Men stood around doing nothing

[Canadianpancake]

The road outside my house is being surfaced today, involving several wagons and other large vehicles, and lots of men who for the most part are stood around watching other men do their bit of the job. There's two men in particular who don't seem to have done anything at all yet today, despite it being nearly lunchtime. Aibu to wish i could get paid for standing around doing nothing for half the day?

I'm also pissed off at the flipping beeping noise all the vehicles are making, because apparently it's compulsory to constantly have them all in reverse all the time.

They're back to do the other half of the road today, which is another gripe entirely. There's three roads being done, they did half of each road, which caused unavoidable inconvenience for three streets of houses, and they are back again today to do the same, again unavoidably causing access problems for 3 roads. Would it not be easier to just fully do one road at a time, and therefore only inconvenience one lot of houses?
Dons tin hat

They've not started yet. I think they had to wait for the road sweeper to turn up. So they've been sat in the vans since about 9am.

We've diced with death dealing with men on mini diggers on the school run this morning! It's been mayhem OP.
MAYHEM I TELL YOU!

MAYHEM I TELL YOU!

I hope you weren't trying to be humorous with that comment.

As scenes of mild peril go, this must rank at least somewhere near the middle

I always smile at the men who’s job it is to stand and hold the “stop” and “go” signs at roadworks.

I always give them a wave to say "thank you" when they switch from "stop" to "go". It seems rude not to!

Is this to do with unions or something (not in any way bashing unions who conduct themselves reasonably)?

My FIL told me about places he used to work where, if the electrician's mate (that was the actual job title - it didn't sound like he was a particularly essential employee, kind of like the equivalent of a caddy to a golfer, carrying the toolbox) couldn't come in to work for any reason, the electrician would instantly claim that he couldn't do his own job safely and would therefore refuse to do any work that day (on full pay) - not just do the sensible thing and reschedule any of the very few tasks that genuinely required two people to do them.

I always smile at the men who’s job it is to stand and hold the “stop” and “go” signs at roadworks.

I always smile when I see the lorry sign saying "Men working at rear"

I do thank the man holding the Stop/Go lollipop, though. Why wouldn't you?

I also don't have any issue with one of them doing that as part of a bigger job, if the location of the obstacle keeps moving or it won't be blocked off for long. As a PP said, a human doing it can use common sense and not let 19 of a stream of 20 cars through before stopping the last one to allow for non-existent traffic not coming the other way.

Plenty of jobs have more mundane aspects to them - it's just the idea that there are peripatetic people specially employed to do things like that and only that for whom teams of workmen have to sit around waiting for ages, before they can do their jobs, when one of them could very easily have done it himself in the first place.

Ah yes but rake man has his raking certificate, so he has to do the raking you see. Digger man has his digger (digging?) certificate but not his raking certificate so he can't help with the raking. Rake man is hoping to get his digger certificate soon if they'll let him have some time off from raking. But then they'd need someone else with a raking certificate cover him. Its all very complicated OP.

Odd that you don't see similar comments about the number of people present in operating theatres during surgery. I mean, the anaesthetist is just keeping an eye on the beepy machine and occasionally administering some drugs, and there's a whole nurse who only does something when the surgeon needs to have an instrument handed to them, and a second surgeon who just does the stitching up afterwards.

And what about court cases? A barrister for each defendant to do the legal argument and examine witnesses, sometimes 2 each if it's a serious matter, a clerk to take notes/run errands for the barrister, a court stenographer, an usher, a clerk for the judge - a lot of them spend a lot of time doing nothing.

It seems to me that these comments are only ever made about manual work.

(Sad I know), but I was watching a railway webcam the other week from LaGrange (USA) where there's a main line railway track through the centre of the town along the main road. They spent the week replacing the track/sleepers and re-tarmacing the road afterwards.

It was VERY noticeable that it was all done very quickly, efficiently etc. Despite replacing the track/sleepers, there was only one overnight where trains weren't running. All the other times, trains continued to run each day. Also noticable was how few workers it took. They would jump down from a JCB and start shovelling chippings or raking tarmac etc, then move from a JCB to a street sweeping machine or roller. None of this "one man one job" malarky. It was all very much all hands to the deck and just get the job done as quickly as possible.

Also noticeable was that the supply chain seemed very efficient - none of this hanging around waiting - it all looked to have been meticulously planned and very well executed.

@Canadianpancake
Hopefully they'll go through a power or data cable, leaving you unable to post these silly, immature ramblings.

My office is currently surrounded by roadworks where only around 50% of the workforce can be observed actually working.

Projected finish tone is Autumn.

Well @Lidon, there's plenty of other Very Important and Grown Up threads for you to read. Toodloo

@CandyCaneLeBonBon it's mini diggers and temporary traffic lights as far as the eye can see around here due to the amount of new housing being built. But that's a whole other thread for the morally rightouse to froth at the mouth about.

Well @LakieLady, there isn't currently an medical procedure taking place outside my window, or a court case for that matter so I feel in not really qualified to offer inaccurate and judgemental opinions about those.

Urgh. My dad had a job like this and he absolutely hated it. He’s a labourer and used to just going to work- working til the job is done and then stopping. The job he got was a contract from the council and the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. There wasn’t loads of disorganisation, jobs not being ready to start, having to wait until materials arrived, plumbers had to do work before he could tile etc. He said he spent most days twiddling his thumbs until he was able to do his specific work. He couldn’t leave and couldn’t do any other jobs to pass the time. He was so glad to leave that job.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll once they get started they do seem to be doing a grand job. It just seems to be a bit of an inefficient process at times. But it's keeping me entertained whilst I while away the hours until school pick uo.

Juan yes that seems to be the issue here. They were flying along once they got started, but they were definitely sat twiddling their thumbs until the road sweeper had been this morning.

A new housing estate is being built on my commute to work and I have a look each day to see how many people are working.

There are loads of little vans parked up blocking the road, but the most I've ever seen is one man moving some traffic cones and one driving up and down the same stretch of road carrying a bag of cement.

It's like Charlie and the chocolate factory, no one seems to go in or out, but there are badly parked vehicles everywhere.

I mean, the anaesthetist is just keeping an eye on the beepy machine and occasionally administering some drugs, and there's a whole nurse who only does something when the surgeon needs to have an instrument handed to them, and a second surgeon who just does the stitching up afterwards.

As you say, they are there - monitoring and observing, not sitting in their cars, reading the paper and eating their sandwiches or staring into space. Building and road repair is a skillful job, but I don't think you have to concentrate quite as forensically and with split-second timing as a surgeon does. Plus, if you make a mistake when mending a road, you can put it right when you're able to and the road isn't going to die.

It isn't just manual workers that people say this about at all - have you ever had the joys of trying to follow anything up with the people in the offices at your local council?

Oh bless you Op! Did you not realise? YOU are not allowed a lighthearted opinion on anything but if you DO dare to voice your thoughts, then all the people who think you should not voice your opinion, will voice their opinion of you!!

Hope the dissertation is going ok. I've written a grand total of 600 words today!

There’s a problem on a road I drive to work. This morning there were workmen with handily labelled jackets, so I knew exactly how many Gas/Water/Electric people were standing looking in the massive hole in the ground. There were some Unmarked hi vis jackets too. I assume they were waiting in the wings with a rake or a mini digger?

Inefficient
Wastefull

My DP works for a surfacing company and tells me they get shit from people who in all honesty haven’t got a clue. Yeah some may seem to be standing about but every one of the team has a particular job to do and has to wait for others to start / finish their jobs so they can crack on. The day of noise and inconvenience might be a pain in the arse but if your road was left to crumble you’d be moaning about that so yeah YABU

They could be apprentices or trainees, shadowing the workers. Also, as another poster pointed out, how would you only they're doing sod all if all you're doing is watching them, wouldn't that constitute as doing nothing also?