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.

Certain jobs... can be like this, not everything can be done at once, also safety etc...

Learn what to do to get a job in the same field if you think it's good...

Trust me being busy is much better than 'standing around!'

It was the same when our road was resurfaced. One chap spent the day on his phone in a van as he needed to keep it running to keep the lights on.

@CandyCaneLeBonBon 600 is better than nothing! Is your dissertation about how every post on MN, no matter what the topic, will decend into a shitstorm of shrill insults by page 6?

Go on Question Time and talk about people standing round getting paid!

I'm from a family of construction /road workers and they tell me it's all about the sub - contractors charging and making a ton of money for each bloke they use. Therefore they charge for say 6 men when 3 would do. Obviously this isn't the case 100% of the time, there is a lot of waiting around for other people to do their jobs.
The digger men/ machine drivers are well trained and handsomely paid, the raker would be a labourer, the others wouldn't do his job because they might be concreters or kerb layers etc. A lot of the time the sub contractors are just plain incompetent at project managing so there's loads of hanging around.

well i guess you've never had the pleasure of working "hole watch", it's a real job title common in the canadian pulp and paper industry during shut downs. i'm sure it's applicable with other lines of work.

Twas ever thus.

My SIL would have made them all a nice cup of tea by now !

@Canadianpancake no it's not but it should be! Although it's on another favourite MN topic - portrayal of Transwomen in the media and it's effect on female stereotypes! So that's fun. What's yours on?

Yes conference, very nearly did that last week when it was two poor blokes in the rain, but there's about 15 of them now, I'm not sure I've got enough mugs! And I really don't think they need another excuse to stop working

So we are coming to the end of day two, of what we were told was a two day job. Unless they are going to significantly up the pace over the next hour I doubt very much that it will be finished today.

Of course I'm not judging their work ethic at all.

And I'm totally not judging them for parking machinery over my driveway when there are plenty of other places to put it.

Maybe one of them is on MN?

That's a possibility, but narrowing it down to which one could be tricky given that they are all on their phones so much....

Are you familiar with the scheduling of their work? Sometimes a job can't be done until another job's done and some workers are left waiting.

Ask them if they own a toilet brush. Even if none of them answer they will probably mark you as a weirdo and move the truck just in case.

She's spent 3 days tracking their every move MrsB She knows more about their schedule than their gaffer.

I could certainly offer some much needed guidance regarding efficiency of effort and supply chain management.

Put PM question time on tv. Loads of people sitting around doing nothing. One, Rees Mogg, was stretched out almost asleep on his bench. The great British working man earning his taxpayer funding.

Yes, even the man answering the questions does very little.

We are in full agreement on that