Unlikely appliance men

Last weekend I promised to blog about some of the experiences I had in the first few days we were here. Here it is, a week later, and I haven't written anything.

So here goes.


Let me set the scene.

It has been hot; hotter still late this week (We hit 41C, 106F on Thursday - they say February is when it really gets hot!) than it was the week we arrived, but it was already hot last Friday (the day after we arrived.)

The power had been going on and off in the afternoon (the nuclear power plant in the Cape area isn't running at full capacity) due to rotating outages intended to spread the discomfort.

Around 7:00pm, a time by which I normally have already enjoyed my customary post-work beer, three delivery men showed up at the house with two new stoves.

One of the stoves (a new gas range) was destined for the main house. The other, plus the electric stove that was being replaced, were headed to the "labourer's cottages" 200 metres distant.

The delivery men did not have one of the adapters that was required to complete the job, and this made us a bit unhappy, since it had been ordered.

However, these men soldiered on to at least position the new gas stove where it belonged. As they were moving this stove around, I struggled to offer assistance, or at least stay out of the way. Offers of help were declined dismissively, and the two men who were the more able of the trio (each maybe 5'8" and by my guess maybe 120-130 pounds) muscled the stove into place. Then the third (the only one who spoke any English, which made communication quite difficult) got down to work with something on the floor, and could not get up without being helped by the others (too many years of moving heavy appliances?)

They looked somewhat disgruntled when I had to inform them that the other stove (already unloaded off of their flatbed truck, and the electric stove which had just been replaced) were destined for the cottages instead and would have to be reloaded on the flatbed.

However, they worked on and soon we headed down to the cottages. After I unlocked the buildings and told them where things went I tried to keep myself occupied while they moved the stoves to their new locations.

When they were ready to leave, they asked me to sign the delivery slip, which revealed that they were expected to wire a new harness to the electric stove. When asked, they proceeded to attempt to do this, with the most unlikely selection of tools (whatever they appeared to have on hand in their delivery truck). After this job was "complete" (it could not be verified whether the work was completed successfully or not as the power was out - later inspection reveals the job was not a success), they headed off (hopefully to the end of their work day!)

A few things struck me about this:

1. I was expected to not be helpful, and viewed as something of a nuisance (maybe?) for trying to help, even though my build makes me a much more likely appliance mover.
2. The common denominator of South African work seems to be the omnipresence of cheap unskilled labor. Not much effort seems to be put into training anyone on how to do jobs - brute force in the deployment of human resources appears to be the answer to any problem. These men had neither been trained nor provided with the proper equipment for doing the electrical work that they were expected to do.
3. My initial reaction, to be dissatisfied with the quality of the men's work, was altogether too natural. What about holding their employer accountable for failing to train them properly, provide them with proper equipment, to teach them how to lift things without hurting themselves, and provide disability insurance so that the gentleman who could not get up off of the ground without assistance could stop delivering appliances for a living when he was no longer able to do so?