Alleys

Okay, here are a few pix from today's workplace. This is the worst foot route I have. All alleys (except for 50 meters or so), and a long 466 meters in the Rittiman/Harry Wurzbach area. The top picture is from the beginning where it isn't quite so bad, the other two are from the jungles in the middle of the route. Toward the end they get not quite so bad again. The only thing good I can say about this route is that now it's a whole month before I have to do it again. If you look at the map, this route covers everything inside of Karen, Grantham, Rittiman and Corrine, plus a few in that triangle between Corrine and Harry Wurzbach.

Remember the summer of 2007 when it rained unremittingly? That's when I started this job, and I was still a rookie when I did this route for the first time. These alleys were mind-blowingly overgrown back then because of all the rain. These pix can't even begin to convey what they looked like a year and a half ago. But that wasn't the only problem.

They had been using some temps back then. One of them was a real squirrel-boy. He always came in late, he never spoke with anyone, and the expression constantly on his face made me think he was trying to decide if the time was, in fact, just right to commit mass murder. He was supposed to have been doing this route, but he wasn't. He was just punching in numbers and saying he did it. This caused all kinds of billing problems, of course, but for me personally it meant that the first time I did this route, I was the first person actually read those meters and actually go down those alleys in three months. I will never forget it. It was July 3, 2007. I remember because I can recall thinking, "well, at least tomorrow is a holiday." I have spoken with several customers who remember that summer well, because their bills were totally screwed up. It took me seven hours to do that route the first time. I can now do it in around 3 to 4 hours, depending on how many meters I have to backtrack and test. I've marked many of the meters with blue paint, but not all, and this winter after the overgrowth has had a chance to die down again I'm planning on remarking the entire route.