Ranzan

Man I tell you it is getting harder and harder to find people that will actually work for a living.

Tried out 2 new guys this last week checked thier references ...nothing but good things to say about them.

One guy never even showed up the first day

After 4 days work from the other guy that hounded me for 3 weeks for work I get a text message on my phone at 8:00 at night.... I`m going back to school thanks for the work.

What the He$% Not even a phone call from people now???
Guess I`m old fashioned and have the common decency to call a guy when I`m about to leave a job....

Man I love my job some days.

enforcer

usually that happens when the HOMEOWNER goes with the cheapest worker !
i'm sure he was recommended but was he cheap?
if most of your decision was based on cost then its actually your fault..not being harsh,its just common sense.

J F

Leo G

Because they are employees and all they really care about is the paycheck. They don't care that you are working your balls off to keep them employed or working with nice tools. They think you have money beyond their reaches. And all they want is for Friday to come along and get that paycheck. Nothing else.

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J F

He probably would've been happy with that scenario leo, doesn't sound like these guys even made it that far.

Red Adobe

Man sometimes i mis them days of "collecting a check" life was so much easier.

I have a hard time with help myself......I have a couple guys who I can call now and again and I pay them on a % of profit basis (work gets done better and faster then hourly) other times it's just me.
I get strange looks when I show up alone but honestly i can usualy get done what other crews with 4 do in a day difference is no breaks and my days can be 14 hours instead of 8 LoL

bwalley

I had a helper cleaning off a 50 square flat roof yesterday, not a big deal just bag up the leaves and clean off the debris. bleach the parapet walls and hose it off, he worked on it for 7 hours yesterday (he didn't actually work on it 7 hours, he probably did 1.5 hours of work) and had to finish it today, he was whining about it and I told him I had cleaned it before by myself in 4 hours, he said he needed a helper, I told him helpers don't get helpers.

The best part is he was crying to Vinny my lead guy about a raise, he hasn't been there 2 weeks, needs constant supervision and takes too long to get simple tasks done, yet he wants a raise already.

Tommorow morning I will have him clean the other roof, but I doubt he will be back monday, the guy stands around quite a bit and can't follow basic instructions.

This morning I told him to grab the bag of ice out of the back of my truck and put it in the cooler, the next thing I see him doing is dumping out the gatorade, and making a new batch with the hose water, we don't use the water much so it is kind of skunky, but the gatorade he dumped out was made from the bottled water I buy and keep for the job, there wasn't anything wrong with the gatorade he dumped out, I drink it so it must be fine.

oldfrt

he said he needed a helper, I told him helpers don't get helpers.

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HusqyPro

bwalley, sounds to me like your guy has a short attention span. Bet if you give him semi-challenging, semi-technical tasks that take 15 to 20 minutes to complete he'd shine. Some people get bored very easily, cleaning leaves off a roof isn't enough to engage them and keep them focused.

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bwalley

1st thing I asked him to do this morning was, get the bag of ice out of the back of my truck and put it in the cooler, within 5 minutes he screwed that up.

I am not looking to keep my day labor help engaged, I am looking for them to do simple tasks, such as following simple directions, and doing easy things such as clean up the jobsite and clean the roof off of another building.

When I have a guy at a jobsite working 8 hours a day doing predominately clean up, the place should be spotless, yet I have to continually be on the guy not to use baker scaffold as a table, empty the garbage cans and pick up screws from the jobsite.

It isn't engaging work, but it isn't ditch digging either.

Mike Finley

Man, don't you know this guy is just doing you a favor? He is no doubt sure he will eventually be the CEO of a skateboarding company where he will hang out with half naked chicks, board all day and party all night in the company jet. Everybody all his life has told him how great he is and how far he will go. Actually working was not really ever mentioned.

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W-Tinc

This is more what I see too. I can easily get people to show up, helpers or more experienced people. They show up and work but it can be very hard bordering on impossible to train them to do things properly in a productive manner.

It never ceases to amaze me the percentage of experienced people who "know how" to perform various tasks we do on a daily basis that have crap for skills and common sense.

I know we all read these threads and think to ourselves..you get what you pay for..but I really am not seeing much of a relationship there either.

bwalley

I want things done a certain way and people should do things the way I want them done, otherwise they can go elsewhere or start up their own company.

Today one of the framers (a new guy with supposedly more experience than I have) said we need more lumber for the windows, I explained to him that I ordered plenty of it already, then I noticed a pile of 4' drops by the cut table.

The side bucks of all of the windows require 6' pieces, so I ordered 12' 2x6's, some of them need 10' 9" top and bottom bucks, so I ordered, 12' 2x6's, some of the other windows require 54" top and bottom bucks, so I ordered 10' 2x6's.

Genius cuts the 6' boards out of the 10' boards instead of cleaning up the 12' and getting 2 6' pieces out of it and then he wanted to piece together the drops.

I bought some 12' 6" 18 ga C joist's and some 8' 6" 18 ga C Joists, the idea was to cut the 12' in half for the elevator shaft and use the 8' ones for the stairwell, Genius cuts 2' off of the 8' c joist and 4' off of the 12' C joist and runs out of material.

I order different size material for different locations in the building and I have to hold this guys hand so he can figure it out, I ordered 12' 2" long studs for part of the job, so we don't use a 14' stud and have a bunch of waste, yet he will cut 6" off of it instead of using a standard 12' stud.

I am surprised he hasn't started cutting up the 30' 6" studs yet.

bwalley

I had another goober working for me a couple of weeks ago, he couldn't figure out how to install small pieces of barney board or insualtion, he put the vapor barrier facing out, I told him it was backwards, he then fliped it around and the writing was upside down, I told him that it would work right that way and to turn it over.

then when he couldn't figure out how to install a 22" x 37" and a 22" x 44" piece of Barney board I started putting it up for him, and told him to pick the screw up off of the ground, he said he would do it later when he swept up the place while he was standing there watching me work, I explained to him it was my job to stand around and watch him work, not his job to stand around and watch me work, he was gone shortly after that.

I know I am not the easiest guy to work for, but I treat my people well and the good ones get raises quickly, if they need something, I get it for them don't bust their chops if they cut out early on friday or if they have some personal business to take care if it doesn't get out of hand, but some guys are slackers and aren't there to work, they just want a patcheck and get offened when you expect them to work.

oldfrt

[quote=bwalley;764457]
Today one of the framers (a new guy with supposedly more experience than I have) said we need more lumber for the windows, I explained to him that I ordered plenty of it already, then I noticed a pile of 4' drops by the cut table.


Sounds like he needs some experience in paying for and chasing down materials!Don't let him at the rafters!

You'd think a guy in his mid twenties would have a desire to learn something.My last exemployee,26,living with parents,spent a lot of time on his cell during the day,never subtracted lunch time(1hr.)from his time slip,and tried to charge me from the time he left his house.He'd even stop on the way at a Deli and grab his lunch on my time.

It's a rare find,getting someone to depend on,but I hear some of the south of the border crew work pretty good.
I hope this isn't the future of this trade!

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bwalley

This is a commercial building, we don't use much wood, just 2x6 for the bucks so the window guy has something to screw into instead of just an 18 ga stud.

It is a renovation so it already has a roof on it except in the elevator shaft and the stairwell.

When I start on a project, I figure out what material we have and the best use of it, my goal is to have as little scrap or small drops as possible.

Yet when they don't pay for the material they don't care, screws drive me crazy, some of them are $130 a box, yet they let them get rained on, spill them, empty their pouch into a garbage can when they switch to a different style or size of screw.

I would tell my guys to get a good look at your ham and egger because he won't be coming back.

tccoggs

My old boss used to hit us up for a quarter for every stainless screw he found laying on the ground.

You learn quick to respect the cost of materials that way and it rubbed off on me. When I do a siding job or build a deck now, I spend more time looking at the actual cuts than doing a quick sqft takeoff.