Health and Insanity

Anyway, the point I'm getting to in this blog is the way health and safety is going too far in the other direction. A few sites I've worked on makes you wear gloves, goggles, hi vis vest, boots and hard hat. Fair enough you might say, our gripe is that you are expected to wear all this all the time. If you haven't painted before then you maybe wouldn't understand the pain of trying to cut in a ceiling line wearing googles and a hard hat knocking on the ceiling. Or cutting in a door frame wearing googles and your hat. Especially when they say you should wear all this on a brand new flat/house where there is little to no danger of harming yourself. To me a little common sense applied here would go a long way. I don't mind wearing gloves, protects my hands and keeps them clean. I always wear my safety boots and hi vis vest. Wearing the hat and goggles gets to me. Obviously wear them walking through active areas of site but in the plot I work in, not necessary. I wear glasses anyway so I'm going to invest in some prescription safety glasses so that will eliminate one part of the problem! 

More sites are watching you closely in what time you start and finish. Signing in and out is commonplace and to be fair reasonable. The site I'm on now uses a hand scan and turnstile entry system. Good in a way as it shows the correct hours you've worked and only allows properly inducted workers in each day. I'm one of those who like to start early so I can go early, beat the rush hour traffic but have been told 6 o'clock is too early to start from now. Shame as I've found I get more done between 6 and 9.30 than I do if I start at 8 every day. Also more sites ban radios now. There is nothing better than working away with the radio on in the background, I feel you are more productive. I don't buy this rubbish that if you have a radio on you cant hear the fire alarm or someone shouting fire. Course you can. Not every one has the radio on full whack. Most building sites are turning into soulless places with all workers looking like identikit zombies, hating the job they are doing and wishing the day away. It used to be you could walk on site every day and have a laugh and joke with the other trades, those days becoming few and far between on the bigger sites now.

Poor workmanship on site is another gripe of mine. More and more in recent years, trades before my own have left more poor work, be it in plastering or carpentry, saying it doesn't matter the painter will hide that. This week I have had to caulk gaps 10 millimetres wide (excessive by at least 7 mill) and fill skirting and architrave when the carpenter has gone all Die Hard on them with their nail guns. All these little things adds more time on our jobs and if we leave it in a poor finish it's us who will get ripped apart for it. Its the price we pay for being the finishing trade. If you or someone you know buys a new property, the main thing they will look at is the painting. Is the finish good enough? Thats the difference with new build work, the finish has to be 100%. That is what catches out a lot of decorators. When domestic and commercial work goes through a lean period, immediately those painters assume they can walk straight into this type of work. By the end of the first plot they realise or the agent realises they can't. I learnt my trade doing new build work along with commercial and domestic jobs so I can easily switch between jobs as and when needed. It's helped me immensely.

A quick two tales of "painters" who have got caught out. One painter started on site, given the gear and got on with it. Two and half days later asked for his next plot as just glossed up. No problem said the boss, just have a look at your plot before I give you next one. Walked in, said two things. I can see through your ceiling so re do them and why have you glossed all your woodwork before even starting your walls?! The next one, a painter started on a new build site. Same as before given a plot with all the gear and just told to get on with it. 30 minutes later goes back to his site foreman and asks for some more gloss. "More gloss?" said the foreman. "Why do you need more gloss for, you've only just started?" Painter replied he'd used it up. So the foreman walked over to his plot to find that instead of using the 4 tubs of contract matt emulsion for the walls, he'd painted them in brilliant white high gloss!

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