Lately, there’s been a lot of construction going on a The Smartguy’s office. By lately, I mean about the last year or so. While there have been some loud days, most of the time the construction workers do their best to keep the noise down. They understand that they have a job to do, but so do the people in the cubicles all over the building they’re working on. But not today’s dumbass!

If every construction worker was that respectful, would I be writing this story? Those of you who answered no, congratulations. Those of you whose first thought was “Why, sure! Everyone loves construction workers!”, you might want to check back next week, because there might be a story about you on this very blog. Anyway, so I come in to the office on Monday morning, and the construction has moved to the area around the corner from where I sit. It was bound to happen eventually, right?

At about 11:00 AM, the actual construction work started (nice hours), and I started hearing a constant noise that was being produced by a power drill or power sander of some kind. Perhaps it was a cutting tool, even. I don’t know. This noise would go on for about a minute or two at a time, stop for a few seconds, and then continue on for another several minutes… OK, I thought, that’s annoying, but the fact that it was a constant noise made it easy to push into the background, and I continued working.

Suddenly, I heard some whistling. Ok that’s really annoying, but at least he was humming an actual tune, and not just random noises like the guy in my building they call “The Whistler” (There will definitely be more about him some day). So that would have been OK, only the whistling seemed to get louder. Then, every once in a while, Construction Man would belt out a verse from the song he was singing. Without getting too specific, I can tell you it was a Matchbox 20 song (let’s find construction guy a more current station to listen to).

I soon realized he was only singing one specific line from the song, and it wasn’t even the chorus! Who picks a random line from a song and sings it out loud the entire day? He must have had that song running through his mind all day. I mean we’ve all been there. A song just gets stuck in there, you can’t get rid of it. The difference is I don’t sing it out loud over and over. I learned my lesson when I was 16 and someone I worked with at KB Toys told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should refrain from singing that particular song ever again, or he would introduce me to the bottom of his shoe.

Ok so the drilling, the whistling and the random singing of one line from a song all day long was a little annoying. I’m not a monster though, the guy was working by himself with no one else to talk to. Sometimes we get lonely and lash out for attention. The Smartguy understands, Construction Man. The Smartguy understands…

What I don’t understand, however, is why Construction Man then got on his cell phone to discuss company business at the top of his lungs. Mixed in with his laughing and his dumb jokes that I’m sure make his coworkers hate him (probably why he works alone), I found out that he’s got only three hours of overtime left, and how he needed more. Then he negotiated some kind of deal to get more overtime that may or may not have been shady (you know how construction people are). If you’re going to discuss what random debauchery to commit regarding your overtime pay, should you not go outside, or anywhere else that isn’t full of people? The Smartguy is no snitch, but you never know who is around the office, or if someone from your company is listening around the corner. Now you’re getting indicted by the federal government because you decided to be loud and annoying.

I’m not saying all construction workers are loud and annoying. Usually the only annoying thing the construction guys do around my office is track dirt on the floors or take a couple parking spots (the worst!), but you know one dumbass Construction Man apple always spoils the bunch, as they say. What a dick. Why don’t you take your tools and build yourself a soundproof (and probably dumbass-proof) box to do your work in, before everyone hates you?

image courtesy of: http://muppet.wikia.com