Just Another Day at the Office

Well, upstairs beside the kitchen, on the long table, a number of staff are having an Artsy Craftsy luncheon. It’s a bit like a cross between pottery and jigsaw puzzles. It *looks* like they are trying to reassemble broken ceramic chamberpots…. It’s a Pot Party.

Employee 1: Hey, is partner here today?
Employee 2: No, he is at a meeting.
Employee 1: Well, I will have to give him all the dirt on Friday.

pause …

Employee 1: I mean real dirt from dig.

I have heard plenty of stories in the office about flying things interfering with work onsite. This year, we had staff members swarmed by mosquitoes and black flies. In other years, an entire dig crew was stung by bees. Sometimes crews get to see birds that are really not frequently seen in cities. As fun as all this seems, it is not nearly as exciting as what one crew discovered on a dig.

A crew member was digging a test pit when she was shocked nearly out of her skin. A cockatiel had landed on her shoulder. These birds are not native to our region! It was obviously quite friendly as it kept the entire dig crew entertained all day long, hopping from shoulder to shoulder and squawking into ears. At the end of the day, the cockatiel followed them to the van, hopped in, and rode back with them. It went home with one of the crew, was adopted by her father, and frequently visited the office, hopping from shoulder to shoulder and squawking in office staff’s ears.

This would have been a really fun story had the cockatiel not been very quick to bite (not nip) people’s ears. In a way, I rather wish we had that bird in the office still.

One thing about working at a business where a lot of people are related to each other is that you can hear some very strange things. One of our partners is married to another of our partners. I was standing at the door of downstairs partner’s office, when upstairs partner called her. She picked up the phone. “Yep” she says. She is silent for a moment or two then says

Walk like a man.

then hangs up the phone. I look at her, puzzled, and say “I can walk like a man if you like” and she laughs and responds “That was about wedding music”. Sometimes you walk into the middle of an ongoing conversation via intercom, and don’t realize it.

We had an outbreak of very severe weather here last night. While none of our sites were hit by tornadoes, which is a good thing, work has been delayed or cancelled on a couple of sites.

They were about to to a walk around survey of an area. All the dirt was neatly piled up, and it was all ready to go – until the storm/wind blew/washed it all away. Nothing left to survey anymore.

And, at “The Site that Never Ends”? They are delayed for about a week as it is now under 2′ of water ….. Still no end in sight (site)

I was reading the minutes of the health and safety meeting held recently. Things discussed included:

1. Including hazards such as West Nile Virus, spiders, bears in the employee manual.
2. Finding out when hunting season is for each of our sites.
3. How to set up to be sure employees working beside roadways aren’t hit by cars.
4. Always wear your hardhat, work boots, orange reflective vest. Carry your sunblock and insect repellent.
5. Bear repellent is now available for sign-out.
6. Crew managers will carry masks/gloves for areas/buildings with toxic soil, substances, asbestos.
7. Nobody is to go into a building alone, due to the risk of squatters.
8. Make sure you tell people what you are allergic to, and show them where your epipen is located.
9. Always wear blaze orange vests, especially up north in hunting season.

I am used to working in offices, so I guess this stuff comes as a bit of a surprise to me.

It just goes on and on my friends….

There is a site that our archaeologists have been working on for a couple of summers now. It’s a really steady job. There are so many sites on that property that have been found. It belongs to a family business, and they have wanted to develop it into housing for a few years. It’s obviously a desirable property, and apparently has been desirable for a number of centuries.

Just when everybody thought the end was in sight, that the salvage might be complete sometime this year. Once the burial had been moved and artifacts dug up and brought to the lab, longhouses mapped, farmhouses mapped, barns mapped, the archaelogist leading the field crew called into the office:

We just found a palisade and another house.

Very exciting indeed, but probably not for the property owners.

Well, email was piling up for one of our partners, and clogging up the instant messaging queue. So, I asked my boss “Is Partner around this week?” She said no, he is out canoeing.

I had to ask if it was holiday or work related. It was a holiday.

The thing is that we had a crew off on a canoe based wilderness Archaeological survey. They had a very successful time, and found much more of what they expected to find (proof that a certain painter had actually BEEN there and painted the scenes). Considering the weather this summer, they had it – OK. It rained off and on the whole time, but was not a deluge at any point. I gather the mosquitos are horrible and black fly season STILL hasn’t ended though.

Work on artifacts and history from the Jail site has continued. I saw proof of this posted on the office wall across from the Lab.

They had identified one of the burials as a man who had been executed (as had all the burials). They managed to figure out the name and the crime. It was a particularly heinous crime – a sex/murder thing for which he was apparently quite guilty, according to the news of the day, which covered it as the huge scandal it must have been at the time.

So, his bones went to the University Lab, which has better facilities than ours does for this sort of work. Our teeth and bones expert was there as well. They discovered that his bones showed lesions and changes that were quite serious, and showed signs of Advanced Tertiary Syphilis. Bones all over his body showed these signs, his skull included.

Contemporary news photos of this man showed changes in his cranium. Other contemporary news sources suggested dementia and mania, signs of general peresis. My understanding is that, at the state of syphilis he was at by that point, he would be dead in a year or two anyhow. The hanging sped it up some, but it was inevitable in the near future.

“The toilet at offsite office is broken. They can’t get a plumber until Monday, so they have to sit on it until then.”

O_o