About 6 weeks ago I
finally got a job that was going to be a consistent 30+ hour work week. AT LAST. The job is blue collar- not that there's anything wrong with that- so blue collar in fact I actually wear a uniform with a blue collar. The shirts have a blue collar and the rest is neon
hi-vis yellow. I have blue pants too, and a T-key in a holster on my belt and a stick. What is this job I speak of?
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. . .
Meter Reading. I read water meters. I have a little- well pretty big actually, it could just fit in a Kleenex box lengthwise- handheld device that has my route for the day on it. Each route consists of a large number of meters that belong to a large number of properties. So what I do is follow the route in my handheld and punch in the numbers I read on the water meters. The handheld shows me one account or meter at a time with information like name, address, meter serial number, and location of the meter on the property. There is also sometimes, well most of the time, a special message on the location of the meter since people like to do funny things with their front yards. E.g. Opposite front door under terracotta pot. Shit like that. Or sometimes it will say bad dog, don't go in. In the case of a bad dog that I think is unsafe, or locked gates, or a pile of junk obstructing the meter, or even grass and weeds so tall that I can't find the gawddamn thing I can leave a card with the meter's information and the people will have to read the meter themselves and mail the card back to the water company. I knock on the gate or ring the bell before I leave the card to see if someone is home. A few times I've had to go inside people's houses to get in their backyard to read their meter... so far they've all been weird houses inside.
Sometimes the handheld beeps at me and that means that the reading I entered is either too low, too high, or the same as the last reading (3 months ago). Sometimes this is because I've read it wrong and need to read again, but most of the time the people who belong to the water meter are just using little or lots of water relative to their meter's previous reading of course. If the reading is the same as the one before that means there's been no usage in the 3 month time period and I have to do a
tap test. Now this is a very complicated procedure that involves finding the nearest tap in the yard and turning it on, turning it on vigorously, and then going back to the meter while it's running to see if the dials are turning. If they are turning then the meter is okay and the people might just be away or using rain water or what have you. But if they're not turning than the meter is stuck and someone else will have to come out to the meter later on and fix it or whatevs.
My stick is like a broom handle. I use it to open the cheap plastic lids on the meters so I don't have to constantly bend over. People always ask if the stick is for dogs. No. I also use the stick to scrape off dirt/mud/grass/leaves/flower petals/ants/ant eggs/earwigs off the meter face in order to see the dials/numbers. Opening a meter to find it full of earwigs or ants was pretty surprising at first because I just didn't expect it under there... it was like that scene in
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when they cut the snake surprise open and all the little ones slither out. There's a worse part to that though and that's the noise the earwigs make pouring down and hitting the ground after I've opened the lid and scraped them off. It's like it's raining earwigs. Gross.
The T-key is a metal T roughly 4"x4" with the bottom of the T a tapered half moon (kind of like the shape of a calzone). I use it to open streetboxes (boxes in the sidewalk that the contain the meter and have a heavy-ish metal lid. Cars can drive over them and nothing happens.) and to hit the side of meters if the dials are unreadable due to condensation, which happens a lot with a particular type of meter. It's tres annoying. I use the stick to hit the meters first, but sometimes only the T-key can get the dials clear.
It's pretty much a shit job. I'm supposed to work either 6 hours or read 400 meters in a day. So I usually walk for 6 hours/day, 5 days/week and try to read at least 400 meters each day. I get paid by the meter so since I'm still improving the pay isn't the best. The days when my feet are dry are easy. The days when my feet are wet suck. The first 4 weeks sucked because we were getting crazy rain, they hadn't had rain like that here in 30 years or something. Right. And sometimes I have to tell people "I just read the meters" because they have complex water usage questions and I (a) Don't know and (b) Don't give a shit. One man came out of his house and had his diary full of readings from the past 6 weeks because he had a high water bill the last time and thinks the last reader read it wrong so he was monitoring it... his records were missing a number and therefore proved no point whatsoever. "I'll put a note in here [my handheld] about your concern sir." Oh yeah, I can put special trouble messages in too. Like if the meter is leaking I type that in, or if it's broken, or missing, or that the crazy man thinks it's stuck.
But on the plus side: I have a sweet tan on my hands, neck, and face (don't worry I wear 30+ SPF on my face/neck but am still tan); I get to see a lot of weird shit in people's lawns; I get to see a lot of beautiful homes and gardens; I get to tell the old people that no, it doesn't matter that the lid on your meter has broken off, it will work fine without it; and I get to know the Adelaide area I.N.T.I.M.A.T.E.L.Y.
This job has disrupted my running a little bit as far as following my plan (I skip a lot of runs during the week and still do the big Sunday runs) but at the same time I think it has made my legs stronger and kept my endurance up.
But it is a job and it's nice to have something to do during the day that I get paid for :)
