To take the chicken out of the hoven

   To take the chicken out of the hoven is my main duty at the Olympic Park. Even now that the contract is about to finish.

   Yesterday I got a day off, the second of two paid off-days allowed to us by the company for having interviews. I received a call on Wednesday in which was asked me if I was available for an interview the very next day. I asked to my line manager, he said I could, so I booked the interview. Less then an hour later another manager called me, saying that me and my team had an induction for the Crossrail site for the next morning.  Shit... I'm off tomorrow... How much time will the induction take? An hour, an hour and half? Ok, I'll come for the induction.

   The induction took more then five hours. A useless five hours long induction, in a room where we breathed CO2 instead of oxygen, listening to the same thing we had listened in other three or four similar inductions for other similar sites. Only difference with the other site was that the high visibility wear have to be orange instead of yellow like in to the Park. With such a beginning, I understood that everything would have been a mess. I just didn't immagine how much.

   -How much time will this job take?- I asked to the manager.

   -I think the whole morning. Do you have other to do?

   Other to do? We just killed the time last weeks at the Park. I have nothing to do.

   This morning, with our orange high visibility vests, we follow the manager to the Crossrail. So far from the railway, with a four meters high wall to separate us from it, that the question was natural: What fuck had we got the induction for???

    We had all the needed tools for a "morning job" with us. The concern that we had to wear "all orange" was discarded by the manager. When I saw the job, was immediately clear that a morning was far to be sufficient. The job consisted of weeding a wild flower bank, then strimming down the wild flowers and remove the debris. Some things to consider: the weeds were much more than the wild flowers; nothing had been done the previous year, so a thick lay of dead stuff and rubbish was hidden under the plants; we had to share the area with some builders using diggers and dumpers; our van was not allowed in. 

   -For this job-, I said, -we need at least three people for three days. And that in normal conditions. 

   -Normal conditions?

   -It means that any of those days is Friday and that any of those people has been fired as we have been. I'll do my best, but you can't push on someone who's been fired. How can you threat him? To fire him?

   -We have till Monday to complete this job. We don't have three days.

   Great. -Could we come tomorrow, eventually?

   -I'm sorry-, the site manager said. -No one is allowed here on Saturday.

   Fair enough. But the most funny detail was that we had to wear orange trousers.

   My company doesn't have orange trousers. And it wouldn't be a big problem if a manager manages the job, in other words if he makes a survey of the site to check what we must do and if he checks what is needed and what is compulsory in a specific site that has its own rules different from the rest f the Park. It's clear to everybody that he had not done anything of that. So, where to find orange trousers? Silly question. In to the skip, obviously.

   Rummaging in a skip he and the site manager found a trousers. Stinky of rat piss. 

   -Take this so you can start. I'm going to the shop to buy another two pairs.

   -Maybe you can buy three.

   -Sure.

   I had to refuse, I know. But when I have a job in front of me I have to do it, it doesn't matter what I have to endure to solve the problem. So I got the stinky trosuers while the manager was going to the shop.

   In my team I have an English and a Moldavian. The English started immediately to complain.

   -I don't wear stuff tken from a skip!

   -Don't worry. I'll wear this. Paul is going to the shop to buy new ones.

   It was 10:30 when he came back, with just another trousers. A dirty, torn pair found in another skip. The right chance for the English member of the team to flee away.

   -You can bring me to the other team, so I don't have to sit in the van doing nothing whole day.

   You can sit in to the van chatting all day, instead. Doesn't matter, feel free to go. It's clear you don't feel part of the team. We'll be better without you.

   So far, we cut down half part of the wild flower. We didn't weed, of course. The weeds will have to stay there, or they will give us more time to do the job. When we left the site we threw away the trousers and I sent a text to Paul, the manager:

Provide three new orange trousers for Monday 

if we have to complete the job, please. 

Igor's are torn and I had enough to wear 

rat piss stinking stuff got from the skip.

His answer:

 I will.

What do you bet I will not go back to the Crossrail site on Monday?