The Useful Duck!

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Sunday, August 13, 2017

It rained! I ramble about groundskeeping, I complain about blogger, I attempt a link

It rained last night. I think I have all the straw picked up. Unless there is another field which I just thought of five minutes ago. It didn't really seem like there was enough baled for a full day of work...
Plus, I see I left 800lbs of pig feed and the mixer/grinder out in the rain. Plus, there is the bin of flax I knocked off the truck a month ago.
Whatever... I never claimed to be a good farmer.
Or a good groundskeeper.
My goal is to be the sort of cheerful ineffective lout that people just hate to get rid of... Already failed on the cheerful but think I've got the ineffective down.
I applied for a job at a different school. That was a mistake.
I get this idea that I should be the best I can be. This is a load of BS drilled into my by my early role models and three years in the Future Farmers of America organization.
The 21st century model of success should be to attain the maximum amount of compensation of the minimal amount of work.
I had a frustrating month at my job. My promotion has just given me way more responsibility and I am not as fast as the fellow who recommended me for this job. This is a two person (or one person who is really hyperactive) job. My workstudy student keeps having a conflict between he amount of alcohol he consumes and the balancing of blood sugars. He swears this is not true but he misses a lot of work. And then my supervisor tends to send me from one job to another.
Example: I saw the Athletic Director last week. Had a nice chat about upcoming events and what is getting done. I just give up remembering and tell him to make a list and give it to my boss. I point out that I have a lot to do and things get missed so a list would be great.
My supervisor gets an email that afternoon. It is 103 degrees F. He comes looking for me. I was off driving my workstudy helper though the sprinkler system in the Mule and wasn't watching my phone. I did not get caught.
However, we did a walk though problem areas. Two foot weeds were reported on the softball warning track. The weeds were not there. There were a few under the bleachers and the warning track was clean. People from work use the softball field so I keep it pretty clean. I didn't show him the not quite dead blackberries under the bleachers.
So... we were told to drop everything and weed the warning track. I pointed out that were sports fields that had to be mowed and that the track would have to wait.
The next day there were other issues.
My workstudy student didn't get the practice field completely mowed and I forgot to finish it the next day. There was a leaking sprinkler line at the edge of the field which I cut the time down on so that there would not be a swamp. I was told that if I didn't spend so much time talking to people in the morning when it was cool that I would get more work done. That may or may not be true but I just smiled and nodded.
Monday, I got the lecture again. So I filled out a time off request for two days. Tuesday, my workstudy student ran into the grandstands and broke the windshield out of the mule. The only object in 100 yards and he hit it. We cleaned up the mess but I got quite the lecture.
School policy is that students without licenses cannot drive golf carts even off the road. They can drive lawnmowers or their own bicycles (but not their cars) but not golf carts. I said I was training him.
Wednesday I applied at another school.
Friday the supervisor was not there.
After a brief discussion with fellow workers where they repeated things I told them when there were upset- it was pointed out to me that changing schools would probably just mean I had to work harder. I only get upset because I want to do a good job. The real reason to work is tuition, insurance, and retirement and it is a 15 minute drive from home.
Since then the absurdity of the whole thing has made me laugh. My supervisor came to grounds from cleaning services. He is learning about groundskeeping by watching YouTube videos. The same people that hired him as a transfer from cleaning services seem to expect him to do the job of a guy with a degree in Turf Management and manage a crew of oddball independent characters who are old enough to be his parents. Not sure I envy him...

My new phone is not very good for blogging. Google has made it hard to have two identities on the same phone. I can't post photos or videos like I could with my iPhone. The Blogger App is pretty much a waste. There are no good replacements.

Today I'm trying to lay down and keep ice on my leg. I seem to have pulled a muscle a month or so ago and it is starting to get annoying. I have a hard time getting in and out of the stacker or off of a lawnmower once I run it for a while. I have tried wrapping it but it is a bit awkward. I see kids wearing all sorts of clever sports type wrappings for sprains and injuries. I'm going to have to find someone in sports medicine to give me advice.

Now I'm going to try and post a video.

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