Anyone remember that movie, Ledge of the Moro? I honestly don’t remember much about it…something about people cliff-diving while eating terrible off-brand chocolate. Also, aliens. Creepy CG aliens that didn’t move like normal living creatures, which I guess was a deliberate design choice to make them seem even more unsettling. Hard to describe, but they were all shifty and warpy, like they were characters in an online game with loads of lag.

That was how I felt going into work today. Jim brought along that new set of mobile aluminium scaffolding that he’s been raving about for so long, he empties it out of the box and it just…sets itself up. It landed in a huge pile, all loose and higgledy-piggledy. Just a pile of metal. Then it starts to hum and sets itself up, this massive bit of scaffolding assembling bit by bit until it’s absolutely huge. Honestly? Really unsettling to watch. Not sure why this was necessary either, because the guys and I don’t usually have any problems setting up the scaffolding. It’s not exactly the hardest puzzle in the world once you’ve done it a few times, and then you get the satisfaction of knowing you’ve handled every piece of the thing you’ll be walking on.

Unfortunately, the boss was totally fine with the weird moving metal thing, and we had to spend most of the day on top of it. Can’t say I was too happy about climbing that thing, and even less about spending time up there, but it at least felt okay. Definitely didn’t feel like a flimsy thing that just assembled itself but…still makes me uneasy. I like my custom ladders to be just that: custom, set up by me. I don’t even care if Lawrence Corp brings out a construction bot that does our job for us, aluminium platform setting up and all…it just makes me nervous.

-Neville