Another day of minioning looms.* And then it gets harder.
With just a teeny bit of luck, today will be the last day Handyman Mike is on the Big Scary Bathroom Project (BSBP). Today, the flooring gets laid, the clawfoot tub should be hauled in, and some protective materials be tacked around still-unfinished portions of the exterior. Hauling in the tub requires removing a door and its frame and possibly knocking out a section of wall. So we shall see how that goes.
With Mike gone, it’s my turn to go beyond minioning. Before God-the-Plumber arrives on Tuesday, I need to finish putting up drywall, do as much taping and mudding as I can, then wainscot (can that be a verb?) the wall behind the tub. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
But I’ll be so glad to have Mike gone.
I like Mike. He’s honest and friendly and intelligent. He’s willing to have a client working side-by-side with him — the stuff of some contractor’s worst nightmares. We work well together. But on this project more than any other, his … how to put this? … well-known lack of motivation has been a constant hair-raiser. Although he worked all weekend (which is terrific and I hope I don’t sound like an ingrate), he only has to do that because he prefers five or six hour days (I sympathize totally, but not so much when the project has a fixed deadline). Getting him to show up on time, jump right in and hustle, and stay long enough to meet goals has been a frazzlement.
He’ll agree one afternoon that we need to start earlier, then the very next morning he’ll mosey in at 10:00 (he always — faithfully — calls to say he’s running late). He’ll agree we need to get X things done in a day, then cheerfully suggest postponing something just because he wants to leave early. His Perpetual Life Crisis (in the final stages of resolution) has led him to both long, task-filled lunches and fuzzy concentration. Again, I’m sympathetic, BUT.
I don’t like being a hardass, but yesterday I finally had to say NO AND HELL NO to putting off a crucial step of preparation for today’s jobs, and for the first time he worked a full day (even if it did begin at 10:00 a.m.).
And by early evening, for the first time, we were caught up. Whew.
The work I have to do on my own may be tiring, but I’m much more at peace when I don’t have to rely on somebody else whose sense of time doesn’t match mine. Mike is a very relaxed, good-humored guy, and in his own way reliable, which puts him above many others. He’s kind to the dogs and he gives me a favorable rate, which I appreciate. But oh my goodness.
Ahem. Anyhow, I’ve been taking in-progress pictures. But you know, there’s just nothing interesting looking about a 7 x 8 foot square room with patchy drywall installed and gunky crack-filler on the floor. It looks utterly, absolutely, luxuriously fabulous to me. But the camera says it looks like the interior of a tarpaper shack. So maybe more pix when the BSBP is closer to complete.
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Sorry, jed, but still without appropriate headgear.
Just another hidden cost of the welfare state. You are doing well to get someone like Mike in this age of “don’t work, the government will take care of you”. Back in the old days workers were motivated by empty bellies, the consequence of a piss-poor work ethic. That and the need to maintain a reputation.
My wife used to have employees in her various entrepreneurial pursuits. I finally asked her why she bothered. It’s mostly not worth the effort. She finally got rid of them. No wonder kids have trouble finding work any more. Why hire someone of marginal use, and unproven? It’s more and more difficult to get rid of the ones who don’t turn out well.
Everything government touches turns to shit.
I don’t know how much Mike himself is influenced by the modern mentality (though he’s a political liberal, which I find odd in these parts). I think he’s just an older guy and the laid back sort and about as good as I can afford.
He sure is affected by the welfare mentality in the minion department, though! For a while he had a pair of excellent minions, but both were ambitious and headed off to school, internships and such. One of those was with us until Sunday. Before that, he had one he had to fire because the kid was too tied up in the drug scene and no matter how Mike warned him that he could NOT allow an assistant with those troubles to work in people’s houses, the boy just wouldn’t give up the druggie associations.
Now he’s trying to hire a minion again. So just yesterday here was our minion experience.
A. A young father was supposed to start working with us first thing in the a.m. Mike figures he’ll be motivated because he’s got a baby to support. The guy calls to say he’s got a flat tire. And of course, no jack. So a 15-minute inconvenience becomes a crisis. One p.m., just as Mike is going to lunch, the guy finally shows. But he won’t come in the yard because he’s scared of the dogs. Mike shows him a job outside the fence that he can do, but it’s a grubby one (sorting through and stacking the great heap of construction rubble). He says he’s nervous about working alone and he’ll come back when Mike’s lunch is over. After lunch, he no longer answers Mike’s calls.
B. 2:30 p.m. Second potential minion answers the ad Mike’s got in the paper. He’s got construction experience. Knows framing. Mike’s about to start a small framing job. Guy says he’ll be right over. Calls half an hour later to say he can’t be there.
I continue minioning.
Meanwhile all connected with the business shake their heads over the way so many young men are desperate — just desperate! — for work but don’t grasp that to be hired they have to show up on time, be clean and sober, and do the job.
“Meanwhile all connected with the business shake their heads over the way so many young men are desperate — just desperate! — for work but don’t grasp that to be hired they have to show up on time, be clean and sober, and do the job.”
It is, unfortunately, not limited to young men.
A Wainscot is a man with a wagon and a kilt.
I am my Father’s favorite minion. I have been in training for 50 years. Unfortunately for my Dad my usefulness has to be scheduled around my full time job. Dad had a good minion for hire but the old guy almost died of a severe heart attack (not while working) and was told to retire, he was 65. Dad has tried a couple of homeless guys with actual skills but they couldn’t be counted on to show up and their quality of work was dependent on how bad the withdrawal was. We were training my son-in-law, but he is allergic to hard work and had to be retrained every day. My favorite minion a good worker with skills keeps going adventuring to foriegn lands.
“A Wainscot is a man with a wagon and a kilt.”
Grrrrrrrrrroooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!
Been there, done that while we were building our home 15 years ago. I was essentially unskilled labor/odd job guy/trash picker upper when an extra hand was needed, scheduler so the trades didn’t trip over each other and the guy who dealt with the building inspector. Gurrrrrr. During that time I was as busy as a one armed paper hanger, every day was different with new problems cropping up. And yes I even used under the table trades guys. My only criteria was if the person could get the job done on time, on budget I hired him/her, if not he was gone and in one case I actually had to fire a guy. So Claire I know what you are going through. Just keep thinking about what the end product will look like, that’s what kept me going.
My young friends now say that anyone can wait tables and bus–they volunteered to help out a slightly older friend’s caterer at the friend’s wedding reception. They waited tables, filled glasses, bused and washed dishes. The caterer told the bride that people kept asking where she got the “very efficient” servers and busers. She was so pleased with their work that she insisted on paying them the standard wage. The difference was that they were willing to work even if they didn’t expect to get paid. They haven’t yet decide that work is a bad word. Maybe it was grunt work, but work calls for the right attitude no matter what it is.
I agree totally with the main points, that there are lots of folks who think jobs exist solely to provide them with a Living Wage.
That said, the kind of person Claire wishes for will be busy doing something much more challenging than helping her repair a fixer-upper, and earning a lot more than she can pay.
The kind of kids you find in 4-H and other such programs, run by their very-involved but not helicopter parents, are all right.
“That said, the kind of person Claire wishes for will be busy doing something much more challenging than helping her repair a fixer-upper, and earning a lot more than she can pay.”
Oh, ain’t that the truth. Mike is as good as it’s likely to get for what I can afford. The only way I might get somebody better is to find someone who’s new to the area or otherwise just getting established. But that’s a crapshoot, of course, and if the person’s work and attitude are really great, he’ll quickly move beyond me and my goofy old house.
Perhaps the would-be minions have their own problems. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2839455/Why-hunching-phone-gives-pain-Image-shows-tilting-head-puts-four-STONE-extra-pressure-neck.html
At first glance, I thought you wrote that you had a gunky cracker on the floor.