It seems to be a combination of the town’s urge to tear up sections of the worn-out asphalt sidewalks (asphalt’s cheaper and quicker than the concrete ones we have everywhere else) only to replace them with more asphalt, coupled with some ongoing project of the gas company.
Whatever is
going on, we’ve all grown used to snaking our way through narrow lanes bordered
by orange cones while dodging the rear end of the cop or guy in a hard hat who
doesn’t realize that that lane feels reeely skinny to those of us in our big
SUVs.
The first
clutch of men were with the gas company: one cop and two hard-hat guys. Every
single one of them was intent on his phone.
About 50
yards down the road was the sidewalk gang: one cop and three hard-hat guys
staring down at a guy in a hole with a shovel.
I’m not sure
if the phone crew is an improvement or not on the age-old scenario of one
worker and four onlookers.
That one worker and multiple onlookers makes me crazy, why can't they all grab a tool and help out? Or perhaps they take turns.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of an old joke I heard about a group of men leaning on their shovels and a lookout further up the road gives a whistle to let them know the boss is on his way, so the shovel crew all start walking towards the tools pile pretending they're just changing tools, until the boss is gone.
I haven't noticed our manual workers obsessed with their phones, but our tradesmen seem to have them glued to their ears as they drive round town. Despite it being illegal.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe how many people are addicted to their phones. I've not seen that with workers in the streets, though. Maybe they aren't allowed to here or something.
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to believe that cop's supervisor would be happy to see him staring at his phone instead of oncoming cars.
Deletethey are turning the highway between us and the big city into an interstate...more lanes and no underpasses and there are accidents nearly every single day in the narrow canyons with no shoulders on either side. most recently a dump truck collided with a semi, crushing the semi cab. traffic was backed up for hours.
ReplyDeleteWhen we had the gas line laid to the old house, the contractor had to go under our front sidewalk. I came home from work, and saw the contractor on his digging machine, his helper looking into one side of the hole, and his Australian shepherd hanging over the other side. It is my perfect image of what it takes to dig a hole.
ReplyDeleteMy theory is that because manual work can be so physically taxing, the workers take turns on the digging, etc. Which would explain why so many of them seem to be "standing around" all the time. But maybe I'm just making excuses for them!
ReplyDeleteThat makes perfect sense, Steve. And a kinder way of looking at it!
DeleteFunny and sounds so familiar.
ReplyDelete