I had to work over the weekend at a Medicare office in the western suburbs of Brisbane. The whole tenancy had to be completely stripped out and renovated to new over one weekend.
On Friday night, the sink had to be disconnected after the Medicare office closed for business, and on Saturday morning, the sink had to be reconnected up.
Disconnecting was the easy part. Although there were trades people everywhere (yeah I wasn’t the only girl tradie onsite, there was also a female electrician!) it was worse on Saturday, because the cabinet makers decided, due to the rain, they would install the cabinet for the kitchen the next morning. Next morning for a cabinet maker is around midday.
It meant that when we arrived to hook up the sink for 10am, the sink hadn’t been cut into the kitchen cupboard and the vinyl layer couldn’t start ripping up the carpet because we hadn’t hooked up the sink. The cabinet makers had stuffed up the progress of the job. What should have been an hours worth of labour turned into 4 as we waited around for the cabinet makers to finish their work.
What made the process worse was the sparkies were playing around with the lights so they were constantly going on and off causing further delay.
There was lots of swearing, but as I talked to the project manager of the job, we both agreed that there was no need to get stressed because everything would get done in time – even if it meant we had to stay back longer to get it done.
When we are stressed and pushed to a tight time-frame this is when accidents due to human error can occur. I find it ironic that tight dead lines are usually pushed by government departments and yet they are the ones that are initiating work method statements and Workplace Health and Safety manuals for a job where their tight time frames are causing stress and have the potential to initiate workplace accidents. Stressful tradies make mistakes! I know because I’m one of them and I know my limits!
At the end of the day – or the weekend in this case – the job got done and Medicare will be able to start work Monday morning in a new office with a new kitchen. There were no accidents this time around but who knows what will happen next weekend or subsequent weekends after that at other job sites?