An extremely frustrating day at work today.
Basically, my whole day was based around someone else's mistake. The contracters that were hired to tar and chip the parking lot at one of our parks fucked up hard and did it on a day that it was forecast for rain. They're not supposed to, because then the tar can run off and stuff. But they did, because they didn't want to wait as it was their last job. Guess what happened? The tar ran off all over the grass, over the path, down the gully and into the creek. It doesn't look good when a Conservation Authority's parks are covered in tar, so we had to drive out there in the morning and clean it up. Because we were using heavy equipment in a small parking lot and were working with the Ministry of the Environment, we naturally blocked both entrances off. Awesome. So here we are scraping tar that has cured onto a dirt path. A bad start to the day.
And then the asian families showed up.
There were three families at three separate times, in quick succession and that basically killed the day. When the first family showed up, I was closest to the road, working on tearing out the tar covered grass in the ditch so we could lay new sod. They pull up right next to me and say something along the lines of "we park here." I say "no, it's closed", and shake my head about 100 times, and they still don't get the point. Then they start pulling the kids out of the car and start casually walking past our pylons, signs and trucks that we have set up blocking the entrance. At this point, one of my coworkers who is about 6 foot 4 inches tall comes over carrying a pickaxe, and I think they got the message, because they buggered off pretty quickly.
The next family came about 15 minutes later. One of our trucks had pulled out to dump off some of the tar covered grass we had dug out. I'm now working by the entrance that is no longer blocked by a truck, just 3 pylons and a sign. Another asian family in a minivan comes up and runs over one of our pylons. I go up and tell them to leave, they get the message pretty quickly this time and bugger off. Not as bad as the previous family, but they set the stage for the next family.
The next family comes screaming into the parking lot at breakneck speeds shortly after the previous family left. They run over one of our 2 remaining pylons on that side, take the corner at speed, and nearly run me over. Now, before you try to excuse them, I was wearing a reflective vest over a white t-shirt on a sunny day, I had reflective stripes on my work pants, I was wearing a bright yellow hardhat and standing next to a bright yellow wheelbarrow. How much more fucking noticeable could I be, I was basically a pylon with legs. The father opens his door, nearly hitting me with it, brushes past me, pushes my wheelbarrow out of the way and motions for his kids to come with him. They all pile out of their car and walk right past me, completely ignoring me. I swear, if my foreman hadn't came over, I would've fucking brained them all with my shovel. They argued with him for a good 20 minutes, and during that time, a school bus came from some summer camp and ran over our last remaining pylon, because apparently there was a trip to that specific park that day. They pull up the side, and run over our neat piles of tar covered leaves, dirt and sticks, then the kids all run out and go into the park. Seeing the bus in there, I guess everyone and their mother assumed that the park was open for business, and they all pulled in. The rest of my day was spent trying to work around idiotic tourists to clean up tar in a busy parking lot.
All in all, a thoroughly rage inducing day. The only upside? I was working here: