Re: Working in Mexico

[ABLE1 <somewhere@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 3/30/2021 10:50 AM, Bob La Londe wrote:
> On 3/28/2021 2:02 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?"
>> 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. 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.
>>
>>
>
>
> I should add in all fairness I was getting paid $80/hr to be there.  He
> was probably being paid about $4.  US companies in Mexico have to pay an
> inordinately higher wages than Mexican companies the way I understand
> it.  $4 an hour was fantastic wages in Mexico at the time.
>