I didn’t even get a chance to explain myself. He just ordered me to do what I’m asked to do and asked me a very important question, who’s the boss here, you or me? All right, you’re the boss. So I apologized and did exactly what I was asked to do and filled the clogged container with fresh cement.
Well, to nobody’s surprise, the cement would not flow and the crew tried all sorts of things to unclog it from the massive vibrating hover normally used to get all of the air out from freshly laid cement to just hammering the container. Spoiler alert, nothing worked and while I just laughed at their efforts and watched Netflix on my phone, since I had nothing to do, the genius site manager stepped in since the construction stopped again.
One of his genius ideas was to put it all back to the cement truck. The only problem with that was that the cement wouldn’t flow, obviously. Another one was to tip the container over and just clean it up. The only problem with that was that he wanted me to drag it on the ground using my towering crane, which can lead to serious damage to the crane itself, which I can be held responsible for later on.
And that is because the cranes and the operators are managed by a separate agency independent from the construction site, so those are lent to the developer for as long as required and operators assume full responsibility for the machines and everyone’s safety. So that is why I refused to work and I wouldn’t budge.
Soon after, I’m getting a call from my boss from the crane agency saying there was a complaint that I’m refusing to work. So of course I calmly explained what’s being required of me and my boss said, I hope you’re not doing that. And I assured him that there’s nothing to worry about. He thanked me for it and we ended the call.
They finally managed to use an excavator to tip the container over and clean it, creating a bog full of wet concrete, mud and cold water in winter. I ended up just watching Netflix for the rest of the day until I got another angry call from the site manager. He was telling me, you were supposed to tell the crew to clean the container.
I did multiple times, nobody listened. Then you shouldn’t have let them go. You were supposed to do something, anything. And then I asked him the same question he asked me earlier, who’s the boss here, you or me? He got silent for a second and then got even angrier lecturing me how irresponsible I am until he got tired.
Then my boss got another angry complaint from the manager that he completely ignored.