[log in to unmask] wrote:

>     I am really beginning to hate working there.
>     It took us three days of visits to set the one door threshold stone.
>
> Frere Pierre mason.....Something I learned a long time ago on the
> sidewalks of New York wuz to perform such miracles at night.....or
> sunday morning the people who usually complain are busy elsewhere.
> ....but it dosen't always work that way I know. Py

The residents of the house would not like the noise... we work during
the day because they are not there. We asked about working on weekends,
and as the project manager is not present on weekends the answer was no.
It is a Catch-22... all winter I get calls, "What is your schedule? When
will you be back?" So I go back to the project on the days it is not
raining and then I get calls, "We need to know when you will be done.
They are upset that you are making a mess. The house is busy."

So this morning I've decided, on this dry day, not to do any work at all
but to try to set up a meeting with the house manager in order to review
the MESSY work that we have to do -- so far everythign we have done has
been relatively clean. We need to cut out a section of stucco right next
to the door. There will be dust blown all over hell... and with the
negative air in the house we have to put up plastic... and there will
likely be problems with that. So we go in and spend 2-3 hours on site
then before we start screwing up we run away.

An added problem is there is no storage on site and we have to load the
vehicle up with tools then double park in the street to unload/load.
Sometimes we are lucky and we get a spot in front of the house. Usually
we are not and we go to a meter around the block... which if we leave
the tools in the vehicle invariably means walking back n' forth to get
the next needed tool. Or we unload all of the tools at the beginning and
crowd the work area, plus wonder who will walk off with our tools. We
try to double park as long as we can, but then the traffic cops start on
us and one of us has to drive off with the vehicle which with the
traffic means sometimes taking 20 minutes to simply figure out what to
do next. Concentration and focus is needed, but difficult to maintain.
There are people constantly walking past, coming up and asking
questions, walking their dogs, sirens, vehicle noises and people wanting
to either get into or out of the building... which means they need to
negotiate their way through our encampment of tools & cables etc. Old
ladies with walkers, old men that are half blind and stumble into me,
women with double-wide baby carriages that think I am too big to be
sitting on a bucket on the sidewalk with paintbrush in hand and
potassium silicate dripping all over everything unexpected. I think we
have gotten pretty good at keeping it clean, and when we leave each day
other than the "new" work you would not know that we had been there.

You should have been with us the day we did the paint stripping. Talk
about circus. Ask deb.

][<

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