An interesting day at work..

It was a rather surprising day at work. Work seemed easy today. Different from the normal painful days that I encounter. The most interesting part was that I got up early today, a thing which had been almost unachievable for me. Days started with alarm on snooze and me reaching late to work. This morning I woke up 2 minutes before the alarm and rather than waiting for it to buzz I decided to take off from the bed. After passing through the daily chores of morning I found my cell ringing. Thinking it to be another of those alarms I picked it up and found it to be one of my friends who works in a night shift in India. Talking to her as I was dressing up I realised it had been long since I spoke with her. Reaching my office at an ungodly time was a first for me. I finished my work soon as I had to leave for Malaysia. Malaysia carries both pleasant and unpleasant memories depending on whether I went there for leisure or work respectively.
I started off in the taxi sleep deprived with my colleagues. Hungry as I was I searched some food in my bag. My luck I found a fruitcake slice I kept in my bag yesterday. Having that I slept off for a nice 45 minutes sleep in my cab. I was woken up by my colleagues just 2 minutes before I was about to reach the site.
The site was paint coatings manufacturing site. Paint manufacturing sites generally send shivers down a environmentalist's spine. But me being an environmental consultant and not an environmentalist, I repeat not an environmentalist (there is a big difference between the terms, try wikipedia), was looking forward to it. I had recently researched a lot about paint manufacturing sites and even did a site walkover at a Singapore facility. I was confident of conducting a Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment (ESA).
In my job Phase 1 ESA are very common. The work involves going to a site and assessing whether the current or historical site practices contribute to any environmental liabilities. In short, whether the site is doing any damage to environment or not. The job is very much a protocol job. That is you follow a set of questions and fill in the questionairre. I was unhappy last few months because I felt I had not much to learn as I was doing the same thing again and again and not learning much. Also I am not a protocol person. I like to do things in an intuitive way not bounded by anything.
This day was however different. I realised that even though I was doing the same things again and again, I was gaining some wisdom. I had been to many different industrial facilities in many countries. And I was learning something which no school would teach me. I was being enlightened to how an industrial facility works. What is recorded in the documents and what really happens.
The facility was awesome. Kickass as I would say in my newly picked up word. All the documentation in place. Air emission, water emission, hazardous waste all the tests done and in order and below the regulatory limits. I was happy that such a facility playing with all the hazardous materials can be in such a nice shape. The site representatives were one of the best I had seen.
But along my site walk I saw the wastewater treatment plant was overflowing. The site representative tried to put it in order but it took me ten minutes. Wonder how long that plant was overflowing and dumped how much of chemicals into the nearby sea. I was already thinking about the fishes. They would be cursing us I thought.
Anyways, the day came to an end at leisurely pace. I knew what to do as part of the job. Unfortunately I could not help the fishes a lot as my job was very protocol oriented. I finished my job and sped towards Singapore, but the traffic gave me enough time to finish this blog. Another thing that I was procrastinating. What a satisfying day!!!