Field Week of Doom Part 5: The Aftermath

Friday morning arrived and we still had no ride back to Albuquerque.  At 7am, I went down to the office and began making phone calls.  I called our office manager, who had no way to help us, and the fleet manager didn't have much advice either.  I was beginning to get nervous that we would be stuck in Reserve for a very long time.  My boss called later on that morning wanting to know more details about what happened.  I gave him a very abbreviated version of what I've already written here, while still making it clear that I was not the one driving and that Egghead completely ignored what I told him to do.  He seemed a little less mad after I explained that to him, but again, I really had no idea what he truly thought.

After I got to Reserve and dealt with all the crap from the night before, I was finally able to call Matt and tell him what was going on.  I called him with an update that morning, and we began discussing our options.  Back in Albuquerque, my own vehicle was due for an emissions test, which I had planned to do that weekend.  I thought that if I couldn't get back, Matt could at least do it for me.  He has an extra set of keys, but the car was currently parked behind the locked gate at my office.  So I was trying to figure out who I could get to let him past the security guards and into the back gate.  He was also seriously considering driving the four hours down to Reserve to pick me up.  How thoughtful! 

In the middle of our conversation, my boss called me and said that our other intern, who was currently down on the Arizona fire with him, would come pick us up.  This would also work out well for him, because he'd be able to stay in town and see his fiancee for the weekend.  I was so relieved!  I called Matt back to tell him the news and we packed up our camping gear to go home.

Intern 2 (known henceforth as J) arrived about 3 hours later and we were finally on our way back to Albuquerque.  While I was making a pit stop buying some ice at the Reserve gas station, Egghead filled J in on what happened.  I didn't get to hear everything he said but I'm sure he did what he could to make himself look less bad.  J informed us that the members of the fire assessment/remediation team (who are also on my soils crew) had been taking bets on who had been driving.  He said that he had bet it was Egghead, but he wouldn't say what the other people thought.  Probably because they thought it was me.  They have so much faith in me.  Ha. 

On the way back, I tried to be conversational (I'm not very good at that, but I'm working on it) by asking J about his upcoming wedding.  He told me that, for the ceremony, they had been able to rent out a spot on top of the Sandias for around $30.  How cool is that?  And their reception would be at the Hotel Parq Central, which is a newly renovated hotel that once used to be a psychiatric hospital.  I'm pretty sure it's haunted, but it's definitely a swank hotel.  It even has a fancy schmancy rooftop bar.

Anyway, we finally made it back and I went home soon after that, considering it was around 6 or 7 pm by that time.  It's been two weeks since then and I've been in the office ever since.  Part of me is happy about this, mainly because I don't particularly want to go with Egghead, which I probably won't.  He's shown up maybe about 3 times in the past two weeks, and he hasn't really done much work besides a half-ass job of reorganizing my boss' cubicle (after our carpet replacement) and reading some soils books.  Every time I see him, he just gets on my nerves more and more, though I'm really trying to push that aside and be nice.

My boss is on leave and then going out on another fire next week, and he says I can't go back out to the field until we've discussed what happened, blah blah.  It annoys me because I wasn't even the one who did anything wrong, yet I feel like I'm being punished for it.  He sent an email to everyone on our crew (including me), thanking them for doing such a great job on the AZ fire.  To me, this was like a slap in the face.  I'm sure he didn't mean for me to take offense, but it was kind of like, "Everyone's doing an awesome job, except you." 

But whatever.  I've been getting a lot of work done in the office and it's been nice not having to waste my weekends planning and packing for yet another week in the field.  That is one of my most hated parts of field season.  The anticipation and stress leading up to actually getting there.  But for now, I'll be here, hanging out at my apartment and writing in this blog (and the other one) and doing whatever else it is that office bound people do in the summertime.