Ding, Your Job is Done

If your comment didn't appear today, it's because Haloscan is having one of its periodic fits. Unless you are one of the two lucky people who got the "Your comment has been posted" message, your comment disappeared the instant you hit "publish."

Sorry.

In other news, I've been cleaning up after blue-collar slackjaws again.

I get a lot of grumpy comments because I insult blue-collar tradesmen a lot. Well, here is my response: kiss my fat ass and die. My complaints will never begin to make contractors and handymen suffer anything like as much as they have made me suffer with their incompetence, stupidity, laziness, and dishonesty.

I asked a contractor to open a hole at the base of a wall, for a pipe to let water out of a confined area. When the slackjaws walked off the job, I was informed that they needed a bigger demo hammer to finish the hole. But they would be back soon. I believe that was at the end of the last Ice Age.

Today I went out there with a blacksmith's hammer and a chisel and finished the hole in about half an hour. I dug a trench, put together a PVC pipe with elbows, stuck the pipe in the wall, laid the pipe in the trench, squirted Great Stuff in the wall around the pipe, leveled the ground above the pipe, put a vapor barrier on it, waterproofed nine patio stones, laid the stones over the barrier, dug out an area where the pipe and a downspout empty, added another stone to keep them from pouring onto the ground, cleaned everything up, blew out the garage with a leaf blower, put away the tools, and came inside. Total time, including a trip to the hardware store? About three hours.

It's not perfect. Some day I'll need to trim the Great Stuff back, put some sort of concrete or stucco in on top of it, and paint the area. But the job is fundamentally sound, and I somehow managed to do it without a nuclear-powered jackhammer, and the slackjaws could not do that, with all their years of menial experience.

I have no idea what I'm doing, but I do better work than the best contractors I can find. That ought to tell you something about the state of blue-collar pride and workmanship in America.

I wish to God we had teleporters. I would bring people here from China and pay them to do the work. The construction industry is sliding into the toilet because Americans got suckered into the housing bubble, and work is getting scarce for the slackjaws, and frankly, I hope they all starve to death in the gutter. Nothing would make me happier than to see workers who screwed up jobs for me, handing me fries through a window at Wendy's. I am so sick of wiping their noses and changing their diapers. I have better things to do that stand in the yard swinging a mattock, doing something a moron with plumber's crack told me was impossible.

I can't believe the excuses these chimps give me. "You expect too much." "I guess your work is perfect." As a matter of fact, it IS, shithead. That's what I told them the last time they whined. I've never had a judge send a filing back to me because of an error. NEVER. I've never had a complaint about my work from a judge. As a writer, I drive myself and my editor crazy, picking nits and rewriting. Mistakes are few and far between. If I can do that, why can't a pea-brain who pushes a paint roller for a living?

Here's a blue-collar horror story. The mailman had the balls to put a Christmas card in the box last week, proving that government employees have a sense of humor. He clearly wants a tip. I have been getting Mary Garcia's mail since 2003, and this asshole and I made a deal: he would stop bringing it here, and I would stop writing "DELIVERED TO WRONG ADDRESS" on it to embarrass him. He blew it about fifty times, so now I have a rubber stamp with bright red ink and an exclamation point, and I use it. I wonder what Mary Garcia thinks. Am I seriously expected to tip this retard? He's overpaid to begin with. He works six hours a day. He got his position unfairly, because of affirmative action. A gerbil could be trained to do his mindless job. He has been screwing it up badly ever since I've known him. He has full benefits. He has a pension. He cannot be fired unless he rapes the President. He should be tipping me for not strangling him. Sorry, "Shakir." Merry Christmas to you, too, but I would sooner slice my fingers off than use them to write you a check.

Why would you tip someone who makes that much money and has it that easy, even if he weren't an imbecile? I tip waiters and waitresses. People who need it and deserve it. I'll tell you what. Instead of tipping the mailman, I'll tip Mary Garcia. But I can't do it by mail, because it will come right back to me.

I guess maybe I sound a little crabby. Digging ditches will do that to you.