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Time flies!

My last post mentioned I went in for a job interview. Well, I got the job and have been working there full-time since, as carpenter. I'll refer to my boss as John Doe, the company as John Doe Construction, Inc. The pay isn't great, but it's been fairly steady work. Myself and the rest of the crew have become increasingly restless and irritated at our rate of pay and how the company is run.

John Doe owns a shiny new Hummer, a Toyota 4x4 truck with a massive lift kit and all sorts of optional accessories like off-road lights, another lifted 4x4 jeep, a brand new sports car with Hemi for his wife, a new tractor, a backhoe, a powerboat, big travel trailer, a big house and new garage/workshop across the street, several different properties, etc etc.

Our construction crew works with dilapidated and non-OSHA approved tools such as a chop saw with no safety blade quard, a table saw you have to turn on with a nail (Even worse, you have to prod the internal switch with this nail to get it to stop...not something you can do very quickly in case of an emergency), etc etc. We have a couple of cordless drills, but never seem to have the batteries that go with them.

Last week the boss bought yet another new truck. It's a quad cab, but is just for John's use. We get to use his wife's old truck as the company rig...enough room for two plus a midget in the back. Some of us found the invoice for the new truck - $35,000. That amount of money would buy an awful lot of working, safe construction tools, ladders that aren't duct-taped together, or even a little raise for his workers.

I started at $9 an hour. I'm up to $11, which is still less than my very first construction job with a company 3 years ago. Everybody else is paid within a few dollars of what I'm getting .... even one of the foremen, whom is worth oodles more. All of us peons are just bankrolling John's lifestyle. John has been through a lot of people just while I've been there. He can't hold on to people because of the crappy wages and inefficient way he runs the company.

Monday should be interesting. The rumbling of discontent is getting stronger every day.