What Goes Around....

First, I think I should point out some specifics of my job, in road construction. Some days I stand there with a stick, and some days I drive the Pilot Car. It all depends on what day it is, really. This story actually happened fairly recently, and it caused no little amount of uproar, in a couple of different senses.

On the day in question, I was working a little side road, that got maybe five or six cars a day. Not much excitement. Not many people around either, which makes handling the call of nature a fairly simple task, even for us setters, if we're not too squeamish to pop a squat.

This particular day was a holiday weekend, and everyone was off site, or so I thought. The concrete cutters had been there doing some routine maintenance on their equipment, but I'd seen them head south an hour earlier. So, when nature called, I didn't think much of it. Stepped behind the light plant to shield myself from the flagger across the highway and any traffic that they might get while I was otherwise occupied, and dropped trou.

Just in time to see the cutters pop up over the hill on the highway, with a full view of me watering the roadside foliage.

Crap.

Ah well, its construction, and MOST of the males in construction have the understanding that we setters have a little bit more to hang out in the breeze than the pointers do, but no less need to do so, and they politely "don't see" anything. Just like we of the mammary glands "don't see" anything when they stand really close to a vehicle tire and look innocent.

Boy, was I wrong about these guys.

About the time I'm re-covering the, er, "playground area," I notice that they're waving at me. And hanging out the window to do it. And they continue waving, while they make left turn (away from me) and start back in the direction they came from, on the other side of the slab.

*blink blink*

At this point I'm getting a little annoyed at their behavior, because its Just Not Polite, but I'm still willing to blow it off, provided they show good behavior the next time I see them.

Boy, did they screw that one up.

They came back, in all their unwashed glory, and continued their ape-like behavior, up to and including the chimpanzee resembling grin on the face of the passenger.

And then, fifteen minutes later, they pulled in and talked to me. Well, the driver talked to me. The passenger sat there and continued his impression of a zoo chimp, a good enough job that I was beginning to wonder if he was contemplating flinging poo, or something else that the smaller apes and monkeys like to fling at bus loads of school children.

At this point, their behavior got reported to my supervisor. She, being practical minded, reported it to the owner of the company to deal with on the higher levels, and then noticed that... whoopsie, the cutters had run off and left the site, leaving behind their lunch box.

Well, we wouldn't want it to get stolen, so she brought it to me for safe keeping. Somehow along the way, the zipper that held it closed malfunctioned, and everything inside just.... blew away.

And somehow, while it was in my possession, and before we decided that really, it was unlikely to be stolen sitting on the slab right beside part of the cutters' equipment, some wandering ghostly bum came by and took a whiz in it. And then another one did it, and another. And after we placed it back where they could find it, ANOTHER one showed up and whizzed all over it!

I mean REALLY! How many wandering ghostly bums do we HAVE around here? Or maybe they're Ninja bums... all's I know is, I never saw 'em.

*whistles innocently*

I also never heard a word about the lunchbox incident from the higher-ups, but I DID hear that every man on site got a sexual harassment lecture. Kind of unfair since 90% of the guys out there have been great, but the ones who didn't need it won't pay it any mind anyway.


The moral of the story... Its better to be Pissed Off than to have your lunchbox Pissed In.

Or maybe its "don't be a snarky sexist knob-gobbler and harass the female flaggers, or the whole crew will take revenge" ......