Monday, July 17, 2006
No Wonder It's a Third World Nation
We're in the middle of a remodel here at Casa de Crime Dog. What a pain in the ass. We're having all of our old white 12" tile yanked out and replaced with new 20" tile the color of our dog. She sheds so much in the summer, it was the only logical color to choose. Now the globs of gossamer red hair that drift along the floor won't be quite so obvious.
As usual, when you are contracting anything from a rock garden to a mansion, you end up dealing with a lot of no habla Ingles kind of guys. Tom the Tile Man's guys are very good, hard working men who speak English well enough to do business. No problemo there. But Tom and I went to the tile place to pick up new stuff, and it was there that we encountered a forklift operator that just had us shaking our heads. This dude was a whiz kid with a calculator, but otherwise about as sharp as a marble. He quickly calculated that he owed us two pallets of tile, along with 24 from another pallet. So he forklifts out the first pallet. I have no idea how much this stuff weighed, but one pallet was about all we could carry at a time. Dude set the pallet on Tom's trailer, and we prepared to leave.
We'll be back for the rest in about 45 minutes.
"OK. Open manana at teen."
I don't care when you open tomorrow, Scooter. We'll be back in 45 minutes.
"OK. Monday open seben."
Dude. We will be back in less than one hour. Get it? One hour?
"Oh,Si, si! Yust bring jour paper manana when jou peek up tiles."
Fuck it. Let's go.
So we took the load to my house, put it in the garage, and headed back to find Scooter for the rest. He forklifted out a pallet and loaded it onto the trailer, leaving us needing just 22 more boxes. He ran the lift back into the yard, then brought out a pallet with 24 boxes on it. Now, this shit is heavy - about 60lbs per box, and its 175 degrees out there. Dude sets the pallet down behind the trailer, cuts off the straps, and starts hand-offloading it one box at a time.
Hey, Scooter. That's a lot of work. Why not just load the whole pallet, and I'll give you back two boxes?
That's when he gave us that head nod and grin that is the universal sign for "I have no fucking clue what you just said." He kept unloading by hand.
Um....Tom? Am I missing something here?
Tom tells me to forget about it. If Scooter strokes out, we'll call 911. In the meantime, he's saving us from the need to dispose of a pallet and a bunch of packing material.
Scooter, sweating like the proverbial whore in church, finished hand-loading the 1,320lbs of tile. He mopped his face, then looked at the trailer, then back at his forklift. On the forklift was a pallet with two boxes of tile on it. He looked once again at the huge pile of 22 heavy-ass boxes he just hand-loaded onto the trailer, than one more time at his forklift. The realization hit home.
Pretty dumbass move there, eh Scooter?
A head nod and a big smile. Ignorance is bliss.
|
As usual, when you are contracting anything from a rock garden to a mansion, you end up dealing with a lot of no habla Ingles kind of guys. Tom the Tile Man's guys are very good, hard working men who speak English well enough to do business. No problemo there. But Tom and I went to the tile place to pick up new stuff, and it was there that we encountered a forklift operator that just had us shaking our heads. This dude was a whiz kid with a calculator, but otherwise about as sharp as a marble. He quickly calculated that he owed us two pallets of tile, along with 24 from another pallet. So he forklifts out the first pallet. I have no idea how much this stuff weighed, but one pallet was about all we could carry at a time. Dude set the pallet on Tom's trailer, and we prepared to leave.
We'll be back for the rest in about 45 minutes.
"OK. Open manana at teen."
I don't care when you open tomorrow, Scooter. We'll be back in 45 minutes.
"OK. Monday open seben."
Dude. We will be back in less than one hour. Get it? One hour?
"Oh,Si, si! Yust bring jour paper manana when jou peek up tiles."
Fuck it. Let's go.
So we took the load to my house, put it in the garage, and headed back to find Scooter for the rest. He forklifted out a pallet and loaded it onto the trailer, leaving us needing just 22 more boxes. He ran the lift back into the yard, then brought out a pallet with 24 boxes on it. Now, this shit is heavy - about 60lbs per box, and its 175 degrees out there. Dude sets the pallet down behind the trailer, cuts off the straps, and starts hand-offloading it one box at a time.
Hey, Scooter. That's a lot of work. Why not just load the whole pallet, and I'll give you back two boxes?
That's when he gave us that head nod and grin that is the universal sign for "I have no fucking clue what you just said." He kept unloading by hand.
Um....Tom? Am I missing something here?
Tom tells me to forget about it. If Scooter strokes out, we'll call 911. In the meantime, he's saving us from the need to dispose of a pallet and a bunch of packing material.
Scooter, sweating like the proverbial whore in church, finished hand-loading the 1,320lbs of tile. He mopped his face, then looked at the trailer, then back at his forklift. On the forklift was a pallet with two boxes of tile on it. He looked once again at the huge pile of 22 heavy-ass boxes he just hand-loaded onto the trailer, than one more time at his forklift. The realization hit home.
Pretty dumbass move there, eh Scooter?
A head nod and a big smile. Ignorance is bliss.
