Why I Hate Modular Furniture

This week....came the biggest five-star mess that I've ever had with modular furniture.  Most of the time....it's personal modular that I end up with, and the pieces just don't match the drawing in the box.  This time, it's slightly different and worse.

I'm a government guy and we had to buy an entire office area new modular furniture.  Naturally....the cheapest bidder won.  This stuff was ordered or approved back in July and supposed to take 90 days for delivery and installation.

Well...the 'expert' from the company came over for an actual site visit and remeasured the area, and decided one particular horse-shoe area (four desks in such a shape) didn't really fit right and was four inches off.  The government mandates that a 36-inch path must be in place and we only had 32 inches.....so he required a modification to the contract.  This mod?  Well....it took about a month to arrange this and the company was then looking at a longer delivery period.  Oh, and there was supposed to be an allowable 36 inch path at the conclusion.

Well....after weeks and weeks of delay....we finally got the installation team into the Pentagon this week.  Twenty pallets of gear.  You haven't experienced life until you've dragged twenty pallets down various hallways and avoided hitting folks in fancy uniforms and suits.  So we get to the end and here is the installation team.

The problems start to multiply.  The drawing they have?  A copy of a copy of a copy.  You can't read much of anything.

They start assembling and about an hour into it.....nothing makes sense.  They call the folks who did the sale and are responsible for the furniture.  What the lady in Georgia didn't know....as she went negative with this installation team....was that I was standing in the room with them.  She went negative and it was like attending a bunch of Catholics walking into a Baptist revival.  Back and forth, negative help.  About four minutes into this....she agreed to help to some minor degree....still not knowing that I was in the corner and hearing this whole conversation.

After 90 more minutes of screwing around....we've come to a quitting point.  The picture?  Out of nine potential desks there....they've assembled two completely.  The rest are lacking pieces.  On top of that....there were two additional desks which weren't delivered at all.

The assembly crew left, but promised to get their boss to call this company involved.  I tried calling these folks but no one ever picked up my call.  On top of that, I sent an email around the middle of the afternoon, but no one responded to that.

The curious thing is that money has yet to be paid out and by not helping much with the crew....the company is simply wasting time.

My boss then put the cherry on this cake....wanting to know precisely each piece missing.  This means I'll spend 90 minutes today....going over the contract and trying to figure out how each piece fits.  I'll be helped by my associate, the facility manager.  Between the two of us....you can figure we'd charge around $40 an hour for anything we do.  So far, this week, we will have invested around $1000 just playing tag and monitoring this entire mess.  The measuring and piecing together of what is missing?  That will consume $90 roughly.  All because the idiots never simplified the stupid modular furniture and never delivered all the pieces.

Yes, I do hate modular furniture, and its for a good reason.

A German Story

It's an interesting German story.  One of the 'legends' of Germany is the Gorch Fock....a mast & sail boat that the German navy uses to train junior officers.  It's a vessel out of the 1800s and routinely used today to take junior cadets out on long voyages and introduce them to the harsh environment of sailing.  If you bring up the topic....everybody in Germany knows the Gorch Fock.

A number of weeks ago....there was a cadet to fall from a full mast to her death.  Things kinda went downhill in a hurry when the Captain tried to order crew to continue the mast duties.  Yes, you still have to climb to the top to rig up the masts.  Well...the remaining crew took the climbing duty as unnecessary and too harsh.  They rebelled and refused.

In essence.....a mutiny took place.

They ended up in a port, and the German navy ordered the Captain to fly out, and a crew was flown in to sail the boat back....minus the Captain and his student crew.

A number of folks came up to blast the German military....especially the Secretary of Defense....Von Guttenberg.  It was thought that the leadership of the German military had allowed a number of things to occur.  It was discovered that the instructor crew allowed boozing and various unauthorized activities to take place.

This week.....it came out that this female student that fell.....was severely overweight.  She stood around 5'2" and weighed near 180 lbs.  Based on US regulations....the max she could have weighed and been allowed to stay in the military would have been around 135 lbs at that height.  She was basically 45 pounds overweight and likely the worst possible candidate to send forty feet up on a mast.

Why did the instructors allow her to remain onboard?  No one has explained that.  The folks who dumped on the chief of German defense?  Well....they've kinda shut up now and avoiding any negative comments at all.

There are simple rules that the US military keeps in effect to ensure you don't have people of great weight trying to accomplish thing that are practically impossible.  I'm guessing that the German navy probably had some rules but just chose to overlook most of those because they needed volunteers and were desperate to  keep anyone who raised their hand.

What Happens in Bama, Stays in Bama

Being from Bama....sometimes involves a great deal of pondering.

Yesterday....out of Goodwater, Bama....we had a shooting.  The facts as of today?  A case had been brought up in some local court, to be tried in a townhall courtroom......where the guy was accused of a domestic dispute.  He'd been injured in a car accident prior to this and broke a hip....so naturally, he was hobbling around on two crutches.  I would suspect that he had a few drugs to help kill the pain as well.

So the city judge came to a decision, which went against the guy.....and he was a might-bit upset.  At this point, he started waving his two crutches around.

Facts are cloudy after this point.  Some say he tried to reach for a gun.  Some said that he was just waving the crutches around.  But the one cop on the scene felt the situation was out of hand and tried to push the guy down.....then perceived him reaching for his weapon....and shot him once.  Then as the guy went down.....shot a second time.

Both shots went into his gut but he appears to be in survivable condition.  Folks around Goodwater are a bit upset, saying that the guy should have been tased instead of shot.  Some are just upset about the second shot, saying the first one was justified and the second one wasn't.

State cops got called out and will have to sort this out.  I'm guessing they'd rather this not turn into a big episode, but they probably will have to interview at least twenty folks and collect statements.  My guess is that the guy will get another charge or two dumped on him but the court will feel sorry and just let him off the hook at the end.

The bottom line?  Well....this all started with a domestic situation and if he hadn't argued with his wife....he'd never been dragged into city court, never been charged with anything, had his car accident, had the broke hip, waved any crutches around a court to threaten folks, or been shot by some city cop.  The Bama morale of the story....always agree with your wife.