Caution: Children at Work

I grew up working on construction sites. It was OK, it was the nineties.
Caution: Children at Work

This was the time of trans fat and artificial sweeteners. We hardly even knew what avocados were. Organic? Forget it!

In Australia, the minimum unsupervised driving age ranges from 16.5 – to 18 years. In most countries, it’s 18.

This isn’t just a fun fact it relates to my story below:

I can’t remember exactly how old I was. Probably under 13, but let’s go with 13.

My cousin and I were working for holiday money on a construction site. Next thing we were offered a dumper. A dumper to DRIVE. SOLO.

I don’t know if you can remember being a kid and feeling that thrill when faced with heavy machinery of any kind? Kind of like being offered that sugar-laden trans fatty snack, but BETTER. So much better.

Obviously my cousin and I were all in. Dumpers are easy to drive. Even for sub-13 year olds. We cruised around the construction site feeling like men.

Fast forward to 2022 and it’s absolute madness to comprehend a child on a construction site. Let alone driving heavy machinery!

Times have changed. Back then contracts were relationships.

Then they changed to standard contracts based on fairness to both parties.

And then amendments started creeping in.

These days everyone wants LESS RISK.

Wanting less risk involves pushing the risk onto whoever is below you in the food chain.

Short story shorter, subcontractors bear the brunt of these hostile contracts.

Even if the relationships are good, the contracts themselves are hostile. And if anything goes wrong, the subcontractor is at risk.

It’s not surprising then, to know that a quarter of all insolvencies come from the construction industry.

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