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hey’d agreed to meet at his place that night and his knockoff time couldn’t come quick enough. It was like Groundhog Day all over again. Mondays sucked, and not in the fun way.
“Cole, you want to check whether you’re happy with how we’ve set out the stairwell and pantry?” his apprentice asked. It was an awkward design with the stairs cutting into the pantry space in the kitchen. The walls needed to be in precisely the right spot, or they’d have to rip them out and start again.
He stepped off the ladder and pulled out his measuring tape, following Sam to where he and the other apprentice had been working. “Where are the plans?”
“Over by the back door.”
Cole rolled his eyes. The back door was far enough away that the boys wouldn’t have been double-checking measurements as they went. Cole collected the page he needed, shaking his head when he looked up at the markings. Cole spread it out on the makeshift sawhorse that the apprentices had been using and sighed.
They winced, their wary gazes bouncing between each other and the plans.
“Have you double-checked all your measurements against the plan?”
Sam shook his head, and Cole grumbled, massaging his temples. He had to remember that they were fresh meat. Trainees. But this was basic shit that they shouldn’t still be screwing up. And they had screwed it up. Cole spotted their mistake the moment he’d walked into the kitchen.
Ken patted his pockets down looking for a measuring tape, and Cole pursed his lips, biting back a snarky comment and handed over his. How could they do their jobs without one? He motioned to the space and waited while they measured the doorway and the four walls within the pantry.
“Looks good,” Sam said with a satisfied smirk, letting his measuring tape snap closed. Cole raised an eyebrow and Sam withered under his stare. “Maybe?”
“What’s the width of the stairwell?” It was a leading question, one that if they’d followed the plans properly, would be bigger than it currently was. This was the shit that frustrated him. But he should be grateful. At least they’d asked him to check rather than going ahead and fixing the frame down, cutting it to fit the wrong space.
“Seven fifty.” Sam furrowed his brow and hummed.
Ah, now he sees the problem.
“And the length of this wall?” Cole asked flatly. Sam measured it and the pieces seemed to click into place.
“It’s too long.”
“How do you fix it?”
Ken shrugged and Cole tossed the plans at him.
“You start with the plans and a measuring tape. Day one on the job, guys. Measure twice, cut once.”
Sam was the younger of the two and the one more eager to learn. Ken was a pain in the arse, thinking he was already an expert—he’d been around Jono, the other bloke on site, for too long. Cole focussed on him and let him think it through.
“If we shift all the markings by three hundred that way, the pantry will be the same size, but we’ll have enough space to put in the stairs in.”
Cole nodded. “Exactly.”
“What’s the minimum width we can have for the stairs?” Sam asked, and Cole explained the requirements of the Building Code, his apprentice making notes in his phone. He could and did get frustrated with all the boys on site, but at least Sam was open to learning. Jono’s bad habits were rubbing off on Ken, and Jono himself slacked off more than any of them.
Speaking of Jono, where was he? He looked around for the man but couldn’t see him. He needed to give Jono a briefing on when the flooring joists and the second load of framing timber were arriving. They were behind schedule on this build for no good reason. The clients were going to start making a fuss if they didn’t get a boogie on to get it back on track, and that meant Cole copping it from the site supervisor.
Cole still had to get over to his other site and help push through the delays there too. “Where’s Jono?”
“In the shitter.” Ken pointed in the direction of the portaloo.
Cole sighed. He couldn’t exactly stop his guys from using the facilities, but Jono spent forever in there. Cole couldn’t imagine anything worse. The portable toilets stunk, and they weren’t exactly clean. There was an endless number of blokes using it, and the longer it sat there, the worse it got. The dunnies were delivered sparkling, but they were never cleaned while they were on site. As far as Cole was concerned, almost anywhere was better to sit and scroll social media than a shared shitter that hadn’t been disinfected for weeks.
Twenty minutes later and Jono emerged. Cole was beyond frustrated, angry that he was taking advantage of his seniority. Jono was working the apprentices while he slacked off. Cole needed to reallocate him to another site where there was a team that would push him. Except the very reason why Jono was working alone with the apprentices was that most of their other crews wouldn’t have him on their site.
Cole cracked his neck, squeezing his shoulder muscles to loosen the knots there. But it was no use. This was why he should never have accepted the supervisor’s job. He hated all the peopling.
Cole rushed through his update, ordering the boys not to knock off without having finished erecting the last remaining walls downstairs. “Call me once you’re done. I need to report back that these walls are up. When the trusses get here tomorrow, we need to start getting them up. I’ll be here first thing so make sure you’re on site by 6:30 a.m. This frame was supposed to have been done two weeks ago.”
“The deadlines are ridiculous,” Jono answered with a sneer.
