A Job...Well, Done

Well we've been back from our East Coast trip for about a week and I (Carl) have spent my time looking for work. I found it...briefly. I found a job ad for College Pro painting and thought "This will be great to keep me busy until we head back to Vancouver."

I have worked for College Pro in the past and know their business model is pretty sketchy (from my own experience and from others who have worked with them as well) but I figured hey its something. 

Anyways today I showed up at the job site at 8am and we soon began work scraping, sanding and priming. Another guy was working alongside me. I called to our foreman and asked how long it should take us to do the wall. "Ummm 4 hrs" she said after counting paces along the side of the house. That meant since there were two of us it should take 2 hrs. 

The house we were working on was over 100 years old, and in bad need of a paint job. Almost all of the paint that was left was flaking off. I thought the 4 hrs combined would be tough but we gave it a shot. We worked until 1pm without taking a break. Still not done. Two others joined us and we worked the rest of the day on this one wall. 

Not a huge deal, working outside right? this is good isn't it? except when you learn how College Pro pays. The wall was supposed to take 4 hrs therefore, all of us working on that wall split that 4 hrs among us (even though it actually took us 9 hours), and those measly fractioned hours would show up on our pay cheque. 

I calculated that I would be making about 1/3 of minimum wage... which I honestly wouldn't feel that bad about if a large company wasn't benefiting from it.  After I clarified this with the foreman, I said my farewell. 

So I am embarrassed to admit, today marks the shortest job of my life.