Mysterious Thursday
Thursday, September 14th, 2023 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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68F and sunny, this afternoon. I slept in, and wasn't outside until noon today... which is normally when we come back inside. So... not as much time to write here. But then again, not much really going on today.
Tim seems to be spearheading the effort to help Brian not get a lemon.
And Brian has comitted to being around for the Friday and Saturday of the reunion... that's the day of the burial, with a fire in the back yard on Friday, and a gathering at the Roundhouse downtown on Saturday.
So things are looking up, for October.
As for the storms. I'm thinking now that, if I'm going with glass... it might make more sense to get eight smaller panes, than two giant panes.
The price wouldn't be any different, and Glasshopper wouldn't have any trouble at all cutting me eight smaller panes.
It'll be a little extra work on my part, creating two inner crossbars of the 1/2 square dowel, but probably worth it.
They'd be a lot easier to work with, and less likely to break, for one thing.
But with four smaller panes per window, I probably don't need any kind of glue or tape at all. Just the glaze should suffice to hold them in place.
Jeremy was not at work yesterday either, meaning he'd called in three days in a row.
So maybe he's truly sick with something... which would make my plan to call in on Monday all the more believable!
There's a woman in the building who has a really nasty cough too.
And I do have some kind of sinus infection at the moment. As I said a while back, it threatened to turn into an ear infection for an evening, and I did seriously think about going to the clinic in the morning... though the ear had cleared up.
Still... that's now my planned excuse for Monday.
Ear infection.
One would assume Jeremy will be back by then.
Amazon's still holding firm to Monday as the delivery date for the clamps, pegs, glue, and pencil sharpener... and none of them have even shipped yet, so I do need that day to get the frames together.
Of course I'll need sharp pencils on Saturday, so... I'm just gonna sharpen a whole bunch of them down in the shop and bring them upstairs.
Going with glass will bring the cost down to something like $100.00 per window!
That makes this project a lot more justafiable.
And it'd be nice to be able to say that they're all wood and glass, with no screws, or plastic involved.
And if they're that cheep... and if this goes well... then next spring I'm gonna make two more, for the west facing windows of Dad's room, and the kitchen.
This also changes my plans for the south enclosure of the side porch.
I would again, go with glass there, instead of plexiglass.
And I think I'll go with OSB instead of plywood.
That will still be a huge project, but using, say, 1/8" glass and 1/2" OSB will bring the cost down dramatically.
Was thinking at work about how glass for the side porch could make things overly complicated... because single panes would be enormous, but to create the structure for smaller panes would be a huge ass pain, with six enclosure frames.
But if glass was out, and plexiglass was out, then what could I do?
On a lark I googled, "transparent wood," and it turns out that actually exists!
Unfortunately, it's not widely available on the market yet.
But after some searching I discovered, polycarbonate greenhouse panels!
They're light corrugated panels... plastic cardboard basically, but they're white, let through tons of sunlight, and filter out UV radiation.
And they're also pretty cheep! Way cheeper than either glass or acrylic glass.
On the porch, these would work perfectly, because we don't need to see out. Privacy is actually a preference out there. But getting light in, is still important.
Not just to keep it bright during the day, but to keep it warm in the winter.
That porch has always acted as kind of a greenhouse anyway, protecting the kitchen from the full force of winter cold.
Yes, that makes it hot in the summer too, but that's what the blinds are for.
And then I can still screen in two of the frames, and create two light frame, swing out windows, again, using the polycarbonate.
And this would be in keeping with Dad's 1970s solution of fiber glass sheets. They looked kinda ugly, and the way he mounted them was pretty ghetto, but they have kept the rain off the porch for fifty years, and let in the light, and heated up the porch in the winter.
They don't make that stuff anymore, but this plastic cardboard is kind of the modern successor to it.
And the best part is, once I'm done, all I have to do is wait for transparent wood to come on the market, and I can update the enclosure windows to that!
On the work front, Jeremy was missing for a fourth day today!
Nobody knows why he's gone, and a couple different teachers have texted him, but he's not responding to the texts.
Chantele did say on Monday that he'd called-in. But since then, she hasn't said a word about it.
So I was pondering that for a good while in the early evening.
He can't have Covid, because if he did, then everybody'd have to be notified about it.
If he were simply sick, or injured, then he'd be responding to texts... unless he was at death's door... which is unlikely.
If he got lost in the woods... we'd probably have heard about that.
So... I'm starting to think maybe he got a better job and just... ghosted!
I'll have to take this all back, if he's there tomorrow, but hear me out...
- Near the end of the school year in April, Jeremy bought a new car.
- When I told him I was going part time for the summer, he said, "Pat, I do not blame you!" with a huge smile, shaking his head.
- While he slaved in the hot building all summer, the girls who remained in the office got to enjoy air conditioning.
- When I told him I'd heard that Rosa quit, he said, "What do they expect? The pay is crap."
- News came down that the union was not going to negotiate for higher wages.
- In these first few weeks of school, before he disappeared, we were very low on all kinds of supplies and Jeremy did not order more.
- We have run out of all that stuff this week that he's been gone.
- He is not responding to texts from the faculty
And I'm going to add to this something I observed just this week... which was that when one of the faculty who works in the LMC area (library) decided to stay late one night... the air conditioning in that area magically turned back on until she left.
Even though that is controlled remotely by unseen engineers.
Again, I may just be crazy, but this all paints a picture of Jeremy, who is new to this job, like me, and never worked a summer in an elementary school before... looking for better work.
Because he had a car payment (and probably rent) and couldn't just quit.
Then, he secured something right around the time the news broke that the union wasn't even gonna push for a wage increase... and that's what made him decide... not only, NOT to give notice... but to just ghost, right when we ran out of supplies.
Kind of, the maximum fuck you, he could give to GeoStaff.
And not responding to faculty texts would be a fuck you to them... because there is always air conditioning in their areas... like the staff lounge, the office, the LMC, and even a growing number of class rooms.
All he and I have had all summer is my sister Colleen's box fan, that happened to be in the back of my van when it started getting hot!
Again, I may well be walking all of this back tomorrow or next week.
But it's tonight, so I'm gonna persevere.
It's not the faculty's fault if their contract forces the school district to give them a cool work environment... and pays them half decently.
That's just their union functioning like one should.
But what IS the faculty's fault, is the way they tend to treat us... even though they know we're being paid shit and slaving in the heat all night and all summer.
The slamming of the garbage, in the heat of last May almost made me quit, it was so abusive.
And in general they tend to expect, what I'd call, "Janitor Platinum," service, even though they know the district is only paying for no-frills janitor basic.
So, what I'm saying is, they do deserve a, fuck you, from Jeremy.
And it's been kinda fun this week, having them come up to me, asking what I can do about these mounting issues that he hasn't been around to take care of.
Can I call about the roof leak we had Monday? Or the circuit that went out in the staff lounge kitchen on Tuesday?
Nope! Sorry! I'm just the night guy!
And it would be even more fun, if... next week, when Geostaff can no longer deny that Jeremy's gone for good... they come to me asking what I'd think of a promotion to Head Custodian of Cloud!
That'd be perfect!
I'd be able to say, "Well, I have an offer from District 313 already, with perks that mean a lot to me, like paid lunch, and four blocks from home. So... if you want to keep me here, as lead, I'm gonna need $20.00 per hour."
"WHAT? We can't do THAT!"
"Well, that's okay. But erm... Friday will be my last day."
"What? NOOOOOOH!" [tears form] "You and Jeremy were supposed to bring balance to Cloud, not destroy it!"
Whether or not my theory about Jeremy's absence is true, the fact remains that our union fucked up, by not even putting a cost of living adjustment on the table this cycle.
$13.50 as a starting wage is a joke, in the post Covid world, and it'll be a crime in three more years' time, the way inflation is going.
Especially when they're also not arguing for air conditioning!
Clearly it's possible to have that, because the faculty gets it. We don't get it, because we haven't fought for it. And the school district is happy to turn it off at the times, and in the areas, where it's only us!
So what can workers do, when they've already unionized... but their own union won't fight for a living wage and humane working conditions?
All you can do is quit.
And I think GeoStaff's gonna see a LOT more quitting this year!
Yes, there is that old guard... the ones who live for the overtime, and think sweating is a virtue.
But they're aging out!
So GeoStaff's gonna be struggling to fulfill their contract with the school district, to such a degree, I'd wager, that they'll lose it, the next time THAT negotiation comes around.
But this isn't just happening here... in one school district in Naperville.
This is what's happening everywhere, in every job market, across the country... and it's BEEN happening for a while!
Wages... across the board... have to go up!
You can't double the price of everything and not raise wages.
You can TRY!..
But it will lead to the precipice of collapse.
Because the two things are inextricably linked.
And no amount of generational brainwashing can undo that link!
Okay!
Another long rant from me on a random week night!
I've been doing a lot of that lately!
I'll pay for it in the morning!
Good night.
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