Thursday, May 6, 2010

Last One, I Swear

Ok, this is the last article for IF Magazine that I wrote, and will write. The internship's over. It's about an Australian film called "The Makeover".

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Tradie stories part 3

I was being paid regularly - or at least, more regularly than the other boys. The boss owed us all money. He was at least a week behind on my payments, and sometimes a lot more with the others - he even owed up to the tens of thousands with some of them. But I got paid pretty frequently as boss knew my dad would get on his case. Now, this was both good and bad because this meant it kept boss in line in terms of my payments, but it also meant he was treating me differently in front of the others. I don’t just mean in terms of pay, either. While I may not have been the buffest guy there, I could sure hold my own hauling dry wall from the garage to the elevator, and then from there to wherever it needed to be. Sure, it tired the hell out of me and left me with scrapes, bruises, calluses, peeled skin and aching muscles, but I was doing an honest day's work. Then the boss started shooting coffee runs my way. I was already on lunch duty - getting people's lunches so they'd eat on site and not waste time outside, not working, getting their food - you know, keeping productivity up. Well, then he sent me on personal coffee runs for me and the suits he had to meet with. This sure didn't tick well with the boys, but they kept well their mouths shut about it. No sense making a hubbub over nothing. But then I started getting attitude, "Man, Shawn's late paying us again." Todd would say to Chris, loading lumber off the truck.
"Yeah, I know, aye?" Chris said, "I got rent and rego and shit to pay!" Now, I could empathise, he was late with my pay, too. I didn't have these worries to deal with, but I could at least understand the frustration of not being paid, "Yeah, he's always behind," I said, "it's really giving me the shits."
"What are you fucking complaining about?" Todd scowled, "At least you're getting paid."
There was mutiny in the ranks. It was time to abandon ship. Within the next few weeks my stint at the site was over. University was starting up again. I left. Shawn still owed me two grand.