Watching a crew without becoming a hazard

The worst place to stand is in the path between the cage and the van. The second worst is at a leading hand’s elbow during a lift. We ask the host, on the first morning, for a patch of floor that is already dead space: beside a skip, behind a parked ute, at the far end of a bench that is not in the day’s sequence.

Notebooks close when someone is on a ladder, when a sterile wrapper is opening, and when a voice is raised because a load is moving. The tally can wait ten minutes. A person cannot.

Crews smell a staged kit. Foam that was blown out at knock-off does not look like foam that has been sat on for six months. If a host restages the night before, we still write what we see at ten o’clock — which is often the staged kit being quietly dismantled back to the ordinary mess. That wastes a fee. Tell people we are coming. Do not dress the bench.

Optional talks happen at smoko or after knock-off, not mid-task. Anyone may walk away. The objects still sit where they sit, and that is enough for a large part of the account.