Bubble No. 50: Survived!

 Well…I’ve survived working in the elections warehouse for a federal election. (Guess who is NOT coming back for the presidential? Yep, that’s right! ME!) Okay…so I guess I’ll start with a basic overview of the past five days.

 Saturday:

 -arrive at work by 8:00 a.m. ~in to arrange the warehouse equipment (including 700 lbs metal carts loaded with election equipment and 800 lbs metal cabinets stocked with election paperwork and computers) for delivery on Monday. Spend five hours moving carts, arranging them, double checking their layout, and listening to people tell horror stories about previous elections. I spent a good part of the day at my head boss’s computer working on the Microsoft Visio 2003 graphics layouts for the voting locations. (Where to put tables, chairs, voting machines, "Vote Here" signs, etc.) ^_^ Relatively easy day, with just a lot of lifting, moving, setting up tables and arranging paperwork with boxes for easy pickup later

Sunday:

 -arrive at work by 12:00 noon ~This was the easy day where we simply sat around and waited for the election supervisor judges to come pick up their JBC (which is a device that records the # of votes cast and provides random access codes to the voting machines). There was a lot of goofing off, laughing and flinging of objects at each other, and we were out by 6:00 p.m. to head home

Monday:

 -…arrive by 7:00 a.m. ~THIS day royally sucked. And I mean -sucked.- What was the entire day? Driving ALL over Lubbock and the surrounding towns to go into the voting locations, set the equipment up, give it a quick test run and head to the next location. What does setting the equipment up involve? For one, using the Visio layouts I’d done to arrange where all of the tables, chairs, computers (usually in the VERY heavy steel cabinets my brother and his best friend made, affectionately known as Sha-Bobs {Shane + Bobby = Sha-Bob}, that are hard to maneuver), and voting machines in their proper places. Seeing as how I was with a group of middle-aged individuals who had either had back surgery, were heavy smokers, didn’t really want to lift anything, and one lone computer geek…guess who did most of the lifting? The arranging? The manual work? Yep…me. (THAT’S using my degree. >_<)
  So, we have 35 locations to be set up…and we have five teams total to do it with. Needless to say, that took the entire day. We had to be back at the office by 6:00 p.m. in order to collapse for ten minutes, gulp air and food, and then zip off to arrange the locations that wouldn’t let us in until after 7:00 p.m. Those, thankfully, took the least amount of time (considering they had the smallest amount of voting machines) and wha-bam, we’re done by 10:45 p.m.

Tuesday: {Election Day}

 -Up by 4:30 a.m. {after getting home after eleven, staying up just long enough to unwind a little and then snagging a few hours sleep} and at the Texas Tech voting location before 6:00 a.m. Now…THIS has got to be the most insane way to make extra money I’ve ever heard of. (Not to mention that the majority of my time was spent teaching the people who were supposed to have been trained by a couple of our office employees how to do their jobs.) I spend the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. behind a Sha-Bob, taking names and personal information to assure that the voters are indeed registered to vote. (And telling the ones that aren’t that they can vote provisionally, which may not count, but hey, it registers them for the next election.) This involved dealing with some amusing people, such as…

 -the gentleman who informed me that democracy was a complete waste of time, we should all live in an anarchist society, and that civilization was a joke…and then proceeded to turn around and snap at the woman behind him for trying to cut in line when it was OBVIOUS that he’d been there first.

 -the gentleman in the faded camo and tan hat who waited until I was running two stations alone only to come over and lean VERY (like kissing distance) close and ask "How do I know you’re not tracking my vote with those numbers?" I explained (repeatedly) that all of the numbers generated were utterly random and had nothing to do with his personal information. He argued that HE couldn’t be sure about that, and I said "Well, you’re right." So then he (never once leaving that very close distance) passed me his driver’s license and said "All right, we’ll see how this goes."

 -the woman with the Sears bill who insisted that it was a valid form of identification because it had her name and address on it. (Government mail, people. GOVERNMENT mail!!)

 -the pair of guys who spent half their time kissing each other and the other half complimenting me on my hair, and then forgot their ballot reciepts and walked away without voting.

 -by 12:00 noon, I’d dashed to a church, found out they’d needed no help, and bolted back to the office, which was a madhouse of people on phones, people yelling for equipment, a voter at the front throwing a fit about the provisional ballot, the guys on the ballot board having a shouting match in the tabulation room, and the deputies everywhere laughing at the whole thing. By 1:30 p.m. I was off again to an Albertson’s to be the relief for one of the laptop operators. (Same thing I was doing at Texas Tech, except I didn’t have my big metal cabinet to hide behind.) THAT was insane. The line was never smaller than sixty feet long, and people were always grumpy. (Always.) I can’t even remember individuals, there were so many people. They all kind of blended together. One amusement was picking on old married couples, though. ^_^ (Not in a mean way; I love elderly married couples. They’re adorable.)

 -The first couple that got it started was a pair probably in their late seventies. The wife was the first one I checked in, and I asked if it was her current address on her registration card. She

replied in the affirmative and was standing there (as there wasn’t anywhere else to go), waiting for her ballot reciept. Her husband handed me his registration card, and I asked him if it was his current address as well. He winked and told me "Shhh, she doesn’t know I’m living there." It was positively cavity-inducing the way they were teasing each other. So the next old married couple got a wink from me when I took the husband’s card, and I asked him in a stage whisper if she knew he was living there. He cracked up laughing and she looked shocked, and stared at him before she said "So -that’s- where my pies went!" It was really too cute to be believed, but I did that with just about all the old married couples, and they played along beautifully. That helped pass the day a bit.

 -around 5:45 p.m. I get called back to the office to get ready for the JBC return and big paperwork check. THIS is where the votes get tallied and the error percentage gets checked. (i.e. like TOTALLY important). There’s press everywhere, my boss Dorothy is looking utterly cool and smooth, totally composed. (And this woman has been in excruciating pain for weeks. Seriously. She has a stint tube to help her kidney work, and she’s been on pain and anti-nausea drugs for two months, not to mention tons of antibiotics to fight the constant infections. The stint tube was supposed to be removed after two weeks; she wouldn’t let them touch her until after the election. She’s kept everything running pretty smoothly. Dorothy is freakin’ amazing.) We’re all smiling and mellow outwardly, shrieking internally, and everyone is flat-out exhausted. (It made for interesting behind-the-scenes moments: Say one wrong thing, get attacked by tigers. Say something even not-quite remotely witty and it’s like someone hit the laugh track.)

 -7:00 p.m. the polls officially close. However, every person who was in line at that time still has to vote. Which means we didn’t see a JBC until nearly eight o’ clock. Things went -amazingly- smoothly. Paperwork was all there, the numbers worked out, and by 10:00 p.m. we had all the JBCs checked in. While we’re doing that, the numbers are being run and the L&A (logic and accuracy) test is being prepared. That’s going, and us meek little grunts get herded in to roll tally tapes. (Now this involves sitting in front of a JBC and rolling a two-inch wide roll of paper around a spindle while it prints out. It takes 45 freakin’ minutes and it’s teeeeeeeeeeeeeediiiiiiiiiiious.) We’re rollin’, they’re tallyin’ and we’re all about ready to fall over. Good news? Everything comes out even. Great news? We’re .5% off…and the state allows for a full 1% error. (WOOT!) The L&A? Perfect. By midnight, JUST after Election Day is officially over, we’re home and dead to the world.

Wednesday:

 -8:00 a.m. ~At work and loving being there so "late" in the day. (To us, it felt late.) Now, our job is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from over. The election equipment needs to be picked up, brought back to the warehouse, unloaded and arranged to make space so the info can be backed up (twice) and then the tally on the equipment as to the # of votes cleared. This involves a LOT of shoving around more heavy equipment, but oh well…Election Day is over, and we’re all on the downward slide for the three-day weekend. (Woot for Veteran’s Day! We get Friday off too!) This is annoying, unloading the trucks, but oh well…it’s easily done with the three of us office workers and the assisting deputy and maintance guys who drive the trucks.

 -11:45 p.m. ~The fourth truck, the one we forgot was coming, arrives. Like fifteen minutes before our first full-hour lunch in over a week and a half. We’re all very tired, kind of grumpy and wanting it over with. So, we start unloading. Now, EVERYONE involved is on the brink of falling over. We’ve not had a decent night’s sleep in over a week, and we’re all still wildly stressed and wanting to just go home. So, of course, something had to happen.

      The metal carts weigh about 700 lbs fully loaded, and the guy on the truck slid two of them onto the hydraulic metal ramp to lower them to the deputy and I. We’re balancing the carts with our hands while the ramp’s coming down, because that much weight tends to unbalance the ramp and they tilt. The ramp comes down, and everyone’s happy. Now, the warehouse’s garage door has an open spot in front of it, and on either side are decorative concrete curbs. The truck’s parked at an angle, so the only way to pull a cart directly into the warehouse, through that open spot, is to be in the center of the ramp. The deputy to my right pulled his cart off the ramp while the guy in the truck helped by giving it a push. Me, over to the deputy’s left and at the far end of the ramp, tugs my cart back, and my right foot hits that concrete curb. I stepped my right foot over, and turned back to halt the cart until I could move it over to the right and through the open spot. Well…the guy in the truck didn’t know exactly where I was, and he pushed the cart. Voila! My left leg gets caught between a concrete curb and an angled, 700 lbs metal cart with someone’s force on the other end, as well as its own inertia.
      I admit it: I shrieked like a little bitch. I tried to push it away to move my leg, but the guy didn’t see me and kept pushing it towards me. So…I screamed when I felt something starting to give in my leg. The deputy was my hero; he heard me scream "Get it off! Get it off get it off!" and wha-BAM! Big hand shoves the cart back, and he picked me up and pulled me away from the curb. I was a big girl; I didn’t cry. I wanted to. I wanted to sob and hurl, but I took a couple of steps, then slid down the wall and hugged my leg. (That fucking -HURTS-.) After I calmed down a little (the shriek really was mostly panic), I stood up, could walk and told everyone I was fine, just badly bruised. (It was already swelling and turning purple.) So okay, the safety director Tom’s called in, he asks if I need to see the doc, I say no and we go back to work. (i.e. I sit down and put my leg up and whimper mentally.) I ice my leg during lunch and wrap it up, ’cause when the shock wore off, the pain hit. (…ow.)
      Right after lunch, here comes Roxie and Tom: I need to see the doctor, like it or no. I whine, cajole, whimper, plead, beg, offer to run around to PROVE I’m fine…no avail. I get bundled into Roxie’s car and off we go to the clinic the county uses for their workers. Long doctor’s visit short: I didn’t break my fibula (juuuuuuuuuuust barely; if I hadn’t shrieked when I did, I’d have a cast now) but I have to keep my leg wrapped, iced and elevated. Minimal walking. Pain pills. All that good stuff, including a

follow-up visit next week. *groan*

 …so, there’s the update of how Election Day went! (The lead-up, the day, the aftermath.) Now I’m stuck at the office, sitting at the computer and listening to Hoobastank while rolling cart straps to be doing "something" while staying off of my feet. The thrill is about to kill me. >_<