By now I’ve seen some of the pitcher’s stuff. The more and more I observe his windup the more I feel like I can knock these runs in. I just keep trying to predict what he is going to come with next. But with too much overthinking, you’ll freak yourself out. Sometimes it’s best to just go with your gut feeling before second guessing. I step back in the box and wait for next pitch.
At this point, I am fully caught up on the entire Ferrari project. I go every Tuesday and Thursday fully aware of my responsibilities, and knowing what I need to bring for Ron. When I’m in the office, I work with either Amanda or Shane. Amanda was out for a few days one week, so Shane and I had to help with some of her responsibilities. One day, we spent the entire day calling different national vendors for a job in Maine. It wasn’t that bad except for the fact that we have never worked with these vendors as a company. It’s different from calling a local subcontractor to talk about bidding the job. It’s more on a global scale, and the people are not always familiar with your company. Nevertheless, we figured it out, and after a long day of making calls and getting emails from these companies, we figured out the subcontractor sheets for the job. This was the first time that I actually had to go through and find the scope of work in these companies’ proposals, and it’s a lot different because you have to pick the proposal apart to find what they are doing. But, when you have a smaller, more local subcontractor, sometimes the scope of work is clearly labeled. It posed as a small challenge for me, but with Shane helping me out, I made it work.
Aside from doing work for Amanda while she was out, I was also trying to help Rob out with some projects. Brendan and I actually had to drive to West Greenwich to grab a building permit for him. One day when Rob was on site, he asked if I could attempt to fill out the permit and it honestly may have been one of the most detail oriented things I have ever done. They were asking for exact measurements of every little detail. It was pretty overwhelming, but Rob understood that and was just grateful that I even attempted to fill part of it out. I also helped him out with some of the info sheets for subcontractors which he thanked me for because he was running all over the place trying to get everything in order for multiple jobs. Even with all of this work I was doing helping people out, it was not even my biggest challenge in these past few weeks.
The biggest challenge for me came when one of the owners of Ferrari asked me to do the night shifts for the demolition of part of the dealership. I take a big gulp as I’m standing in the box as the pitcher winds up.
Now, I’ve only been attending these meetings for Ferrari and taking notes for the most part. I do not talk much or have much input in the conversation. When the owner looked at me and said, “What are you doing next week?” I was kind of shocked because I did not expect to be asked to do the night shifts. I started overthinking what I was going to have to do for the night shift. I was so lost, and just nodded my head along and agreed to do these night shifts not knowing what they entailed besides the basic concept of demolition. I understood that some guys were going to come in and break up some tile and tear down some walls, but I had no idea where I fit in the grand scheme of things. So, the day before I started the night shift I went into Ferrari so that Ron could tell me exactly what I had to do. He gave me guidance and even made a checklist so that I was not so overwhelmed with it all. It seemed simple enough — I just tell the demo guys what to do, and then watch over it so that dust does not go past the temporary wall. I was feeling pretty confident about my next 3 nights. The pitcher releases the ball, here comes the pitch.
My first night there seemed the most important because we did not know how well the temporary wall would hold the dust. So every few minutes I would walk to the other side of the wall, and just look for any little trace of dust. To my delight, the wall was not letting even a little bit of dust through. So, the first night goes by and most of the tile is up and offices demoed. Then the second night goes by and they finish whatever they had not the first night and it is still going well. The third night comes around and now it’s the hard part. Ron wrote up some measurements for the trenches that the demo guys had to cut. When they came in, I had to explain to them what we were doing and I was confused myself. Luckily, the entire time I had been doing these night shifts Ron was checking in on me and making sure I was okay with everything. He kept telling me not to feel bad and I could call him for anything. So, I think I called him about 5 times in a matter of an hour that last night. Luckily, the demo guys were able to figure out what we were looking for and cut the trenches out and finished their other work. That last night I left work so relieved that everything was running smoothly, and the place hadn’t burned down under my supervision. That experience taught me a lot just because of the position of responsibility I was in. I felt since I could work those night shifts alone that I was in a better place because it gave me more self-confidence for anything that I might get asked to do in the future, and I know that I could do it again if needed. The pitch comes in hot, but low and away so I lay off it. Ball 2.
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