Half-Fast

On Thursdays when i do the Del Norte walk it's my job to notice which of the 40-some lights in my zone are not working and write them down so they can get fixed as soon as possible.

Theoretically, anyway.

In the year (more or less) since I've been out of the Hive and doing the long walk at least once a week I think they may have fixed a grand total of five lights.

Three of which are now broken again.

Also, the light poles have numbers on them so we can identify which ones aren't working. Those poles were put up twenty years ago and the numbers painted on them then as well. Many of them have faded into complete illegibility.

I have put in several work orders to have the numbers repainted. I figure if we can get the lights fixed right, we will at least be sure which ones are broken.

So they sent inmates out with paint and stencils and they started repainting the lights. They are replacing the numbers on both the front and back of the poles.

They replaced half of the numbers in front (where you can't see them from inside the fence) and maybe a quarter of the ones inside and then stopped. Then about two weeks later they started repainting over the old numbers with a white patch to put on new numbers. And then stopped again. That was a couple of weeks ago.

So now even the ones with numbers we could read have nothing but a white patch of paint on them and no discernible numbers at all. If you want to know which light pole is broken you have to keep track of how many you have passed since the last one that had a readable number.

Of course, it's inmates doing the painting. They don't care if the lights work or if we can read the numbers! They would be perfectly happy if none of the freaking lights worked at all!

Duh!

Sometimes this place makes me need to clear my throat loudly.

I knew I should have taken that job as CEO of Microsoft when I had the chance...

So tomorrow is Friday. And, according to the calendar it will be Eliza Doolittle Day. She was a character from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. I vaguely remember it. I think it's the play that they based My Fair Lady on, but I could be mistaken. It's been known to happen. It's also International Virtual Assistants Day (?), Mike-the Headless Chicken Day (look it up yourself!), Bike To Work day and Weights and Measures Day.

Y'all have fun with that.