On The Third Day…Instead Of Rising From The Dead

I Went Home Early...


OK, after taking yesterday off, I decided to go back into the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” and follow up on some loose ends to my “Day Labor” story. As I previously mentioned, I had serious concerns about the safety factors involved in this jobsite in their rush to make an impossible deadline, and today my worst fears were realized.

After making the early morning trek across the causeway again, I found myself dispatched on a “high paying” ($7.00/hr) concrete chipper job working with an electrical contractor. So good so far—higher pay for standing in a few places all day making dust and concrete chips.

Due to circumstances that occurred on Tuesday relating to being responsible for a bunch of “crack heads” and otherwise unsavory non-voters, I elected to drive myself back to SSI and catch the bus solo to the Cloister jobsite.

I got lucky and almost stepped on the little guy that was my boss as soon as I walked into the building. After identifying myself, I was then “towed” around the building as he went about his morning rounds, watched him deliver a good “butt chewing” to five foremen, and finally he unceremoniously delivered me to a position outside the front entrance of the hotel where I was expected to spend the next 8 hours.

The “rocket scientist” (and I use that term loosely) that was in charge of my life and my paycheck today insulted me and my lunch within the first fifteen seconds I was in position to go to work.

The first words out of his mouth were something to the effect of “hey you, climb up here”—the words being delivered from a rack of scaffolding six feet off of the ground. He was impatient as I looked for somewhere to stash my lunch bag, and once I had climbed up on the scaffolding he proceeded to point to a line drawn with a magic marker on a raw concrete wall and said something like “chisel this out 1” wide…1” deep.” Then he pointed to an “X” on the adjacent wall and said to drill a 1” hole here, all the way through (about 22” of concrete.)

He then climbed down off of the platform and disappeared as another guy uncoiled an extension cord and thrust a 30 pound electric chipper onto my scaffolding board. For those non-construction “laymen” and “laywomen” (no pun intended) out there, by an “electric concrete chipper” I actually mean a small handheld “jackhammer.” It consists of a big electric motor with an 18” chisel “bit” sticking out of the front end of it.

The idea is to hold the “chipper” against the solid concrete wall and push on it with your body weight and arms while it eats away at the hard material. I am pleased to admit that I made it through the cutting of a 1” wide x 1” deep trench in my concrete beam about three feet long in about 45 minutes. I am sorry to admit that I am now deaf in my right ear and have concrete coated lungs and sinuses as a bonus prize.

I was elated.

My hearing will probably return to it’s normal poor levels, but I will probably die of silicosis next year, because my highly paid employers did not have hearing protection and a respirator mask available for use by their two low paid “day laborers.”

This situation is actually against the law based on OSHA regulations, but I’m probably one of three people on the entire jobsite that actually cares about or even knows this fact.

While I was making cement dust, my fellow “day laborer” was supposed to be hoisting a 30 pound heavy duty electric drill with an 18” long, 1” diameter concrete bit over his head and drilling through an adjacent 20” thick concrete beam. This amazing feat was supposed to be accomplished while standing atop a 10’ fiberglass ladder.

My co-worker gave up before I did this morning, since the giant drill kept trying to toss him off of the aforementioned ladder while in the heat of drilling about 2” deep into the concrete over a period of one half hour.

When my co-worker complained about the difficulty of his task and his safety concerns, our so-called “supervisor” suggested that he ask me to do the drilling, thereby risking my life and safety rather than his own. Meanwhile, I was freaking out working on my personal rickety scaffolding since I only had one 24” wide scaffolding board to stand on.

I also took command of the giant drill and managed to force the bit about 4" into my designated piece of concrete before I realized that it was going to twist my arms into a human knot if I didn't get a more stable place on which to stand while conducting my drilling operations.


When break time came at 9:15 AM, I waited for a half hour to speak with our “boss man”, but when he never showed up in the work area I made an executive decision (something usually outside the scope of responsibilities of average "day laborers")and excused myself for the day's employment, had a security guard call a shuttle bus, and I carried my Redneck Ass home for the day.

On my way out of the property, I had to wait a half hour due to a traffic delay relating to an Ambulance and Fire Truck that had responded to help some poor slob that had broken his ankle in a fall.

"There go I, but for the grace of God," I thought to myself.

You see, “Safety” isn’t just a slogan, and good safety isn’t had by “accident.”

Safety is a conscious decision to look at what you are trying to accomplish, and spend the time and money to get the manpower, equipment, and training to do the task.

Macho combined with ignorance equal death and injury. I prefer "mucho" dinero for "minimal" macho--something apparently not found in the "day labor" business.

When it is all said and done, throwing cheep labor, insufficient tools, and lack of supervision at a given project just ends up injuring or killing people, breaking materials and tools, and ruining someone’s Mother’s day.

I, personally, like it when my Mother is happy at the end of the day.