Work Stories: Episode 30: Rodents

Previously on Work Stories, I wrote about…what did I write about?  Let me go check.  Ah yes.  I wrote about two people who were caught having sex in our bathroom.  I believe that’s what I wrote about.  This time, I’ll move onto another story that isn’t about sex.  What will it be, what will it be?

It’s probably about time that I go back to a story about me working at the New Year’s concerts.  It’s been a while since I’ve told you one of those stories.  Why not share another one?  This one is about animals and how brave they can be in certain situations.  I’m not talking about people.  In this specific case, I am describing squirrels.

I worked at this New Year’s concert for two years.  The basic concept of what the job was is this.  There was an empty park down by the river.  We would put a stage in this park, set up the lighting and audio equipment, and operate the concert when the time came.  On New Year’s Eve, people would show up and pack into the space in the park to watch music be performed.  Who performed isn’t important.  The night of isn’t important.  This Work Story happened leading up to the concert.

Part of the job involved building the tower for the lighting and audio boards to be housed in.  It was like a real life application of K’Nex.  Big metal bars that you link together in the same way you would link K’Nex pieces.  This tower would be located in the middle of the field, so that the spotlights could shine from the tower to the stage.  However, some of the pieces to build the tower were on the other side of the stage.

In order to get to where these pieces of the tower were located, we would have to go all the way around everything.  This meant going to the edge of the park, lined with trees, and walking around the perimeter, only to cut back in toward the stage once we were on the other side.  That was because of fencing, trailers, and machinery.  You had to go all the way around.

Like I said, the path to the pieces was lined with trees.  This is where the squirrels come into play.

In my experience, most squirrels run away when they see a person.  They will dart up a tree, staying on the other side.  They don’t want to be bothered, and they don’t want to bother you.  That was not the case at this park.  The squirrels here were vicious little buggers.  Everytime someone would go down that path, the squirrels would evacuate the trees and follow them.  The squirrels would try to snatch at their feet.  These squirrels were territorial.  They felt the need to go after anyone on their turf.

I’ve never seen squirrels like that anywhere else.  It’s the only time I’ve seen squirrels that protective.  I hope to never experience squirrels like that again.  They were insane.

That’s this week’s work story.  Yeah, I know it’s not that great.  I’m just not in the right headspace to write right now.  I’m not sad.  I’m the farthest thing from it.  I’m simply not in a writing mood.  But I had to get the Work Story out there.  Sometimes the craft suffers because of a deadline.  Sorry about that.

Until next time, make them make the first move.