Chile Forum

P,

You really have a knack for describing things Chilean. The last four or so paragraphs in particular - dead on. I am of course stroking my laptop as I write this, would not want her to leave me.

John Hyre

My very first real management position in my life came to me when I was 15 and working on a construction crew in Las Vegas. The former site manager one night packed up $500,000 worth of tools and left town. Turned out his papers were all fake. The boss the next day as he was assessing the damage looked around at the crew, looked at me, and asked if I had a drivers license. I said no. He said, "good, your the new site manager".

I was not even legally suppose to be working construction under the Child labor laws, and new nothing about construction really. I was over qualified only in so far as I could not drive, and the boss hired one of the other guys on the crew to drive me around to the various work sites all day. Which was fine with me.

In that job I quickly realized that tools on any work site 90% of the time get stolen, lost, or dropped before they wear out from use. Especially when you are using a lot of transient labor. Any given tool had about 6 month max lifespan (often more like 3 months), before it moved on to greener pastures at a pawnshop somewhere. So, I learned to buy tools that would be just sufficiently good as to not interfere with getting the job done, but never waisted time and money buying high-end tools that were truly industrial and rugged (with a few exceptions such as jackhammers). It Made my boss very happy when his costs dropped by over 50%. Would I buy them for my own purposes given a choice? Most of the time no, but disposable has its advantages in certain situations. The cheap common nature of the tools also seemed to increase their life span, as they had less value. For example $200 Maquita saw is much easier to pawn than $60 black and decker saw.

The moral here is that if you have tools, love them more than the maestro so that the tools are not tempted to escape with him on his bicycle.

Here in the US, I have had 4 Estwing 20 oz hammers ripped off by various trades over the past 5 years, it doesn't seem to matter how much I love them or mark them with my initials etc. I guess the Mexicans we have here love those blue hammers more than me.
I brought one down to work on my place this June, sort of a honeymoon. I can already see the first sparks of a flame starting between my hammer and my helper (who is called a maestro). I am thinking that when any of us ships a container down, a wise addition will be a "Jobox" steel tool safe. Home Depot has an equiv for about $300, think of it as a chastity belt for your tools, so to speak.
On a related note, in Dec I had a new channel locks and an adjustable wrench disappear off the job. I called the maestro on it and he came over to show me his tool box and how my tools weren't there. I just shook my head and laughed.

xxx

[[[......it doesn't seem to matter how much I love them or mark them with my initials etc....]]]]

My acquantances who work in construction and who also happen to be ladies have discovered a workable solution to tools walking away. They purchase all of their tools in pink.

Seriously, you can buy complete tool sets all in pink, complete with a pink toolbox. There is something about a pink tool. I guess it loves it's owner too much to flirt with anyone else. You don't necessarily think of pink as being a loyal color, but there you go.

My tools walk away, but since my son is usually the only one there working besides me, the tools tend to walk right back home for the next job.

xxx

I used to work on Yachts in a very large marina in California with a friend who only used Snap-on tools. One day he accidentally dropped a wrench worth more than $50 over the side. He looked very unhappy so I tried to cheer him up by tossing some of my Chinese made wrenches over the side, didn't work

Once I left my toolbox on the dock when I went to lunch. When I came back I found that someone had stolen my toolbox but dumped the cheap tools out on the dock.

oregon woodsmoke wrote:In a culture where theft doesn't seem to be frowned on, the contractor couldn't keep buying the same tools over and over to supply his workers. The worker can't afford to buy the tools on his salary. So, it's not surprising that the workmanship is substandard.

Bullshit. Pure socialist bullshit. Workmanship is workmanship. It's the care and responsibility that go into a project and the associated skills that have not significantly changed in 100 years. Chilean workers would do no better with nicer tools without a corresponding mindset change, and a lot less alcohol. Faster perhaps, but no better. In all the years I have been contracting for building in southern Patagonia, I have never heard a worker say that he could do better if he had nicer tools.

I currently live in a village that was started around 1913 and continued with incremental construction through the thirties. The buildings were constructed by the British and Commonwealth craftsmen, using techniques from the Falklands, Britain, NZ, and Oz. The tools those lads used were primitive by today's standards. The work they produced far outshines the shit work we get today from so-called craftsman, who have the audacity to think of themselves as maestros.

I recall a recent electrical sub who did some of the runs in my most recent project. The boss was a persona autorizada, an electrical engineer, the guy I would need to do the utilities plans so that the electrical company would approve service. I explained how to install the outlet boxes with spacing for the volcanita, the sheetrock. They understood because they did the first ones right, while I was watching. But when I came back to inspect the rest, the clowns had done things "their way" which meant defeating the spacing requirement and using screws so long that they penetrated the steel siding and roofing. It does not take the world's most expensive tools to have a craftsman use the proper, demonstrated process and proper length of fasteners. There is simply no excuse other than the prevailing culture.

Oh, and when this project was done, several of the circuits did not even function. The boss did not bother to check his minions' work. I should point out here that the circuit panel in Chile arranges the "automaticos" (breakers) not on a bus fashion as in the civilized and sensible world, but on a serial basis, like Xmas tree lights. So if the connector between breaker one and breaker two is hosed, circuits two through seven are also inoperative. Why is this? Because this is the by-regulation norm for wiring in Chile. It is a stupid engineering decision by the standards makers in Chile. So not only do we deal with substandard Chilean workmen, but their poor work is aggravated by poor Chilean engineering solutions and a lack of subcontractor management oversight.

Chilean "craftsmen" do by and large shit work that almost always has to be done over at least twice. And it's not because of their tools. It's because of their dismal sense of responsibility and care. So don't give me this socialist shit about people suddenly becoming responsible and productive and skilled and accurate craftsmen if only they were given the tools and instruction.

passport wrote:There could be some work available serving the coastal boatyards.

Chilean shipyards are not up to First World standards but within LetrinaAmerica they have a good rep. We even see Japanese fishing boats down here taking advantage of Chilean shipyards.

The embassy MIL people tell me that the Chilean navy yards are so well regarded that countries such as Ecuador send their submarines to the Chileans for major overhaul and upgrades. Politically this suits Chile and Ecuador very well. Ecuador and Peru, and Peru and Chile, are customarily at each others' throats. So Chile helps Ecuador under the premise that "my enemy's enemy is my friend."