Not even Lemony Snicket can make this stuff up…
So, let’s recap the story as we know it so far…
Three weeks ago framer #2 returned to the jobâ€â€with the boys from Brazilâ€â€making promises that he would, “…have a full crew there every day until the work was complete.” That was true, sort of, until last Monday, when nobody, or next to nobody, showed up. Ditto that on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, as you may recall, I started working on some of the framing myself. (Yes it has been a long time. Yes I still remember how to do it. And yes, I am sore…) Friday, after I finished some writing work in the morning, I arrived at the house around 10:00 am… no framers in sight. At around 11:00 am one of the boys from Brazil showed up. He was there to talk with framer #2, who finally showed up, alone, somewhere between 11:30 and 12:00 pm. I say “alone” because he had promised me when he left the day before that he would be there with one other person to finish framing before a crew came on Saturday to sheet the roof.
Surprised at the fact that he showed up alone, I went from where I was framing down to talk with him to find out where the heck his help was. He told me that he “had to make payroll and couldn’t sacrifice one guy off of another job.” I reminded him that he promised me he’d finish the framing today and that he’d have another guy there to help him. He said I didn’t understand. I told him that I understood perfectly and that if he didn’t get some people to my house he’d be in jeopardy of losing some of his money and walked back to the house to do some work.
Just before #2 left, I yelled down to the boy from Brazil that I wanted to talk with him for a moment. #2 heard me yell, waited until I walked downstairs and then intercepted me from having a conversation with the Brazilian framer.
A yelling match ensued. The nose-to-nose variety that, if this had been outside some bar somewhere, might have resulted in thrown punches, black eyes, missing teeth, and police reports. Instead this resulted in me screaming the fact that, if the work was not completed in the fashion promised (crew there every day until the job was done) then #2 was not going to be paid. (Mind you, it has been over three weeks since #2 reappeared, and he still hadn’t finished sheeting the roof.)
Apparently #2 didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t going to be paid for work he wasn’t doing. At around 6:00 that evening he took his tools and walked off the job stating that he was not going to be threatened by anyone.
Hereby we understand that being told you will not be paid for work you aren’t doing is a threat…
(To be continued…)