Maybe, or maybe the nature of the work. When the 2-star says 'no, absolutely, go take care of him' you don't feel like you're doing something wrong.Must be the new military.
I was pretty new to the job so when they sent me to do a site survey for a building we were redoing a part of I didn't really know anything about the building (and it was for a large organization that worked in tons of different areas). My coworkers certainly didn't say anything. I show up and, of course, my keycard doesn't open the doors so I have to ring for someone to let me in. He opens the door part way and gives me a skeptical glare.
"You're not a protester are you?"
Uh no. Why?
"We get those sometimes and they try to get in here."
Oh. Ok?
After I get inside I tell him why I'm there and he says "Oh right. They told me you would be coming." and hands me a key. "This opens some of the doors you'll need but you'll have to come back and get me for the back part of the building." So I go on my merry way and walk past a bunch of pretty non descript offices and whatnot to get to where I need to be. The first two large rooms were completely empty - having been cleared out in preparation for the work. The third was not. It was a 20'x35' room with several rows of shelving all of which were completely full of transparent bins. Since these bins were against every wall I had to move a few to get an accurate measurement of the room's dimensions. This meant I got a pretty good close up of the contents. Inside each bin were numerous individually wrapped and labeled cross sections of brains. I did notice that, while fairly large, they were too small to be an adult human brain. After a couple of blinks I think "Ah. Medical research"
So I finish up and go back to get the guy to let me in the other rooms. As we headed back there I asked about a room I had noticed earlier. It had a different security reader on it and the door was obviously much heavier duty. "That's where we keep the cocaine."
Oh. Of course.
When we get to the last room he tells me "You're really lucky."
Why is that?
"We just moved the last of the monkeys out. If you had come earlier you have to measure this last room while the monkeys throw poo at you." He thought that was very funny. I was just glad that no one was going to be throwing poo at me. Anyway it turns out this place studied the effects of cocaine (and other drugs at various times) and addition on the brains of monkeys.
When I got back to work everyone wanted to know how my visit to the 'Monkey House' went - obviously amused at having kept the new guy in the dark about his task.
Mines can be in really cool places. I used to backpack with my family a lot as a kid, many times we took trails that had an abandoned mine, some of the most vivid memories.Dealing with the radioactive dead dog landfill and the radioactive dead monkey landfill rise to the top of the list.
Then there was the guy who wanted to stop us from reclaiming an old mine because he wanted to use it as a set for a cowboy zombie movie. The mine was stupid dangerous and would have provided actual dead people had he tried to send people into it. Looking back, the guy was way ahead of his time as his plan predated the zombie craze of the past decade. He would have been famous.
That was a thriller. Thanks.On my way out of the plant for lunch one day, a guy carrying a towel was coming up to the door from the sidewalk and went in the door as I went out. I stood outside waiting for my buddy and heard screaming and a series of thuds. I ran back in and saw the guy who just went past me lunging (slowly and ineptly) at the receptionist with a foot-long kitchen knife - the missed swings hitting the desk making the thuds as she ran around the desk to avoid the knife. She ran out of her office and yanked the door shut, and a co-worker grabbed the doorknob and hung on to keep the guy from opening the door. I ran down the block to the police station, panted out what I saw and two cops jumped into a cop car and drove up to the plant.
By the time I ran back they were taking the guy out in handcuffs and now it was obvious he was stumbling drunk. The co-worker who was holding the door shut said the guy never tried to open it and was just sitting at the receptionist's desk when the cops told my co-worker to move away and went in with guns drawn.
Found out that the towel he was carrying was hiding the knife, and the guy was the receptionist's ex.
To make it weirder, the big VP insinuated that I should have realized the guy had no business going in the plant and stopped him. No matter that they regularly hired people on work-release to do manual labor and the receptionist's ex was better groomed and less intoxicated than many of those ex-cons.