My mother works at a private school. At a teachers meeting the other day, the administration explained that, since the construction of a new building is continuing into the school year, there are some rules for the construction workers, and the teachers are to report anyone not following them. These rules include things such as not swearing, always wearing a shirt, and not smoking on school grounds.
Such regulations are a bit different from the way a normal construction site is run, I believe. So what do you think? Over the top? Appropriate for school? Would you improve on it?
I don’t think they’re inappropriate. I work on a government site, and we have rules for our construction workers too. No sleeveless shirts, no smoking while actually on the job, that sort of thing. I’m the enforcer, and I’m pretty relaxed about the image-related requirements if no public is around. Most of our other rules are safety based, like boots and jeans, hardhats and safety glasses; that sort of thing. Actually, come to think of it, so is the smoking one, since we often deal with hazardous waste and we don’t want that pathway of contamination.
The swearing thing seems perfectly appropriate for school-site construction, although I don’t worry about it on mine. I might add no spitting on the ground (chewing tobacco) for a school. And no dirty slogans on T-shirts, although my guys are usually just in orange anyway, so it wouldn’t come up.
Remember that the construction company had to agree to the rules before the school accepted the bid. So whoever won the bid is clearly fine with the rules.
My mom works for a public school system and she told me of similar rules when our highschool was being worked on a year or so ago. I think since they’re a public school there’s actually set rules from the state government that the crew has to follow.
Sounds appropriate to me, for a contractor working at a school. My husband is a handyman, and he makes it a point to be appropriately dressed, to use appropriate language, and to confine his cigarettes to his truck. That’s merely professional behavior, as far as I know. He doesn’t work with schools, but I would expect at least that standard from anyone who does. I would be a little horrified if I found shirtless, foul-mouthed workers at my son’s school.
No, I’m not prissy. We smoke and curse and run around shirtless all the time, here at home. Just not on the job.
I really doubt the workers will follow all these rules especially no swearing or smoking. I worked on a few construction sites this summer, granted they were not at a school, however one was in a pretty posh retirement type community.
With the title I was expecting something over the top. Those rules seam resonable to me. I’ve worked on a number of construction sites granted most those aren’t followed but at least half the guys would have the sense to follow them if they were asked. The other half is the guys that would rather shoot at beer cans with their nail guns then get anything done.
They will after the first one gets nailed for not following the rules and the foreman explains to him why the next time he does it he will be unemployed.
They’ll probably do it when he isn’t around. The foreman usually has a lot of stuff to do. When I was in Florida working on a highrise if the foreman of my particular crew left or if one member of the crew was sent to do something by himself it wasn’t uncommon for the person orthe whole crew if he wasn’t around to start goofing around and break rules.
I’m thinking the construction workers WILL follow the rules. More construction workers have kids than you’d think, and being stared at by little kids will probably have a more profound effect on them than a stern word from the foreman.
My uncle works construction and had almost the exact same scenario happen to him, and imagining his son staring at him while being an ass shamed him into being good.
I think those rules are perfectly fine. Making them attend class with the kids would be over the top. I do hope they included a “no public urination” clause in there…
Funny you mentioned the urination thing because though the highrise I worked on had port-a-potties at the job site, more than a few workers were too lazy to use them and would just find a corner in which to piss (when noone was looking)…pretty disgusting.
You guys should see my brother’s crew when the nuns are around.
The construction site is right next to a nunnery. It’s one of those orders where they almost never leave the place, only to run errands or go see the doctor. I’ve been in the nunnery and it’s really well built, even with the windows open you can barely hear anything from outside (the architect got some input from a specialist in Sound Physics about where to put columns and funny angles, to diminish sound transmission).
Most of the time, the guys swear in Spanish, Arabic, French, English, a dozen African languages, Russian, Romanian…
The minute a nun is sighted in the garden or walking out the street, or when people leave Mass, they all turn into little angels. Once at lunch my brother asked one of the Moors about this (hey, they aren’t “his” nuns!) and the guy answered that without Caritas’ help he wouldn’t have been able to get his legal papers all straightened out and that it had been the nuns from a different convent in town who found him someone who’d be willing to rent a flat to an immigrant, so they’re about the last people in the world he’d want to offend, ever. He’d been pretty nervous about going to see the nuns when the guy who opened the first Muslim butcher’s shop took him there, but they’d been real nice, yes sir.
But did they?
My father was in charge of construction of many school buildings (and other large buildings) while I was growing up. I nver reacall him mentioning any rules similar to what the OP has. It is very possible that these rules are not in the contract, and are being imposed by the local school, not the school board.
Do I think these are reasonable? Pretty much. But if a guy misses the nail and hits his thumb with the hammer, I am guessing a loud Motherfucker will be heard.
[hijack][Joke my father used to tell]
On a construction job next to a nunnery
Mother Superior: You workmen’s language is horrible, it is upsetting the nuns
Foreman: But Mother Superior, they just call a spade a spade
Mother Superior: The problem is they keep calling it a goddamn fucking shovel.
[/hijack][/jmfut]
I’m a female who observes construction projects, most recently at an oil terminal. The construction workers weren’t allowed to smoke there, for obvious reasons - and they never complained. They also never swore when I was around, except if I snuck up on them with all the noise going on. If they keep the swearing down for an adult woman, they can do it for a school full of kids.
None of my guys have ever tried to go shirtless. That’s just foolish anyway in the kind of work I was observing (welding and grinding and other work that stings when you get hit with sparks or debris).
Oh, no, nothing like that. It’s just that construction orange is a really popular T-shirt color with these guys. Most of the companies have their logos printed on orange shirts for the guys to work in, and regular colors for not-working. It sort of helps visibility around heavy equipment.
As far as the no-smoking rules, here in NJ it is illegal for anyone to smoke within a certain distance of a school. So, yeah, a construction worker, like anyone else, would have to take a hike down the street before he lit up.
Reminds me of my junior year of HS. My school was undergoing some remodeling and additions. They construction workers had similar rules, but in addition, the female students were asked to stop ogling the workers as it made them uncomfortable too…
A nunnery is where nuns live. And most women wearing habits aren’t nuns. Nuns are cloistered, contemplative, doing intercessory prayer, interacting with the outside world as little as possible.
A convent is the home of an active religious community – “active” meaning “interacts with the world.” While in American (and I believe British) English, it generally refers to an active order of women religious, nursing or teaching sisters or the like, it can also mean the home of an active order of monastic men.
Though I suspect that if these sisters did what Nava described for the man she mentioned, she should have meant “convent” and not “nunnery” since they were evidently part of an active order rather than a contemplative one.
