So I am ultimately unhappy at work, despite my enjoyment of the people. It comes down to what I do. Initially I was bantered about whether I would be in Maintenance or Construction. I think it was how I worked that decided the matter. My large and muscular frame, granted initially fat frame and my strong work ethic, I work at one speed until I drop, hard, no matter if I am being watched or not. So I was put into Construction, despite my skills being more oriented towards Maintenance, weeding lawn cutting etc.
I was paired with GatoPapá because he had 8 years experience in stone cutting and patio construction. I lifted stones an put them into place and got him tools et al., but there were some difficulties. I have no rhythm, none at all and doing cooperative work requires doing things on the three. You know, 1-2-3-drop. My rhythm goes more like this 1-2-drop and he got hurt a couple of times until I adopted 1-2-3-4-drop, I typically can manage the extra strain and I did not accidentally hurt him, but it strained everything else. Then there was the stone cutting, just like the rhythm thing, I have a different idea on most things, do I cut on the line or to the left or the right, I cut on the line and apparently that is not how it is done. But the hand follows what the eye does.
After a few days like that I found myself on Latino duty. Let me explain. The National Government put in place a policy that says that if a work place can not find workers to work for them they can import them from outside the country. In this case the Latinos came to this country and are employed by a company who sends them to us to work. They are cheap and some of them pick up skills quickly and are thus skilled. A few worked for the company last year and they are back. Let me explain further, they are allowed to work for two years, then they have to go back to the country they are from. Some of them stay. My company pays the company that employs them, the company is paid an amount that I don't know. The company brings them to the site, provides accommodation, room and board, and pays them. The pay is below minimum wage. They then send the money home and they fund their family, sometimes a large extended family. This year there is a music teacher, and apprentice electrician and a few other trades, all here doing labour for money. Once the two years is up, the agency kicks them out of the company and the room with board. They go home or work under the table.
So they don't speak English well and they need someone to tell them what to do. So the people who have been with the company know a bit of Spanish, thus the GatoGrande. They call us Gringos. It means white American. Functionally not Latino. There is a general feeling that there is a derogatory slant to the word Gringo, but we call them Latinos so… but then Latino was the word that Spanish Americans chose for themselves. There is a lot of racism around the Latinos to be absolutely clear. This is a mixed bag.
I goto the job site and I drive the latinos with me. They are Guatemalans and there are Columbians, there were Mexicans, but not any more. There is a man from Honduras and one from Cuba. I drive them and I get orders from the boss and pass them on, sometimes they get orders and they don't tell me, but that is the boss's choice. They called me Gringo, so I made it my own and named my own job title, GOS, Gringo on Site. They are racist. Not all of them, just some of them. One of them told me that most Latinos were useless, except Guatemalans. This is one of the reasons I have low job satisfaction, I go to the job site and they do all the work and I do nothing. By nothing I mean, they do the grading of the site, the laying of patio stones, the mortaring of stone, basically all the skilled work, and they don't attempt to teach me. If there is manual labour, I am all over it. I shovel, I carry stone, wheelbarrow stuff. I drive them, I talk to the boss for them, I buy them things they need and I communicate for them. I talk to the customer. It is said I am their supervisor, but supervisors know what the underlings are doing, I do, but only on a basic level. I call them my overlords. When all the manual labour is done, I am standing around useless. I hate it. I feel like I am lying. I don't take credit for their work, but I take the blame. I am told that I am freeing up people to do other work, but I hate it. I only feel like I am in control when I am doing a planting job because then I am the one with the skill. And I do what they do not do, I teach them as we go.
I do learn, but it is by osmosis. I learn a bit of Spanish. I learn a little of their culture. Some little things like small things can be referred to as Grandfathers, in English a grandfather of a thing is bigger and badder, but in Spanish it is smaller and weaker. Which made me feel hurt when they started calling me Abuelo, Spanish for grandfather, and I resisted. But I have grown to feel that it might be Irony. Their humour is different and may be based on irony to some degree. I am not fully sure.
And they are uneducated. They are not familiar with many ideas that permeate the Western World, like evolution. They are all theists and they were taught by priests and nuns a religious education. They can't understand atheism nor evolution. Some others things they are not fully versed about, like human rights and women's rights. They are constantly objectifying women, but tone honest this seems to be a construction issue or a all male work crew issue as well.
The Latinos bully me too. If I do stuff for them they will be my friend they tell me. I am not sure that it is not cultural. It is adding to my lack of job satisfaction.
Other people, not all people, treat them with derision too though. One fellow referred to them as all Mexicans. I referred to him, an Iranian, as an Iraqi to see how he liked the comparison. He stopped around me. He also referred to them as Fuckers. I told him if he did it again, I would break his fingers. A little bit over the top and I would not have done it, but he stopped. He also uses the word N-—r to refer to the black Columbians or all black people, a practice that I have taken upon to stop the next time he says it. Maybe an accidental throat chop or bonk on the nose. He feels that being not white he is immune to it.
It is not fun to be confronted with racism and less fun to see that you are yourself making judgements too. A white Spanish person doesn't understand something there is a language barrier, a black Spanish person doesn't understand something the language barrier is sometimes forgotten and he is slow or stupid. You have to keep things in you mind because just because they don't look Latin, does not mean they are not. We rely too much on appearance. The white Latinos are not smarter than the native mixed Latinos nor the Black Latinos. North American black people are not more or less educated than the white ones or the native looking ones they just understand what you are saying better. It is important to keep all the facts in your mind. And to ignore the obtusely Racist amongst us, their words are subtly infectious.
I got a raise, because I was GOS. My boss does not understand me. I won't remind him that he said I had a raise if it does not appear. I don't want the raise. I feel like I am not doing good work. If I do get the raise, it will be one more reason to leave.
Does that make sense? It does in my mind.
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