Re: Working in Mexico

[ABLE1 <somewhere@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 3/28/2021 5:02 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
> As came up in one thread I have had a customer or two in Mexico.  I
> won't get into all the technicalities of legally doing that.  I'm sure
> it all changed anyway.  It did a couple times over the course of time
> when I was working in Mexico.
>
> One day working on time and materials they had me "supervising a trench
> that needed to be dug over to a guard shack for cameras and network
> cable.  The site managers told me, just make sure it gets done.  We do
> not expect you do anything but supervise.  They were basically paying me
> by the hour to just stand there.
>
> I told the workers the trench needed to be three feet deep.  I grabbed a
> push pull rod out of the truck and marked it at three feet with a piece
> of tape.  They got to around two feet and the guy with the the gage
> would jam it hard into the bottom of the trench and with the tape mark
> still above the pile of dirt next to the trench ask, "Ta bien?"Â  After
> about fifteen times of this I grabbed a pick and a shovel out of my
> truck and jumped down in the trench.
>
> I dug a short section down to a little over 3 feet and called out, "Esta
> aqui es bien.  La otra es mallo."  I saw a few frowns, but I ignored it.
>  Â They were paying my hourly rate, and I was already in the trench so I
> just kept digging.  As I worked I noticed the various workers were
> disappearing to other things.  When I got about half way down the trench
> I met up with one older guy who was still working.  I looked past him to
> see the rest of the trench behind him had been properly dug down to an
> acceptable depth.  As we clear the last few shovel fulls out of the
> middle we looked up and he grinned at me.  He didn't say a word, but to
> this day I believe he was thinking, "Yeah!  You didn't out work me
> gringo!"Â  He made me grin too.
>

That's funny!!

Some day it is hard to understand the lack of work ethic!!

Up here in PA we have certain builders that sub contract out drywall
jobs.  The subs pull in crews that as we locals call it drywall crews
from "Southern Texas". The drywall gets done and then someone else has
to fix it and make it look good.  On a recent project there was
some electrical installed and needed to be live for lighting.  The
electrician installed wall plates for safety reasons on certain boxes
for switches and receptacles that were hot.  The Southern Texas crew
installed the drywall on the wall and made the box cut around the the
outside of the plate.  Needless to say that needed a local fix.
There were others boxes that they used a router to cut the hole for
the receptacle box directly in to the outlet and the sparks flew!!!

There were so many other bad stuff done.  When the owners showed up
for a walk thru I decided that I needed to leave the site till
another day.  I heard later that the owner was asking for compensation
for all the extra work that was needed for the job.  Don't know how it
balanced out but the job was finally finished and looks good.

Les