----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ralph Walter 
  Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 11:43 AM
  Subject: Re: Expansion joints


  In a message dated 10/16/2002 10:50:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes:




      The decision to do this was the result of discussion in monthly job meetings.  
    Now here is a saint.
    Ilene practices convergence between architecture & craft in histo presto.


    MONTHLY job meetings?  Guess things move a little more slowly out beyond the bridges and tunnels.  

  (Evidently unsaintly) Ralph 

look at it this way... maybe they can all stand each other and work together more civilly and effectively since they only have to get together once a month! 

maybe is a case of non-micromanagement;  competent trustworthy adult craftspersons/mechanics following well-written efficient specifications, doing good work with reasonable timetables that allow for safe workplace conditions and which show respect for the intelligence and humanity of the workers...

and, sometimes things DO move just a tad more deliberately outside of bridge and tunnel land-- take it from me, that's not necessarily a bad thing...  I prefer the word deliberately over "slowly", especially when the connotation is that some CARE and THOUGHT might actually be going into the work... and no one is rushing around in anticipitory panic because some management person is due on the jobsite to dish out the weekly dose of "faster faster faster, you lazy donkeys"

sign me, ms utopia 2002

(ask me backchannel about the "mexican" laborer I met in B&T Land, a 37 yr old man who is from peru, has a degree in agronomy/soils science and who was working demo without personal safety equipment, at $9/hour for a foreman who constantly screamed at the men, calling them the spanish equivalent of stupid monkeys...)