As you might know if you pay attention to any of my rants, my father is self employed and "owns his own business" as a plumber, specializing in detecting, pin-pointing and accessing and repairing under slab floor drainage leaks. hes a 55 year old man who has been working hard his entire life, i look at his callas swollen gigantic hands and prey my never have to look like that, and that i never seen a fraction of the tough times and hard labor he has.
since our gubberment hates small business and entrepreneurship so much, and the fact that my father would rather do the work than try to keep track of and let lesser employees made filth of his name; he simply hires day laborers when he has repairs too large and labor intensive for him to do in a timely manner alone.
the man pops skelaxin daily for a week after a strenuous job, because his muscles will tense and not allow him to get out of bed, or one minute he will just be on his knees because he cannot move. i am truly thankful for everything this man has done for me. and i hope i have it in me to be half the man he is.
anyways on to the observation:
so he has been doing this work for a number of years, and i have been helping when i am not in class. ever since i was big enough to carry a half full 5 gallon bucket of dirt/rock/mud/concrete/water, whatever. so i have seen through the years all the "laborers" he has hired from these day labor job placement services.
here is where race comes in. typically we get one of three races of men from these places. assigned to help us. the African american, the White guy, and the Mexican/Mexican American. i apologize if my choice of words offends people, i sincerely did not intend for the labels to do so, i seriously do not understand how people get so strung out on making a note of the heritage of the person and the color of their skin.
typically, and noted there are occasions where these are the exact opposite for one or the other; the hardest workers we get are the Mexican/ Mexican Americans, they are most often the ones that pay attention, focus on the task and get at it and keep at it until competed, even further they are more likely to note what the boss, is doing and jump in to help do things they were not asked to do, just to be helpful and make the boss's job easier. i have never herd of my father complaining about the work these laborers do, or how they handle themselves. they preform their tasks with no complaint and with an attitude that they know why they are here and they are thankful to be working and are there working to accomplish something or provide for themselves or their families.
i am going to lump the other two races together because their attitudes are pretty much the same. usually they will either be brought in by the day labor company, or require a ride by the boss for the day, or will drive themselves. they almost always want to know when "Quitting time" is, and when that time is met, they care less how far along the job is, what state the job site is in, or what the dead lines are, they are done and they expect to leave or will just do so, if they have not already determined that the labor was too dirty/intensive and left on their own after a couple hours. they want to know what time lunch is, and since my father provides a hot meal for free for them all every day, and he tells them he will have it delivered, they get antsy and start making demands that he call to find out why its not here yet, if its running behind. the delivery service is of course my mother, who on said day (today) had the grand child, and as you may know EVERYTHING takes longer when you have an infant to attend to. it made me laugh to come home from my own job, and hear her jokingly say to me, "why cant we just request Mexicans when we have repairs?"
apparently, he hired three guys on wednesday for this job, with the agreement that they all were scheduled to work for him wednesday, thursday, and friday. well, it sounds like we got two whites and an African american, and one of the white guys decided not to come to work today, and the African american spent more time complaining about lunch being an hour late and sitting around listening to his ipod than he did actually working. i am waiting for comments about the third worker.
do not go thinking my father is a slave driver, and these conditions are the most awful ever, thrust me, if i have done this crap since i was 12, its not that bad. he provides NEW thick leather gloves, and buckets with handles, and does not push them or start confrontation. its really just tedious and mildly labor intensive, this 55 year old man who is 6'3" is the one digging a 3x3 hole and compressng himself into it and tunneling 5-8 feet. trust me i have seen it... he asks nothing of his workers he has not or would not be doing without them.
since our gubberment hates small business and entrepreneurship so much, and the fact that my father would rather do the work than try to keep track of and let lesser employees made filth of his name; he simply hires day laborers when he has repairs too large and labor intensive for him to do in a timely manner alone.
the man pops skelaxin daily for a week after a strenuous job, because his muscles will tense and not allow him to get out of bed, or one minute he will just be on his knees because he cannot move. i am truly thankful for everything this man has done for me. and i hope i have it in me to be half the man he is.
anyways on to the observation:
so he has been doing this work for a number of years, and i have been helping when i am not in class. ever since i was big enough to carry a half full 5 gallon bucket of dirt/rock/mud/concrete/water, whatever. so i have seen through the years all the "laborers" he has hired from these day labor job placement services.
here is where race comes in. typically we get one of three races of men from these places. assigned to help us. the African american, the White guy, and the Mexican/Mexican American. i apologize if my choice of words offends people, i sincerely did not intend for the labels to do so, i seriously do not understand how people get so strung out on making a note of the heritage of the person and the color of their skin.
typically, and noted there are occasions where these are the exact opposite for one or the other; the hardest workers we get are the Mexican/ Mexican Americans, they are most often the ones that pay attention, focus on the task and get at it and keep at it until competed, even further they are more likely to note what the boss, is doing and jump in to help do things they were not asked to do, just to be helpful and make the boss's job easier. i have never herd of my father complaining about the work these laborers do, or how they handle themselves. they preform their tasks with no complaint and with an attitude that they know why they are here and they are thankful to be working and are there working to accomplish something or provide for themselves or their families.
i am going to lump the other two races together because their attitudes are pretty much the same. usually they will either be brought in by the day labor company, or require a ride by the boss for the day, or will drive themselves. they almost always want to know when "Quitting time" is, and when that time is met, they care less how far along the job is, what state the job site is in, or what the dead lines are, they are done and they expect to leave or will just do so, if they have not already determined that the labor was too dirty/intensive and left on their own after a couple hours. they want to know what time lunch is, and since my father provides a hot meal for free for them all every day, and he tells them he will have it delivered, they get antsy and start making demands that he call to find out why its not here yet, if its running behind. the delivery service is of course my mother, who on said day (today) had the grand child, and as you may know EVERYTHING takes longer when you have an infant to attend to. it made me laugh to come home from my own job, and hear her jokingly say to me, "why cant we just request Mexicans when we have repairs?"
apparently, he hired three guys on wednesday for this job, with the agreement that they all were scheduled to work for him wednesday, thursday, and friday. well, it sounds like we got two whites and an African american, and one of the white guys decided not to come to work today, and the African american spent more time complaining about lunch being an hour late and sitting around listening to his ipod than he did actually working. i am waiting for comments about the third worker.
do not go thinking my father is a slave driver, and these conditions are the most awful ever, thrust me, if i have done this crap since i was 12, its not that bad. he provides NEW thick leather gloves, and buckets with handles, and does not push them or start confrontation. its really just tedious and mildly labor intensive, this 55 year old man who is 6'3" is the one digging a 3x3 hole and compressng himself into it and tunneling 5-8 feet. trust me i have seen it... he asks nothing of his workers he has not or would not be doing without them.
