Hecho a Mexicano - Excuses, excuses, excuses

hecho a mexicano - a polite way to say we're gonna do it by hand "hecho a mano" because there's nothing really to do and so rather than stand around like a bunch of lazy bum construction workers we're gonna stand around trading turns leaning on shovels, picks, digging bars, and whatever else we can score to appear plausibly potentially useful.

Seriously though. It's rough being a construction worker. I've spent years in offices. It is easy to blow off in an office. Checking email is called "work". Surfing e-bay is "research". Calling your mom's neighbor's plumber... well it's a stretch, yet a daily recurrence in offices around the world.

Construction work happens in the great outdoors. Right there for everyone to see. Screw around
for 30 seconds and you've got your neighbor's plumber's wife calling your mother and superintendent to let the world know. And that's not the half of it. There are a lot of legitimate reasons for standing around on a job site. So here's a growing list of excuses for when you see...

1) a man standing around doing nothing for a few? He's been in a ditch or manhole all day - and he's resurfaced and taking a brief rest. Go check your e-mail fool.... Harley St Clair after several hours spreading something like perma-liner epoxy in sewer manholes... give the guy a break.


2) a man sitting on top of a manhole or ditch? Sitting there for hours without doing much of anything? That's the law (thank goodness) and it's a good one. In fact two guys isn't a bad plan, one to be there just in case and a "bank man" to run errands for the guy(s) in the hole.

Hawk, Teeter, and Enrique in the ditch with Hawthorne on the bank.... would you really want to jump in and out of that twenty times an hour? It gets old... believe me.

3) 2+ guys watching a backhoe dig? Do they appear to be just standing there looking at the teeth of the trackhoe? That too, is real work. It's serious. Seriously. Those teeth are great at ripping up things like gas lines, unprotected electric lines, telephone cables, etc... Ditch digging is forilla and until the robots replace us we're stuck with it.

4) Four guys watching one guy dig a hole? OK, yeah, one guy probably could do the whole hole thing alone.... you do it. Go five feet down, three by four and stepped for safety. And try not to rest too much - the neighbors are watching. Seriously ya'll, the deeper you get the tougher it is - you gotta throw the dirt further etc etc...