One Man And His Plank

My office window overlooks what must be the most eventful road junction on the hospital site. Last week there was a mini flood, which was manfully battled by a maintenance chap who'd happended to be sat there in his van as the waters rose around him. He ended up crouching in the murky waters with his arm down the blocked drain up to his shoulder pulling out various nasty things until the level began to fall again. Rather him than me. We've had the scaffolding lorry, which occasionally pulls up, men get out, rattle poles for a bit and then drive away again without anything conspicuous having been acheived. We've had a cabling truck, and men rolling those large cotton-reel things about. And then we had the line-painting man, armed with two planks, a bit of nifty footwork and a mate with a steaming bucket of paint. With all this to watch, it's amazing any work gets done at all really.