Home again, home again, friggety frig

Just to be clear, the "friggety frig" part is not about being home (I'm very happy about that), but rather about the conditions under which we worked. We drove out to the MRF near Newmarket, only to find that while our ever-reliable contractor Ms. N was there as expected, the temp agency had failed to fill our order for extra help. Fortunately, the Human Sawmill (who was in charge of the audit) was able to get hold of his girlfriend, and despite the fact that unbeknownst to him (I hope) she was running on 3 hours' sleep, she graciously agreed to come in on that day... but was unavailable the next, and the agency wasn't able to fill our order that day either. So on Thursday the three of us (the HS, Ms N, and myself) put in a ten-hour day, sorting through 400 kilograms of garbage from a seniors' residence (i.e. chock full of Depends) after which we left without packing the scales into the truck. I discovered this just as I was climbing into bed in the hope of getting a decent night's sleep. Immediately my head was filled with visions of some of the crackhead temps they often use at the MRF finding the scales and failing to realize that they don't have the level of precision that your average street-level dealer needs. They'd steal the scales, the audit would be ruined, and I'd be canned and end up pushing a shopping cart around town with a sign saying "I Need Two Dollars". Since the HS was out having dinner with his girlfriend in Toronto, it was up to me to hop in the truck and drive out to the MRF (getting briefly lost on the way) to retrieve the scales.

On Friday the temp agency finally came through. The guy they sent was, however, a few grams short of an ounce. The HS assigned him to metals and glass, seeing as he had previously worked on the regular sort line at that very same MRF. Then he said, "OK, so you sort the metals and glass, plastic goes to Nitroglycol, paper to Ms N, and the other stuff to me". A few minutes later he had to explain who the different stuff went to again. Then a few minutes later he had to explain it... again. Oh well, the guy did have a genuine work ethic, and the day was slightly less long (even considering the time spent packing the truck).