffee to keep me awake. The trip back was another story. Our shift ended at 3:30 which meant I hit the Mississauga end of Toronto near 4:30/5:00 depending on traffic. I’ve done that commute before when I worked near Jane and Finch. It takes an hour if you are lucky. So each day it took me about two hours to get to work and nearly three if not over that to get home. The commute through Toronto wasn’t bad. Like I said, I’ve done it before so I know I just need to pop on AM 590 and listen to Bob McCown for while. Driving an hour to get to that point, that was frustrating.

To make matters more frustrating I got a wretched head cold on Sunday. Thus in addition to commute from heck I went through three boxes of tissue to boot. Help the commute, it did not. My sleep was both short and interrupted by repeated bouts of my lungs attempting to remove themselves from my body.

The site itself was amazing. The site just had a bunch of wings opened up for people to get to work and as a result there is nothing in the way except the occasional drywall stud. No drop ceilings, no excess plumbing, no electrical conduits, no drywall board. Just wide open ductwork. Beautiful.

As a result I really started to get into a rhythm with the guy I was working alongside. I learned how to get a lot done in a relatively short period of time, how to choose which areas to do first, how to get a huge amount of square footage done in a day. That was something I needed. I’ve been stuck knowing that I can do work but unable to seem to get my body to follow suit. I’d get caught up in the stupid areas and struggle forever trying to get a small section done. It felt so good to see progress. It felt good to see that I can accomplish something. Since I’ve been back to work I wasn’t sure that I was making the right decision. Could I actually do this job? Now I believe that I can. For that, the commute was worth the hardship.

Nevertheless I’m very happy to be back working at the Oshawa site this week.