The Russians are coming!
Sep. 13th, 2008 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vulgarweedNo, actually, they were already here. My landlord's work crew, to fix the two (2!) separate leaks in my apartment. (One over the bathtub that dripped when the upstairs neighbors took a shower and one in the front room that dripped when it rained.) OK guys, worked fast, got the new drywall up and it looks pretty much the same (to my jaded eye that has no particular concern for interior visuals).
The one who spoke a little English was even a cat lover and bonded with Madimi, so I knew he wouldn't be reckless about letting her out. For her part, for the first half hour she was all like, "Who's that! What's that noise!" doing her little meerkat pose. Then she went to sleep.
For my part, I bristle cause I'm territorial and don't like strange men in my very small living space, but the worst part was the timing.
8:00 in the goddamn morning? Is that shit really necessary? Why are construction workers so obsessed with the crack of dawn? (Insert "carpenter crack" joke here.)
I'm tempted to study the trades just so I can show up to work during my own peak hours of alertness and talent and the hours of most of my work for pay: roughly 10 PM to 3 AM. Hey, it's just a belt sander, don't mind me. Just gotta knock out this moldy drywall, just go about your business! What, you're asleep? In your jammies at this hour? You're wasting the best part of the day! **disapproving look, subtle implication that you must not have to really work for a living.**
They were nice guys. I'd drink vodka with 'em any day. But I'm discovering tonight that two of my windows leak too, and I'm not going to tell my landlord for another month or two. I need to recover.
The one who spoke a little English was even a cat lover and bonded with Madimi, so I knew he wouldn't be reckless about letting her out. For her part, for the first half hour she was all like, "Who's that! What's that noise!" doing her little meerkat pose. Then she went to sleep.
For my part, I bristle cause I'm territorial and don't like strange men in my very small living space, but the worst part was the timing.
8:00 in the goddamn morning? Is that shit really necessary? Why are construction workers so obsessed with the crack of dawn? (Insert "carpenter crack" joke here.)
I'm tempted to study the trades just so I can show up to work during my own peak hours of alertness and talent and the hours of most of my work for pay: roughly 10 PM to 3 AM. Hey, it's just a belt sander, don't mind me. Just gotta knock out this moldy drywall, just go about your business! What, you're asleep? In your jammies at this hour? You're wasting the best part of the day! **disapproving look, subtle implication that you must not have to really work for a living.**
They were nice guys. I'd drink vodka with 'em any day. But I'm discovering tonight that two of my windows leak too, and I'm not going to tell my landlord for another month or two. I need to recover.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 04:46 am (UTC)They're obsessed with "crack of dawn" for three reasons.
1. A lot of the time they work crazy long days. 10, 11 hours.
2. Why, yes, they are loud, and because of that, in some areas, they're not allowed to work at night.
3. For a lot of people, if they show up right on time at 8, it means you only have to take a half day off of work, or can get on with your day reasonably soon.
I'd rather deal with someone at 8 AM on a Saturday, who arrives on time, than someone who's late, or doesn't show. And I have to admit I'd rather deal with a construction worker as a visitor than as a flatmate, and have to deal with that every morning...
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 04:57 am (UTC)I hate the game, not the player.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 04:59 am (UTC)They really had no fucking clue. They acted like I had two heads until I SHOWED THEM the havoc they were wreaking.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 05:16 am (UTC)I believe this was the same handyman for whom I had to mime "thing broken" over and over again so that he'd fix the hole in the gas line to the stove so that we wouldn't die from carbon monoxide poisoning.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 05:27 am (UTC)There was a work crew rehabbing the apartment upstairs (and that was lots and lots of "dawn chorus" noise for a few months, too) so I ran up to get them, thinking they'd be able to help, right?
Wrong. They just stood there staring and scratching their heads until my neighbor across the hall came running in cause she'd heard the noise and suggested I get our DOWNSTAIRS neighbor, Phil, who's like the unofficial building handyman. He took a look, came back with some screws and brackets and fixed it in like 30 seconds and then started yelling at the construction crew in Spanish (which is what they spoke) for, presumably, being so useless.
I have a feeling those were the guys who did the shoddy rehab work in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 05:02 am (UTC)In my case, midnight or thereabouts would be the BEST time, because their machinery would drown out my neighbors' godawful techno or super-repetitive videogame music or whatever the hell that Telltale Heart bassline is.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 02:47 pm (UTC)When I asked one of the guys why in the name of all that was holy did we start at 7 in the godamn morning, he just looked puzzled and said 'So we can get off at 3!'
I tried to point out that this was basic mathematics, not an actual reason, and if we wanted to get off really early in the morning, we should try starting at midnight. "We'd get off at 8 in the morning! Think of how much you could get done if you got off work when everyone else was just getting started!" Sarcasm is underappreciated on the jobsite.
Really, they do it because that's when everyone else in trades does it. It's a very old fashioned field, and doing things certain ways because that's how it's always been done is the best reason they have. The fact that this basic scheduling ghetto-izes them is, I think, a perverse point of pride.
However, in this you case, you are at least partially the customer, and you should be able to dictate their schedule somewhat. Even as a tenant, your landlord has to give you 24 hours notice, and you can throw some weight at your landlord about timing. Try implying that they are just afraid of trying something different...
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 04:43 pm (UTC)Wayne: "Damn. What say we go find that guy who lived here before & go smack him around a bit?
my husband: "Wayne, we can't. He's dead.
Wayne: "Huh. Well. Howsabout you & me go down to bar, have ourselves a few beers, and then go piss on his grave?"
Yep. And yes, that conversation actually happened.
Anyway, I'm rambling (again). But what I *really* meant to tell you was that yeah, sure, we're the customers, so we dictate terms -- NOT. We joked once to Wayne about having to find another contractor and he just laughed at us and said, "You can't *find* another contractor willing to work on *this* house."
Uh huh. And the thing of it is, he's probably right.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 11:31 am (UTC)Then again, I count myself lucky I'm already in the habit of getting up around 4 or 5 in the morning. It makes getting to my 8 a.m. classes (with the hour-plus CTA commute) just a tad easier. If "easy" has any place at all in that sentence...
I'm glad you got stuff fixed, though, and that it was relatively...er...painless. It's cool having work guys that understand cats, too. So Madimi didn't try to "help," I take it?