Enter the Dragan (Gas)

I head in to work Thursday night, and when I get there I'm informed that I'll be training someone. That's a bit odd.

You know how I've wanted to get rid of FNG and The Sleeper for a while? Well, Barney too, but one thing at a time.

Turns out that the car that FNG was riding in was smashed into, and he's in the hospital in critical condition. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I'm going to be more careful about wishing on stars from now on. :P

So this guy who looks a lot like John Belushi (with a healthy dose of Lyle Lovett hair) shows up for training. He's got a thick Croatian accent. His name?

Dragan.

Wow, what a cool name. I asked him if he knew what that sounded like to english speakers.

"Yes, I know. They think I am fire eating monster. But it means dear, like `My Dear Lady'."

Fair enough. Then I wondered if he had an equally cool-sounding middle name, so I asked.

"No, I have no middle name. Actually, I do but I don't put it on application forms. It's my nickname from when I was a boy, my friends used to call me by the first three letters of my last name. So for many years I was known as that. Some of them still say me so."

Wait a second, I wrote down his last name in my notebook at the start of the shift. So the first three letters...

"Your nickname is Gas?!"

"Yes."

"Do you know how that sounds here?"

"Yes, I don't use it much here."

I was greatly amused. :)

Although speaking of first impressions... this was his first time on the site, and he's being trained. You'd think he could do better than to fall asleep twice, don't you? Sigh.

Also, after taking him through a few times, I asked if he felt confident about what he had to do. He answered in the affirmative, so I let him lead me through on a patrol.

Now, I don't know about you, but the floor immediately beneath my feet doesn't need a lot in the way of observation. Yet despite that, that's where his eyes appeared to be focused the majority of the time.

Then he'd inexplicably dart into a cubicle and make a great show of examining everything in it.

He also managed to set off two different alarms, but that's not so bad as I'm hoping he'll remember that and not do it too much in the future. :P

As the morning came, he wandered off. Seriously, like for half an hour. And I couldn't find him! I think he went out to his car, but I didn't go out there to check. I have stuff to do.

Although more than a few of the regular staff asked about "Who's the new guy that looks like he just woke up (damn Lyle Lovett hair)?" Oi.

It also turns out that he balks at writing reports. And in fact I couldn't get him to write more than the time he showed up, and the time he left. I warned him that the client here likes to read what we do, but he assured me that nobody ever reads them and he bolted.

The S/S asked me to come in for the last three hours of his shift on my day off (that same day) and when I came in, he asked me about the guy. It seems the client was unhappy with a certain daily report... :P

So I talked to the guy about it, and wrote up a huge specific list of things for him to do. And when he came in at midnight, I left him to it. I hope the place won't be a burned out wreck when I go back on Sunday night. :P

On the bus ride down to the SkyTrain to do that three hour shift (I took the bus because why would I want to waste extra evening time walking on my day off? I wanted to spend maximum time away from work) there was a guy who sat across the aisle from me, boxing in the woman in the window seat. This guy stank.

And not just of days of unwashed sweat or the vagaries of his toilet habits. I'm not sure what it was, but it's odd that the smell of a mammal could suggest extreme cold.

The poor woman behind him tried to get up to move, but he said "Don't worry about it, I'm getting off before you." And he was right, but she had to enjoy the olfactory smorg he was offering for free for the entire ride. Poor her.

And the wonderfully quirky Squirrel found this great alarm clock, which I'd be most interested in buying just for the what the hell factor. Some people might think "No big deal, it was an obviously simple thing to do.", but you notice they didn't come up with it first, for all of its simplicity. Pure genius.

And once again, the US doesn't want itself held up to the same standards it applies to other people.

A bunch of US soldiers in Colombia have been arrested for smuggling cocaine, but the US has said that they are immune to prosecution in Colombia and must be returned to the US. Bite me, William Wood.