Pilings

Nothing happened.

Confused, I stepped back from the spray-chalk surveyor's mark I had just made, indicating where the to-bedrock piling was to be driven in. I looked down at my radio, then looked up at the cabin of the foundation-laying machine. I waved. The operator waved. I waved at the piling mark. The operator waved vaguely back.

A sure sign of insanity is trying the same thing over and over...

I glanced at the piling four marks back. That time it had worked, albeit with some careful preparation. The machine had pounded the durasteel column clear to bedrock in two strokes, complete with a four-foot-diameter head run through with connection points for the building's superstructure. I had gone over it--it was perfectly aligned with the survey, well within the generous 1/4" tolerance the architect had allowed us.

I looked at the six piling-free marks behind it.

...expecting different results.

I looked down at my blueprint, paced off the approximate location of the next piling, and set down the surveyor's rig. With a few chirps and some button pressing, it sidled its way to the location of the next piling. As it made little adjusting motions I sighed, reflecting on the combination of orbital positioning bases, local sounding array, and signal processing the little robot relied on to do its work. I looked around carefully and, satisfied with its position, pressed the red button right in the center of the top of the device. It obediently popped into the air and started sweeping a laser across the ground in the shape of a surveryor's mark. I grunted, pulled the spray can off my belt, and deftly copied the bright red light pattern into bright white chalk. It was simple enough to then pluck the hovering bot out of the air and take several steps back.

"Alright, drop it in!" I declaimed into the radio.

Silence from the speaker; the machine remained motionless. Again.

When I looked up to wave despondently at the cabin, the operator was down from it and walking towards me.

"Well, sorry we didn't get much done. My shift's over; same time tomorrow?"

My thoughts swirled, and I attempted to find some order in the chaos. What had the op been doing up there? Why was dropping a piling so hard that one of seven attempts was flat ignored? WHERE WERE YOU??

I nodded dumbly.

The op looked at the empty marks, back at me, said, "We'll do better tomorrow. This is hard."

I nodded dumbly. Again.

The highly trained specialist walked away.

Turning, I ran my eyes across the seventy-three piling marks made on the job site in the weeks prior. There was neither rhyme nor reason to which ones had been missed and which ones had been placed with that same, unerring precision.

The boss had made it clear that the op was just as important to the project as I was. There was no rank to pull to get things done (as if that would actually work anyhow), and conversations with the op--when they actually happened--tended to resemble the one that had just taken place.

You know, I'm pretty bad at communicating with the op. This is my fault, I thought to myself. I hardly even know what's wrong, let alone how to fix it. I'll ask tomorrow, and we'll get this sussed out, and this'll work marvellously and the structure will be beautiful, if only I can remember what it's supposed to be...