Bricklayers in UK making $1600 a week

[Greg]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30390005

[LausTibiChriste]

How long is the training?
I'd go lay bricks for $1600 a week

[Greg]

I don't think there is training.

You show up for interview and have to be able to lay bricks straight and clean at a certain speed.  If you can't keep up, then it slows down the other people so they fire you.

Looking a Portugal I can envisage British housing estates with mortar and acid marks dribbling down the face of the bricks.  Spain is even worse mind you.  That is why they render everything afterwards.

It's really not rocket science to lay bricks.  Just a question of learning the techniques from a book and then practice, practice, practice.  The problem is that unless you lay them all the time you slow down.

[Heinrich]

It is brutal and inconsistent work. Sounds great. 1600 dollars a week. How many weeks a year? How many years could the average man do it. Most blue collar workers are not prone to eating healthy and keeping the caps on the brewskies.

[Greg]

That's true of many a construction job.  Plastering is back breaking work too.  That is why I work in technology, because my telephone and computer mouse are light and my Aeron chair is comfy.

And it is also why I have always suggested that people learn a wide variety of skills, underpinned with the skill to be adaptable and positive and make themselves useful.  If homeschooling doesn't teach you this then it was a mistake.  I am sure homeschooling could teach it, however.

The last thing any business owner needs is to wet nurse an incompetent apocalyptic nutter who wishes he was living in a feudal society and needs on the job training to wipe his own ass.

Want to impress the boss?  Solve the problems yourself without bothering him.  Then tell him how you did it.  Employees like that always have work and always get hired in new fields.

That is what the boss wants.  It is why large companies hire my firm, to sort out the problems that their own paid employees can't sort out or as often as not have caused by being stupid.

[Kaesekopf]

Want to impress the boss?  Solve the problems yourself without bothering him.  Then tell him how you did it.  Employees like that always have work and always get hired in new fields.

This is how I got the position I'm in right now.  Technically not qualified (I don't have much experience in the field), but I've shown myself a hard, committed, and competent worker who gets along with almost everyone in the office, and I've impressed the boss/hiring manager.

[Greg]

Welcome to the top 5 percent.

[Armor of Light]

That's true of many a construction job.  Plastering is back breaking work too.  That is why I work in technology, because my telephone and computer mouse are light and my Aeron chair is comfy.

Steelcase makes much better chairs than Herman Miller!

[Greg]

I have both, and I disagree.

My ass sweats a lot less in the Aeron and the Steelcase chair is impossibly heavy.

[Armor of Light]

I have both, and I disagree.

My ass sweats a lot less in the Aeron and the Steelcase chair is impossibly heavy.

I'm a Product Engineer at Steelcase. I worked as a PE in the chair plant until they shipped production to Mexico. What SC chair do you have? Some are better than others. They are heavy though...We make them that way!

[Greg]

I have a model 4621210X made in Grand Rapids, MI

Can't complain though I only paid $15 for it on ebay and it looks like new.

My daughter likes it anyway.

[Armor of Light]

I have a model 4621210X made in Grand Rapids, MI

Can't complain though I only paid $15 for it on ebay and it looks like new.

My daughter likes it anyway.

Ahh. yes, the Leap chair. Good chair alright. I never liked that as much as some. It was s'posed to be the top-of-the-line, but my favorite for comfort and durability is Amia (482 series). The Think chair is the SC mesh back super chair, and it is my least favorite. My ass does not sweat much though! I get killer deals on all that stuff over at employee sales!