Burning Man - The Work

It's been so long since I last wrote that I'm assuming my only reader left is my mother. That being said, here's an update.

Burning Man this year was a mixture of good and bad. From the working side it all went remarkably smoothly. There were a few key individual co-workers who's lack of work ethic hampered things greatly and were a constant frustration. But despite them the operation has been fine tuned over the years and is starting to run quite well.

I have worked on the radar for a number of years. In a nutshell I watch a radar screen and can spot people trying to enter the city from any direction other than the gate; thereby avoiding the cost of the ticket. I can spot vehicles, but also bicycles, and even pedestrians as far as two miles out walking across the open desert in the dead of night. The night shift is the one I enjoy most.

This year prior to the event the shifts were extremely uneventful and boring. One night for example the biggest excitement we had was one car load of stoned people who simply missed the turn and had to be redirected to the main entrance. They all had their tickets and so were definitely not trying to break in.

I expected the excitement to pick up once the event was actually going and people were arriving in far greater numbers. It never happened. Each shift passed by as slowly as the last. I work alone but I'm in radio contact with the folks outside the fence that do the actual chasing of the would-be fence crashers. To keep ourselves awake and amused we turned to writing haikus about working Perimeter. I didn't copy any down to share, but hopefully I will have some to print later.