Post # 11

April 22, 2009

62 hours complete

An average days work for an average days pay. We went through the good old gestures of 826 with precision and accuracy. We had become pros, it was our duty to know the ropes in and out in addition to adding that small little thing that made things go from good to great. Things like keeping things organized as our co-workers, making copies of the text as the other two guys simultaneously resize two artworks with precision cuts and clean lain tape. At a few points during that day we had to get creative and do some manual editing. What I mean by that is that some pages with border lines were printed on three hole paper and we had to remake those missing lines. Sounds easy but it was a lot more challenging than we had previously expected. At first we tried putting a blank piece of paper underneath it and drawing the lines in by hand but our marker was a little too fat. Then we tried putting a paper with lines already on it underneath and taping them together, but the problem was that the lined papers contents were visible through the holed paper. Finally we managed to find a blank slate paper with lines and managed to get them pretty much lined up. After that fiasco the rest ticked by like clock work. I got paired with some fiesty kids during the afternoon who proceeded to insult me as I tried to help them with their homework. All in a days work I said to myself and continued on with my work. Unfortunatly I finished off the day with a crying child getting her way despite my good intentions. Eduardo and I were working with a girl who was in first grade and she did not want to do her homework. Because of the recent mini heat wave 826 was bringing kids to the park in small groups. There were two groups and the girl wanted to go very badly. She wanted even less to do her homework and the antics pursued. We wanted her to do three pages of the six that were do Friday and she only wanted to do one. We bargained to two but she refused and we went on like this for what may have been half an hour. Jory, our mentor, proceeded to come over when the second group was about to leave for the park and grant our little pumpkin's wish! He whisked her away to the park without her having done a single drop of homework after she turned on the water works. I left that afternoon with a bad taste in my mouth and a vow to never compromise, not even in the face of armageddon.