This was not just a different job….it was my very first day working in another country, Australia. While seemingly similar to the United States, Australia really isn’t similar to the United States at all and after a nerve wracking drive to work on the wrong side of the road I met other differences…..
“ What are you marking the heights on guys ?” I asked and the thick Aussie accent replied with…..
“ Every 87 mil until we hit the top of the windows. “
This will be tough I thought wondering what the hell a mil was as I stood there with inches and feet on my non metric ruler. But it got sorted out and I was put to the test and given a wall all by myself for the morning while the boss went to a meeting. After the morning break one of the guys came and looked at my efforts and never said a word and shortly after some one else did the same. By the third guy I got nervous and started checking over my work. By the time the whole crew had looked I was convinced … these guys were impressed and I was feeling pretty good.
Just before noon , Nick, my five foot Italian boss rounded the corner and instantly gagged back a choke. He held his heart and dropped to his knees in a teary and angry tirade of Italian language and performed a convincing imitation of epilepsy. Once in a while a word of English would spew forth mentioning something about “ the marks…the marks “
I’ll explain that here in the United States bricks have what’s known as bar marks or scorch marks from the kiln and are always indicative of the back side of the brick and I mumbled that fact……and Nick explained….
“ Butta fuckina heah….everybody luvsa those marks. “ and so it would appear my first wall in Australia was built inside out.
Later, a sudden and rare wind storm toppled another buildings wall onto my inside out wall negating the need to dismantle it. Nick submitted a bill to the insurance for three times the brick I laid and he figured I had brought him luck and so was given a second chance. I worked for Nick for some time and put that second chance to good use.
