Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Today Gopi found me in the meeting room just when I was about to take my morning nap.
He got me out of the office and down to the Angola's meeting point where I had to do the morning stretching with all the Indian workers. It was quite a funny sight though, having people older than me doing weird movements.
Gopi treated the workers like little kids, asked them to sit down in rows of four and they were so obedient and quiet. After seeing the morning briefing, which really made me feel like commanding a few workers, we went up to Angola. I followed him around the forward end of the ship checking on the scaffolding equipment and materials. After which we headed to the VSCC meeting, my second time to that meeting. This time, the entire meeting room was filled and the PM in the meeting was different from the last time's. It was a half an hour meeting that felt like an hour, the ambiance was so cold and dry that even a yawn can get everyone staring at you. After the meeting, Gopi didn't leave the room, he carried on discussing a topic with the safety officers. The topic was on a pulley system and the discussion slowly turned into an argument. I was like, "SERIOUSLY??? Hello??? Grow up???" I have never seen men argue over the safety of a pulley system so very rigorously.
After the commotion ended, Gopi brought me along to inspect the worker's progress in doing the in-tank scaffolding, good thing I need not go back into the 'sewer'. While I was doing my eye work, a British beside me said this to Gopi, "This is not good at all, am I talking to my fucking self? No one is listening to me, their not even wearing glasses!" I thought, 'hey, stop being a whiny little white ass and just shut up...'
When lunch was almost up, we went back to the meeting room for some drinks and Johnston (another British) spotted me and asked, "So whose that chap sitting at the back?"
"Lee, Malcolm Lee..."
"Oh! Malcolm X!"
"Hahaha... No... its Lee..."
"Don't learn anything from us, its all crap, stick to your books!"
"Well, certainly looks good here..."
"Farkya... so where ya from?"
"Ngee Ann Poly... I'm a student."
"Oh... so how old are ya?"
"17."
"Really? A virgin? We've got a virgin in the house!"
(Seriously... I was absolutely speechless by then... -_-")
artificious ' 6:35 pm
