Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Walk

I got lucky and they stuck me on the yard today. Just me and Goosey and Sgt Bumblebee. That turned out all right. I spent most of the night walking. Didn't mind it so much. We had two carts but there were some issues.

When we took from days they told us that maintenance had fixed the brakes on one of our carts. That was a good thing because that sucker took half the yard to stop before. We were considering buying an anchor or just finding a big rock on a rope to toss out when we needed to stop.

I'm actually surprised that nobody had gotten run over by that cart. Or that it hadn't rolled off down a hill by itself and burst into flames.

Okay, it's an electric golf cart and probably wouldn't burst into flames. But the way this place is run and the way things get jury rigged around here it would not surprise me in the least.

It turns out that instead of sticking on new brake pads, they just cranked down on the cable as tight as they could get it. It's so tight the brakes are half on before you even touch the pedal. So the motor is fighting gravity and the brakes at the same time. Burns up a full battery charge real quick.

And if you do happen to step on the brake pedal it immediately locks up the back wheels so you slide to a stop.

Plus it turns out that one of those freaking geniuses down in the maintenance shop just hand tightened the lug nuts on the drivers side wheel. It damn near came off while Bumblebee was driving down to the wobblehead house.

I thought he was going to have an aneurysm. He's a little excitable.

When I first signed on with the department, I wanted to work in maintenance. Of course I wasn't one of the founding fathers of this county and I don't drink beer with any of the movers and shakers here so I didn't get the job.

I became a CO instead. Now I'm pretty glad about it.

Even the bad stuff people say about me couldn't be half as bad as some of the stuff I have heard said about maintenance. That would really make me feel horrible if people talked that bad about me.

I have heard their motto is: "We aren't fast, but we're half-fast."

And I can sure believe it.

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