LowBoy
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2006
- Messages
- 1,149
- Location
- Southern Vt. on the Mass./NH borders
- Occupation
- Owner, Iron Mountain Iron & Equipment (Transport)
It seems you can't win for losin' sometimes. I get a job that seemed to be the answer to all of life's problems 2 months ago, with a hvy. hwy. contractor in New England as an operator with the option of becoming a crew leader. 15 minutes from home, and a 2 year project. So far, I'm miserable, and not alone.
Since day one, there hasn't been a single day that we have had a full day's work on one single task. No crew structure, just bounce around doing "odd jobs" all day long. Makes for a long day watching the clock for 12+ hours.
We started out with 15 workers on this site, and myself along with several others have been floundering around for things to keep us busy. Desperation sets in every so often, and we resort to stupid little laboring jobs like picking up the site. Today I slipped in with the concrete crew helping them set up for a pour. Kind of a waste of good qualified people in my opinion, but "work is work" I keep saying.
Now it wasn't bad enough that 15 of us are going through this on this site, but now we just inherited another 16 workers, from another division in another state. Their workload is done for the year, and instead of taking a layoff in September, they were given the option to come down and work with us. That's fine, but now THEY'RE doing what we would have been.:Banghead There's a rumor of that same amount of men again coming next week.
In these slow economic times, I keep repeating "I'm thankful to be working", but I'm not really "working". It's a folly; a joke. I'm not a stand-around-and-look-busy kind of guy, I prefer to have a plan and execute that plan. There'll be none of that here on this job, I can see that. 2 other good, quality people are getting ready to walk away, one did last week. This is a tough one, again due to the slowing economy and the end of the season issues.
Let's hear how some others would handle this scenario. Would you "milk it", like the normal Joe 6 pack, or do something about it? Before you start, let me make it clear...I've had this talk with this project "manager" several times, and he thinks it's funny, I'm too nervous, calm down, etc. I'm done with him, because I don't want to keep chasing my tail on this topic of maintaining a steady workload.
If you go over his head, then he'll hate you for it. What say you?
Since day one, there hasn't been a single day that we have had a full day's work on one single task. No crew structure, just bounce around doing "odd jobs" all day long. Makes for a long day watching the clock for 12+ hours.
We started out with 15 workers on this site, and myself along with several others have been floundering around for things to keep us busy. Desperation sets in every so often, and we resort to stupid little laboring jobs like picking up the site. Today I slipped in with the concrete crew helping them set up for a pour. Kind of a waste of good qualified people in my opinion, but "work is work" I keep saying.
Now it wasn't bad enough that 15 of us are going through this on this site, but now we just inherited another 16 workers, from another division in another state. Their workload is done for the year, and instead of taking a layoff in September, they were given the option to come down and work with us. That's fine, but now THEY'RE doing what we would have been.:Banghead There's a rumor of that same amount of men again coming next week.
In these slow economic times, I keep repeating "I'm thankful to be working", but I'm not really "working". It's a folly; a joke. I'm not a stand-around-and-look-busy kind of guy, I prefer to have a plan and execute that plan. There'll be none of that here on this job, I can see that. 2 other good, quality people are getting ready to walk away, one did last week. This is a tough one, again due to the slowing economy and the end of the season issues.
Let's hear how some others would handle this scenario. Would you "milk it", like the normal Joe 6 pack, or do something about it? Before you start, let me make it clear...I've had this talk with this project "manager" several times, and he thinks it's funny, I'm too nervous, calm down, etc. I'm done with him, because I don't want to keep chasing my tail on this topic of maintaining a steady workload.
If you go over his head, then he'll hate you for it. What say you?