For a while, it was pretty cool that I was helping in the construction of a 16 x 16 ft shed. Despite the frustrations and random issues we had, I was still hoping that I was learning something. Unfortunately, those feelings slowly wore off after 2 1/2 weeks on the job. I hope I never see this shed again.
I woke up and went through my morning routine. I got to work and was on the verge of praying that we wouldn't get sent out to that shed again. Percy didn't show up to work for the third day in a row now, so that left us to continue to screw around with these doors.
The entire process was frustrating, and the facts that led up to us having to put the doors on ourselves was even more frustrating. And the worst part was the fact that we were getting more and more behind on other projects while we continued to run into issues with this one.
I don't remember what time we actually got out to the shed today, but when we got there, we really didn't know where to start. The home owner came out while we were trying to figure out what to do with those doors, and started questioning us asking where Percy was and whether or not we knew what we were doing. We really didn't know, but we assured him that we would take care of his doors, since Percy neglected to show up for the past couple days.
He left us feeling satisfied, I think. Then we spent the next couple hours working on getting the doors to fit together. We stripped everything and focused on the frames of the doors, but there was too much uncertainty and not enough motivation to make this work. We were feeling pretty hopeless.
We decided we needed to head back to the office to talk to Nixon about those doors and tell him that we needed more material and we needed percy, because we really didn't understand Percy's vision for those doors.
When we got to the office, Nixon wasn't there, so Ernie encouraged us to grab what we needed and get back out there to finish the job. I really respected him for that, because he was just as lost as I was, but he was still willing to jump back on his feet and try to figure this thing out!
After we got back out to the shed, I knew there was going to be an easy way to do this and a hard way to do this. Most of my time on the shed job had consisted of doing something one way, hoping it worked, then starting from square one again if it didn't work. I didn't have the patience to work that way anymore, so I started talking to Ernie about what needed to happen and how we should go about making those things happen.
At first this was super difficult, because we were coming from two different points of view and it was really hard for me to get him to understand what I was trying to say. More importantly it was hard for me to get him to do what I knew would be the most efficient thing possible at this point.
It was slow going, but I was able to explain all of the reasons we needed to do everything in a particular way, and we were finally able to see eye to eye. Towards the end of our building the doors, I would just say we needed to do so and so next and he would say "Okay cool. What's next after that?" This was pretty sweet for me. It was cool that we had communicated so well, and that my ideas were working so well that he respected me enough to listen to my opinion towards the end of that construction process.
After we were done with those doors, it was almost 4pm and since it was so hot outside, we just went back to the office about to call it a day. It had been a good day after all. We had finished building both doors, gotten them to fit, and hung both doors. Pretty awesome.
When I got home, Emily J. and the interns were just about to the leave for our friend Melony's house because she had invited us over for dinner and a movie. I changed quick then went with them, and I'm glad I did! Melony went all out on our dinner. We had pork and chicken, noodle salad, fruit salad, chips, vegetables, and some sort of juice and she prepared all of this for us! It was absolutely delicious!!
I wanted to be able to stay for the movie that night, but I ended up going back to Mission with Greg and Kelly because I had to be up early the next morning, I didn't want to sleep through my alarm again, and I really had some stuff that needed to get done before the morning.
I got back and started working through everything I had to get done, Jonny put in Rambo, and I ended up making it to bed at a decent time. The rest of the interns got back around midnight, so I was really happy that I made the decision to come back before we had started the movie.
That's about it! Thank you so much for all of your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Communicating with somebody to the point where they can respect your thoughts on a particular subject is super hard, but entirely worth while if you can do it correctly.
2. Melony is a super good cook!
3. Acts 26-27
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