PYTHONLINE

Humor is where you find it. Some people pay large amounts of money to see comedy in its most raw form, but I get paid to come to work and watch it performed right in front of my desk. Our plant has a maintenance crew that consists of a maintenance man and an instrument technician. The maintenance man is tall, thin, an ex-marine, a perfectionist to the extent of his abilities, knows his limitations and keeps busy all day. The instrument tech is short, portly, sweats profusely from the act of simply existing, is ex-navy, has no regard for rules, guidelines or protocol, is a subject matter expert on any subject at hand, and expends vast amounts of energy trying to keep from actually having to do any work assigned to him. Now these two share a building and sit no more than 10-ft apart from each other. They hate each other with a passion normally reserved for Jews and Palestinians, and probably haven’t uttered a civil word to each other in a year. The plant manager simply asks that they just get along and doesn’t want to hear anything disparaging or confrontational. A typical morning in my office will be like this:

Maintenance Man: That SOB did it again!
Me: What now?
Maintenance Man: I put my roll up door up, walk away and he puts it down. I put it up, he puts it down. That’s MY f-ing door!!
Me: Well If I were you what I’d do is, since he’s short, just cut the pull rope off so it’s juuuuust out of his reach. Make him work for it.
Maintenance Man: That’s a great idea, I’m gonna do it!

Maintenance Man: That SOB did it again!
Me: What now?
Maintenance Man: I put my hand soap out on the counter when I get in in the morning and as soon as I walk out, he puts it under the sink.
Me: Well If I were you what I’d do is cover the whole jug with a thin coat of that really sticky LOX grease that won’t wash off.
Maintenance Man: Excellent!

This nonsense goes on all day. The instrument tech e-mails the entire office notification of any task he has completed no matter how minor. A typical one would be “Gents: I have called for a price quote from the electrician and should hear something back in a few weeks.” I’ll shoot him an e-mail a day asking if he’s heard anything back yet and to keep me informed of the situation.

It’s like Ren & Stimpy Live. My wife is worried I’m going to instigate a fight. The fight was instigated long before I got here. I simply wind them up and watch them go. I’m sure there’s a psychological term for the pleasure I get out of this. I suppose it’s not very flattering either.