Not the best day

The rest of this week and all of next, I'm going to be down at the new BV ferry, helping to finish installation and learning to drive. There's some hope that we may be open for the public late next week or early the following. The ribbon cutting is July 6, btw.

A lot of what I did today was just stand around. There's really not an awful lot to do. Actual actions I did today? spray painted some pieces of metal. Hoisted a bucket a few times. Moved a truck, moved it again, then again. Unlocked the boat. Moved a bucket. Seriously--in 8 hours, that's about it.

However, I'm working with all guys. All physical, mechanical, rough guys. Who aren't used to a woman. Especially one, I guess, who's working along side them while wearing a pink polo and sparkly earrings. I know I said I wasn't going to talk about my coworkers, but I'm sort of pissed and upset today, so I'm going to anyway.

My boss basically only gave me "girl" tasks. Move the truck. Go get this out of the truck. Find a replacement for this screw. All the while, the guys are hauling around a one ton extension cord. I hauled it too, but then he'd go make me do something way easier. wtf. Meanwhile, the other trainee I'm working with, was seriously belittling. He'd intentionally ask me to hoist something that weighed 90 lbs, just so he could laugh. And when I'd ask questions, he'd roll his eyes as he answered.

The worst though:
We were going to take the boat for a spin, so I grabbed the key to unlock it. The other guys were standing around, talking about a problem we were hoping to solve. The chain was super tight, so I couldn't get the key to turn. Then, once loosened, I grabbed the wrong key. So it took me a second. Meanwhile, one of the guys, hollered, "Geez lady, hurry it up, we're waitin' here!" I finished unlocking, stood up and said, "Seriously [guys name], fuck off." I know. Super uncalled for and not appropriate. But how else am I supposed to defend myself.

At the end of the day, we were talking about all and I mentioned how hard it was to hoist stuff to my boss. And he said, "oh, don't you worry. You'll just be going back and forth. We call the crew in for any heavy stuff."

It's just really frustrating. I'm doing my best here, but it's true. I am a girl. I'm not strong. I don't know how to do this stuff, and I need some coaching. But stick with me for 5 minutes, and you'll see that I'm asking questions so I can understand everything. I'm trying absolutely everything before I say I can't do it, even hoisting a 90lb piece of steel up 40 feet on a pulley. It's so disheartening to be stuck with a crew like this for the next few weeks.

On a silly end note, when I got back to the shops at the end of the day, my old planning coworkers had pranked the HELL out of my car. DAMN YOU GUYS! I'd texted with them that I was going to be at the shops and would stop by if I could, and ended up not being able to. So they knew my car was there. When I worked in Planning, a pretty common prank specialty of mine was to put pictures of a particular coworker in odd places. Like in the middle of a chapter in the zoning code. So you'll be on the phone with a customer, and flip to a page about like, forest dwellings in the FT zone, and suddenly, there's a picture of Brandon, grimacing back at you! Cracks me up. When I left, I found a stash of like 20 pics of him (I had all sizes, down to the size of a quarter, and would photocopy more whenever needed), and sprinkled them all through Patty and Joe's stuff. Lo and behold, they had done the same to me. Last week, I was walking out my front door, looked over, and WTF, there was a picture of Brandon taped to a knitting tape measure. Seriously? I haven't worked with them in 2 months and I'm still finding pics?!?!

So I get to my car at the end of the day today, and it's COVERED with pictures. Not just pictures of Brandon, but a really freaky picture. It's brandon, wearing his pjs, holding his new niece, but they'd photoshopped a bad picture of me over the baby's face. SO CREEPY!!! There were at least 40 of these on my car. windows, door cracks, license plate, tires. Plus it'd just rained so they were plastered on.

You guys, you know I'll get even, right? I mean, it may take months, but it'll happen. Watch yourselves. For serious.