On Mar 4, 8:49*am, Swingman wrote:
On 3/3/2013 1:40 PM, willshak wrote:

The only thing I left behind in the walls were beer cans. Of course,
these were after the day's work was done.

Arguably the product of a sophomoric, immature, dickhead mentality

No kidding. Some children seem to think they are "getting away" with
something when they pull some sort of minor conduct violation. If I
see that on my job, the whole group of beer drinkers will pay to have
the cans removed, and if necessary, the walls repaired. I don't give
on crap if no one saw it, or if no one ever sees it. It is a slap in
the face to me and those that work on my jobs that take pride in what
they do.

And if you let the small stuff like that go, like children, the boys
on the job immediately set out to find their "boundaries".


Nowadays, with our much ballyhooed cultural diversity, on construction
sites it's more likely beer cans in the plumbing ... shortly after the
National soccer team, from whatever third world country the
electrician's crew came from, got beat by the National soccer team, from
wherever the plumber's crew came from.

That, and/or a bit of feces and urine left behind the master bedroom
closet walls ... in retribution for coming from a "have not" origin??
You tell me ...

Odd, isn't it? I try to be respectful of other cultures, but ****ting
in a closet, peeing in the insulation, or crapping in a tub seems like
a strange way to express national pride for one's country. However,
that seems to be the way to express pride and sadness, and on some
jobs I have been on there has been ample instances of both. I always
wonder though, where does it stop? Do they crap in one another's
living rooms to show their pride or sense of loss? In one another's
cars? On one another? (Around here the popular method of expressing
one's cultural heritage is to shoot or stab someone that doesn't get
or respect your national heritage.) All confusing to me.

As you can see I am still learning about cultural diversity and its
meanings and traditions.

Maintaining a clean, safe construction site these days is more like
cleaning up after a herd of incontinent three year olds, too lazy to
walk downstairs to the portapotty, to not having ever learned that the
used toilet paper goes into that big hole under their butts, instead of
on the floor.

I will spare any descriptions that would make it sound like chest
pounding on my part to describe what I do if I find a excremental
transgression inside one of my projects. That is not only profoundly
disrespectful to me, but to my company and my clients. And it casts a
cloud on those that work with/for me as well. I don't seem to have a
lot of boundaries though when it comes to dealing with this behavior,
and while they all know who did "it", few will respond, so all will
pay.

On my jobs, there is no smoking. Period. No dipping or chewing,
either. Any of those can lead to termination. At break or at lunch
smokers can burn one at the street or at least 100 feet from the
house, and the butts go in their pocket or in the back of their
truck. Not on my job site.

No loud music of any kind, so no classic country jamboree, no Nazi
talk radio, or la musica de mis padres. All large tatoos must be
covered and I am the sole arbitor on that issue. No shirtless
workers, ever. All baseball style caps must have the bills face
forward unless the person wearing it is digging, roofing, or
performing another task that keeps him head down (bill covering his
neck) working.

No swearing unless one is surprised. For example, none of the "hand
me the GD hammer, or lend me your MF pencil, or let's get F'n going".
However, and exception is made if you shoot yourself in the hand with
a nailer, receive a large cut or step on a nail. Included in this
caveat is the discussion of the night's previous sexual escapades by
the younger guys, and the constant whining bitching of the married
guys. I work in a lot of occupied structures, and my clients don't
need to hear about either of those issues.

Lunch is eaten in the proscribed area, with trash disposed of in a
barrel provided by me. If the job is a short, one week job, workers
eat in their trucks and their trash stays in there for them to dispose
of themselves. Ditto if they have a snack. Blowing trash and debris
from jobsites has been such a problem here we have an ordinance
against it that carries a hefty fine to.... wait for it... the
General Contractor. I must say, this ordinance has done its work; one
rarely, if ever sees blowing trash around any job site any more around
here. Imagine the look of a contractor's face when getting a $250
bill for a blowing shingle wrapper or a burger joint bag. And with
all the great phones out there, folks can simply take their pictures
of the site conditions and send them in to the city code compliance
division for investigation.

If anyone does get a soft drink by me, they will clean up the sugary
residue of a spill on their own time. To avoid conflict and friction
with someone trying to do their job as well as work for me to serve my
interests, I take the high road and simply stop their time until it is
cleaned up to my satisfaction. Minimum 20 minutes, or a third of an
hour.

No worker, regardless of job hierarchy, years in the business or
status is allowed to talk to homeowners, architects or clients unless
allowed by me. Their response is: "ask Robert". Unless they have
been authorized to say something personally by me, they better dummy
up. They are allowed to pass on a question to me, but need to be
judicious about their employment status if they decide to answer one.
Rarely does the biggest mouth on the job have any idea of what is
going on, and that idiot is the one that usually has the opinion he
needs to share with everyone.

One would think I would have problems finding guys to work for me with
the above mentioned in mind. Not so. Most of the guys I work with
respond very well to all of the above. They like a well disciplined
job where everyone toes the same line. While the party line when
someone sees something wrong it "that isn't any of my doing or
business", they know what is right or wrong and like the fact someone
cares enough to follow up to make sure the job stays on the right
track.

Over the years, I have found that the tone I set for the job sets the
whole tone of the job. I could burst with pride if I hear one of my
guys say "you better hope Robert doesn't see that... you better fix
that right now before he gets back".

That kind of supervision takes a lot of time and effort, as Karl said,
"you" pay for it. I believe you can pay me for the additional
headaches of being my kind of contractor, or you can take on the
responsibilities avoided by my colleagues when they don't use my same
business model. I miss a lot of work because most folks would rather
take a cheaper bid and cry like children to anyone that will listen if
they don't get what they want.

Still, at this point in my moderately successful business I would
rather take on a job on my terms rather than to have one I lose sleep
over every night or spend my days apologizing to clients.

Robert