Installation Underwear

In December of 2012, Keegan and I were in Las Vegas for an exhibit installation at the Discovery Children's Museum. We were wrapping up the installation, but had to extend our stay due to some delays and city inspections that, oddly enough, took place over the weekend.

Saturday night after a successful inspection.

On that Sunday, we decided to go to see Hoover Dam after we did some laundry. Keegan said to me, “You must be out of clean underwear by now,” and I replied, “Duh, of course,” secretly smirking because I know the secret of wearing the same pair of underwear four times. The hotel didn’t do laundry over the weekend, so we went in search of a laundry mat. Las Vegas must have some larger aversion of Sunday laundry because we went to three different laundry mats and they were all closed. The third location we tried was next to a Target, so Keegan said that we could just buy underwear, so we did. I wish I had photos of Keegan and I going through the underwear rack and gleefully comparing the different brands, sizes, and colors. More than likely, Target probably has security footage of it that they watch when in need of entertainment.

Underwear purchased, we headed to Hoover Dam for a day of tourist fun and then traveled home a few days later.

Keegan on the bypass bridge overlooking Hoover Dam

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas

After returning to work for a week, Keegan and I were summoned to the front desk. We had turned in our trip expenses and the Finance Woman in charge of going through the receipts had some questions for us. She had clearly been interrogating Keegan already, because he looked physically and mentally spent.

Keegan had tried to explain to Finance Woman that it was not his fault that the trip was extended, and we didn’t have any other alternatives. She said that she didn’t care what the circumstances were, but he couldn’t expense underwear. I quickly understood that Keegan had put his underwear on his expenses for reimbursement. I had not. I believe Keegan had purchased a few other things at Target that were normal expense items and, shit, why not get the underwear paid for as well. Our company would normally pay for clothes washing services, but it seems they had a real problem with paying $9.99 for three pairs of underwear.

Keegan tried to argue that, if he had used the hotel washing services, it would have cost $30 and he was actually saving the company money. She didn’t buy that. She said the company would not pay for clothes the employees kept. That’s when Keegan came up with a brilliant idea: he would give the underwear back to the company. They would become Installation Underwear. We would keep them in the job box, and if an employee out on an installation ever needed a pair, due to an extended install or pants soiling event, they could use a loaner pair of Installation Underwear.

It was a game changing innovation.

She said no.

Keegan was not reimbursed for his underwear, but I think him paying $9.99 for story that will last a lifetime is completely worth it.

Who's In Charge Here?

I've worked in the museum business for a good chunk of time. For a while, I was a traveling exhibit manager, which meant I got to work with a lot of different kinds of technicians, temp laborers, electricians and union workers during the set up and installation of the exhibit. I know what it is like to be a punk kid asking people that have been on the job longer than I have been alive to get work done. Usually I just kill them with kindness. You need to have these people on your side as they can make your life a holy hell. Bring them doughnuts. Don't let them get away with murder, but manslaughter is OK.

So years later I was told this story and shat my pants.

We were bringing in an exhibit to a museum. The exhibit came with a set up coordinator. I had been taking care of the arrangements to bring the exhibit in and had been in constant contact with them. Our museum used the same crew of people for exhibit set up and tear down and they are awesome. There's one guy that runs all the workers and they are efficient, know the building, ask the right questions and get the job done.

When the exhibit arrived at the loading dock, our team of installers was waiting for instructions. The exhibit set up coordinator went down to the loading dock and walked into the group.

"Are you the set up crew?"
Yes, they answered.
"Who's in charge here?"
The man who always runs the crew said, "I guess that would be me."
And the coordinator said, "No. I'm in charge and don't you forget it."

Holy shit. That's the biggest douchebag move on record. Sure you make an impression, but come on.

Of course, in the back of my mind, whenever I go somewhere and am in charge of set up, I love to ask the question, "Who's in charge here?" The labor always wonders why I laugh after saying it.

Punishment

A few years back, our design team was involved in a large exhibit installation out of state. We’d drive out early on Monday, stay at a hotel next to the site and come back on Friday. Every morning we would meet at 7:00am to divide up the resources and plan the day. At night, we would eat dinner together as a group and afterwards, four of us would break away from the larger group and go out for a drink. On the nights that we pluralized drink, we sometimes wouldn’t get to bed until 2:30am and that 7:00am meeting was very hard to get to on time.

One of the team, (I’ll just use his initials to hide his identity) AJ, was consistently ten minutes late to the morning meeting. This was problematic because AJ was the all around guy. He’d make the hardware runs, had a knack for building anything out of almost nothing, and lift both heavy and really heavy stuff. (He also always has a cigarette that he will let you borrow.) AJ was in demand and showing up late was putting a knot in his boss’ military issue underwear.

When the camel’s back was finally broken, AJ’s boss chastised him and, as a punishment, took away his cell phone until the end of the week. At first, we rolled our eyes and secretly laughed. “Dad” was taking AJ’s cell phone privileges away? How will that help get AJ to the meetings on time? Heck, usually it was us calling him on his cell phone that got him up and out of bed to the meetings.

It quickly became apparent that this punishment was going to affect the whole crew. The hardware store was a few miles away and by the time you realized you would need something from the store, AJ was already out the door, so you had to call him on his cell. And it hard for him to answer when the phone was in his boss’ pocket. When AJ was at the store, he’d have questions about something he was supposed to buy and he’d have to track down a pay phone. It was a moronic punishment. We ended up sending someone with a phone with AJ just so we’d have a communication link.

Lacey pretty much summed it up when she said, “What is he going to do next? Take away his drill?” His phone was as much a tool as it was a company perk. AJ needed a good verbal beat down, not grounded.

So we took it in turns to call AJ’s phone non-stop. At first his boss just let it ring in his pocket, but he got sick of that and left it at the communal desk. We’d wait until boss sat down to look at plans and then call the phone. He finally just turned it off.

Boss realized how dumb it was when it finally impacted him. He needed the van and AJ had it on a supply run. Boss actually got out his cell phone, called AJ’s phone and when it went straight to voice mail he said angrily, “AJ’s got his phone turned off.” Someone reminded boss of the phone’s location at the desk. Boss was pissed, not at himself, but at AJ.

I think he got the phone back before the end of the week. AJ was on time for the meeting every day after that. Mostly.