Eh, it's a job, and they'd be working outdoors for someone else if not for you. Providing cold drinks would be nice of you, but I wouldn't feel bad about hiring them.
I put a metal roof on a pig barn in that kind of weather. It sucked, but it was far easier than putting on a shingle roof. At least that's what I assume, since I can barely more a bundle of shingles regardless of the temperature.
Yeah...no one should be working on a roof in this weather, though. Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. I dunno.
I was only getting $5.50 and hour. Of course, that was back when you could buy a new car for $10,000.
They are probably grateful for the work. The unfairness comes because the market doesn't reward people who work in the hot sun as well as people who work in air conditioned offices and comment where they can comment on unfogged while they work. You can't change the strucutre of the market on your own overnight, but you can offer ice water.
A place where exploitation often seeps in here is between the contractor and the labor he hires. Is the guy you pay the money to up there on the roof as well? That's a big sign for me.
You know there are guys in the construction trade in equatorial countries who work in these conditions year round. Mostly they start at daybreak and finish for the day by lunchtime. Is there anything stopping them doing that in Texas, or do they their supervisors just lack the imagination to change their working practices?
What LB says about keeping the drinks coming (in the frozen north we'd always make sure there was tea and coffee).
3: In the best all possible worlds, you're probably right.
In this world, I'm thinking they are probably happy to be working.
Is the guy you pay the money to up there on the roof as well?
My boss was right there on the roof with us. No matter what, he always wore cowboy boots. I don't know how he stopped from sliding. I suppose the rubber of the heel was enough traction.
Whenever I start feeling put out by something at my job, I do tell myself, "You're not spreading tar on a roof in a North Carolina summer, you fucking baby. You're sitting in an air-conditioned office on a padded chair staring at a computer."
Judged? But you haven't done anything wrong.
I second (third?) the ice-water thing. That's just considerate. Possibly even lemonade or something if you're feeling guilty / so moved.
Ok, to be totally honest, I'm having social anxiety about offering ice water.
I suppose I could put something by their water cooler without trying to speak broken Spanish or English.
I just realized we have no ice. Nor bottled water. And I can't run out because the repair guy for the dryer is supposed to be dropping by any moment now.
And if you want to be remembered, cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
I had not seen 5 when I wrote 9.
11: They have a big orange jug full of ice water if they know what they are doing.
If they didn't carry water, they'd have died at the previous job site.
. Is the guy you pay the money to up there on the roof as well?
Nope! I don't think we could have possibly found a contractor who would be up on the roof with the workers, unless we were our own contractors.
Mostly they start at daybreak and finish for the day by lunchtime. Is there anything stopping them doing that in Texas, or do they their supervisors just lack the imagination to change their working practices?
They do that in the real heat of summer, I think (hope), but not May/June. Or perhaps they have morning routines that are tied to the school-year calendar.
And if you want to be remembered, cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
If you really want to be remembered, use cucumbers from Germany.
14: Yes, they do. I just assumed people were suggesting I offer something colder.
Eh, they'll be there for a couple of days, you can offer drinks tomorrow. Buying a couple of sixpacks and asking them if they'd like a beer at quitting time would also be, IME, a standard nice thing to do for people doing heavy manual labor for you, but mores around handing out alcohol are regional enough that I'm not sure if that's normal everyplace.
I met somebody once that worked as a roofer who told me he was scared of heights, so he got high every day before work.
I know a guy who hires (not so much in this economic climate, unfortunately) moderate stoners for preference because other contractors won't touch them, so he gets incredible loyalty.
Also, he doesn't go on the roof any more, because his back is fucked from a lifetime of construction work. Want to make something of it?
The roof looks amazing though. Maybe that's why I feel conflicted, because I'm super excited about it. We got a metal roof. Energy-efficient superstardom, here we come!
I'm pretty sure nobody wants to work all day in the heat to install a shitty roof.
24. People want to work all day in the heat to install whatever damn roof they're hired to install, so they get paid. It's called capitalism. Don't kid yourself.
If the money is the same, I'm sure they'd rather do a good job than a shitty one.
mores around handing out alcohol are regional enough that I'm not sure if that's normal everyplace
I'd imagine that central Texas is one of the areas where this is most likely to be socially acceptable.
27: Why moreso here than anywhere else?
28: More of a beer culture than many other places, due to the substantial German heritage. At least that's the impression I get, not having spent a whole lot of time there.
I don't know that I can tell. At least, I've never lived anywhere non-Texan that's seemed reserved with the beers.
Well, I think a lack of reserve with the beers is probably the rule rather than the exception in most of the country, but to the extent that there are places where it would be disapproved of (and there are at least a few), that part of Texas is not one of them.
Sounds like consensus is that handing out beer is Texas-normal. Under those circumstances, I'd offer beer at quitting time.
We refurbished our attic in the summer of '09. I hired a friend who is a professional contractor to do all the structural stuff. It was hot then (I think it was around this time of year), but not as hot as it got later when we were doing the sheetrocking with help from non-professional contractor friends. One of those guys had a pair of canvass overalls that could have gotten up and walked to the jobsite by themselves. Land o' Goshen, warn't they stinky! I could only bear to be up there for about 10 minutes with him before I would get overcome by the smell and have to go downstairs.
Anyway, my friend the professional contractor said he had done attic work when it was 95 and humid outside, and that basically you just had to break every 15 minutes to drink all the water you could and pour water on your head, and that's how they got through it.
More of a beer culture than many other places, due to the substantial German heritage.
The Mexican influx didn't put a damper on that? Weird.
35: Are you suggesting she put a lime in the beer?
There is more of a Mexican influx than a German influx of people on the roof, if I had to generalize.
Mexico's hardly a beerless wasteland itself, of course.
basically you just had to break every 15 minutes to drink all the water you could and pour water on your head
When I did that kind of work, I recall drinking more than a gallon of water over the course of the day and not taking a piss until I'd been inside with the AC for a couple of hours.
I met somebody once that worked as a roofer who told me he was scared of heights, so he got high every day before work.
"I heard you were scared of heights, so I put a high in your heights so you can get high when you get high."
If the money is the same, I'm sure they'd rather do a good job than a shitty one.
Of course they would, but who's asking their opinion? Like I said, capitalism.
I'm just saying she shouldn't feel worse because it's a nice roof.
not taking a piss until I'd been inside
That's good. No one likes a piddler on the roof.
Making them put a marble roof on in this heat seems a tad sadistic.
You know there are guys in the construction trade in equatorial countries who work in these conditions year round. Mostly they start at daybreak and finish for the day by lunchtime. Is there anything stopping them doing that in Texas, or do they their supervisors just lack the imagination to change their working practices?
Via Human Rights Watch:As many as 5,000 construction workers per month were brought into the accident and emergency department of RashidHospital in Dubai during July and August 2004: Dr. G.Y. Naroo, acting head of the accident and emergency department, told Construction Week, "[O]ur initial assessment of how many heat related [cases] that came into the hospital was 2,500 per month. But once the secondary assessment was done inside the hospital, we realized it came out to be double."
45 to 43, not that 44 wasn't also something I shouldn't have expected.
Mexico's hardly a beerless wasteland itself, of course.
Mostly crappy beer, though.
Did I say marble? It's actually being made out of burning bees. But it will look just darling.
Yay capitalism:In response, the Ministry of Labor issued a decree in June 2005 banning outdoor work between the hours of 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. during July and August.[83] It resulted in reducing heat-related admissions to hospitals, with Dr. Naroo of the Rashid Hospital, Dubai, telling reporters on July 29 that "only 1,200 to 1,500 [cases] are anticipated this month."[84] That the decree did not go even further in reducing heat-related admissions is probably because many companies openly ignored it-government inspectors reported that during July and August 2005, more than 60 percent of the companies inspected did not follow the afternoon break law.[85] The authorities did not fine a single company for breaking the law.[86]
Moreover, the afternoon break rules have not been adopted on a permanent basis. In May 2006, the UAE Contractors' Association (UAECA) lobbied the government to repeal the 2005 decree because "the re-introduction of the ban this year would create major problems for the sector."[87] In July 2006, the Ministry of Labor announced that it had curtailed the midday break to between 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.[88] At a press conference to announce the change, when asked about the reduction in hours, Minister of Labor Ali bin Abdullah Al Kaabi said, "The contractors should be asked about the reduction in the hours, as they are the ones who have decided the timings."[89] The minister's reply is a clear indication of the construction industry's ability to influence labor laws and regulations without regard for the health and safety of workers.
In fairness, Dubai is about 10° hotter than we are today, according to weather.com.
Mostly crappy beer, though.
Negra Modelo and Bohemia aren't bad. It's true that Texas beers are probably better in general.
I don't think there's that much good beer from Texas. People don't like Shiner anymore. There are a couple good local breweries, but no more so than anywhere else. I think Teo has a crush on Texas.
I'm just saying, there's not that many states that have state parks commemorating historic breweries.
We got a metal roof. Energy-efficient superstardom, here we come!
Are metal roofs particularly energy-efficient? Why?
But M/tch is really the expert on this stuff.
Because they reflect the heat away. I think a light-colored roof would be equally good.
So, also geographically dependent.
Not solar panels, heebie? House one block over has a passive solar water heater, she told me it stopped working.
Walked I have, to and fro this metroplex, without seeing a solar roof.
59: I thought houses in Texas all got eaten by ants or termites or whatever in a couple of years.
This way we'll still have our roof!
So, heebers, exactly how metal is this roof anyway? Like, At-The-Gates metal, or what?
People don't like Shiner anymore? I was just telling Bave that the smell of stale bock beer in a spent keg can still produce in me a kind of bargain basement Proustian reverie for my days at the University of Texas at Combray.
Hey can I do some cheap trolling here for the hell of it? This is from a place of curiosity, not great conviction and indignation: isn't the argument from "I'm sure they're glad to have the work" the kind of libertarianism that would be greeted with tarring and feathering around here if it were being spoken of internationally?
I like Shiner (but then I would). My local liquor store recently started stocking it, which I was quite pleased by.
But yeah, I'm not sure who these Shiner-haters are that heebie refers to.
People don't like Shiner anymore?
I'm totally a caveman tastebud person, so it's fine to me. But everyone raves about some mythical time, back before traffic got bad and Austin sold out, when a Shiner was a Shiner. I think the brewery did switch hands at some point.
I've never tried Shiner, but I'm willing to do so if I think of it the next time I'm buying beer. If the place has it. If I have enough money to get Shiner and what I was planning to get. And if my arms aren't too tired to carry it out to the car.
I hate Shriners, but that's because they ran over my toes with the little car.
Better than your little toes with a big car.
They don't have big cars. At least not for Shriner purposes.
Think how much anger they're saving!
This is from a place of curiosity, not great conviction and indignation: isn't the argument from "I'm sure they're glad to have the work" the kind of libertarianism that would be greeted with tarring and feathering around here if it were being spoken of internationally?
I think the difference is between necessarily awful work and unnecessarily awful work. Roofing in a hot climate in the summer is ghastly, but if they're decently paid, using proper safety equipment, well-hydrated and all the rest, it's not really anyone's fault that it's a horrible job, and someone who's doing it is probably better off than they'd be without the job.
Once the conditions are worse than they have to be, then the tar and feathers come out for that argument.
75: I like this distinction. It seems useful.
I think the difference is between necessarily awful work and unnecessarily awful work. Roofing in a hot climate in the summer is ghastly, but if they're decently paid, using proper safety equipment, well-hydrated and all the rest, it's not really anyone's fault that it's a horrible job, and someone who's doing it is probably better off than they'd be without the job.
I dunno. I think you could make a case that in a hot climate roofing should be done in the winter instead, which would make doing it in the summer deplorable according to this standard.
Or at least avoiding the worst of the heat of the day. Which they might do, later in the summer. They worked through the afternoon today.
77: I think you could make a case that in a hot climate roofing should be done in the winter instead, which would make doing it in the summer deplorable according to this standard.
Yeah, possibly. That runs into the "what other work will they be able to find in the summer?" problem, and I don't have a answer incorporating any kind of knowledge for that.
Or at least avoiding the worst of the heat of the day.
This, certainly. I'd think at temperatures over 90 you'd want to work from 5am to 11am or something.
I think you could make a case that in a hot climate roofing should be done in the winter instead
Isn't the problem with this that in many (US at any rate) hot climates, the winter is the rainy season?
Are metal roofs particularly energy-efficient? Why?
Recyclable and huge improvement in reflective index. Asphalt shingle vs metal roof.
I'm jealous. I contacted three companies a couple weeks ago to get bids on metal roof plus steel for the sides and back exterior. One hasn't responded and of the two remaining only one has sent someone to take measurements. Total bids so far? 0. Jesus guys, don't construction trades need work right now? I've already got the cash in hand and I'm guessing this is at least a 20k job.
81: Presumably. In the region I'm most familiar with it isn't, but it probably is elsewhere. If it is, of course, that adds another complication to the "necessity" determination.
75: I like this distinction. It seems useful.
+1. Thanks for giving my casual trolling a thoughtful answer.
One hasn't responded and of the two remaining only one has sent someone to take measurements. Total bids so far? 0.
We had a hell of a time getting bids, too. We called probably 15-20 contractors, and could only get ahold of 7-8 of them. We then had those guys over to meet JRoth when he was in town, and only 2 actually submitted bids.
Jesus guys, don't construction trades need work right now?
Huh. I wonder if there's some kind of 'so little work that people have gone out of business, leaving the survivors overworked' thing going on.
Also, I don't think gswift nor I live in places where there was quite so much a glut of overdevelopment, ie Vegas, Florida, etc.
I wonder if there's some kind of 'so little work that people have gone out of business, leaving the survivors overworked' thing going on.
Around here it's more "months of shitty weather have left them unable to complete jobs they were supposed to get done a while ago, or take on any new work (which has created a pent-up demand for work), and also has resulted in an above-normal amount of work to be done because of all the weather-related damage to shit."
Not to mention that this is always the busy season, anyway.
But I've had the same issue. I've been trying to pay people to do things for months, and can't even get bids. I supposed maybe they found out that I never paid my last contractor, and I'm on a blacklist of some sort.
Pardon me while I cackle with glee.
87 -- my contractor friend says a fair number of workers went back to Mexico or Guatemala because work had slowed down so much in the construction field, so a lot of places that have remained in business are at capacity.
I can't shake the feeling that I'll check these threads later tonight and discover that both summing up and culmination have slightly different meanings than I've always thought.
92: I was thinking along those lines as well, not particularly with respect to Mexicans and Guatemalans, but that existing contracting companies had to pare back on their full-time employees, and said employees are now piecing together part-time jobs here and there, so there are scheduling conflicts out the wazoo when a contractor wants to put together a crew on a job-by-job basis.
My housemate works part-time for a good 5 different organizations (ranging from a museum to a fine art moving company to the city's Office for the Arts), which adds up to full-time employment for him, but he's constantly juggling phone calls from this or that outfit asking whether he can be on board for a 6-day job (or a 6 week one) starting next Thursday ... etc. I can easily imagine something similar happening in the construction trades.
You're in Gainesville, right? I am a Florida construction worker. These last three years since the housing bubble popped have been awful. If you ask any of us, "Would you prefer to be working outside today or would you rather take off and wait for cooler weather," I guarantee that 99% of us would tell you "Hell YES I want to be working right now. Bring on the work. Money money money."
Don't buy beer for those guys. Buy bottles of water and Gatorade, lots and lots of Gatorade. Last time I looked, they've got 8-packs of 20 ounce bottles on sale for $4.99 at Publix.
You're in Gainesville, right?
I believe the answer is no, if that question is being directed to heebie.
You can't give roofers drinks from a Publix. Don't you read the signs at the door.
You're in Gainesville, right? I am a Florida construction worker.
Grew up there, but I live in Texas.
Is Publix still fancy? I have not been in one since about 1986.
Two guys stayed behind. One had a coke and one had a beer. I forgot we had a cooler of drinks leftover from tubing the river the other day, until Jammies came home.
Jammies polished off the cooler? Lush.
He said, halfway through a bottle of wine.
They're roofers, so presumably you'll want to spike their drinks with roofies.
OT: Watching the NBA finals on a british ESPN stream is a bit weird 'Toulouse-Montpellier Rugby, only on ESPN' and 'ESPNScrum all rugby, all the time'. Plus ads for the ubiquitous (outside the US) Ariel.
the ubiquitous (outside the US) Ariel
Uh, I'm pretty sure we've all seen The Little Mermaid, teraz.
93: I can't shake the feeling that I'll check these threads later tonight and discover that both summing up and culmination have slightly different meanings than I've always thought.
They sum you up, your commenters.
I haven't seen it, but I'm not sure how you use Ariel as a mermaid.
Well, right, that's what makes mermaids so enigmatic.
Is this concern of his because her legs don't separate?
Does Dallas have a chance in this series?
111:To expect the visiting team to win the first game of the series on the road is maybe a little too much.
OTOH...probably not.
111: A small one--but real (Miami did not dominate until the very end). Maybe Nowitzki can get hot back in Dallas and they reverse what Wade did to them last time the two teams met.
I've been expecting Dallas to lose the series, but I haven't paid much attention to the NBA this year.
113: It's going to be a struggle to row versus Wade.
ads for the ubiquitous (outside the US) Ariel
That's "Prime Minister Sharon" to you, please.
118: I just did the "Wait, he's still alive, right? Er, but not well?" double take.
Mexican beer is shitty because it is german-immigrant brewed lager
Google isn't helping me learn what the ubiquitous Ariel is. Ariel Helwani? Ariel the sports car company?