[evagaba]

Warren, Bill and I all worked sporadically for a greek guy named Sandy. Sandy was a big fat azz who underpaid his workers thus didn't care what we did as long as his jobs got painted. Warren would sit at Sandy kitchen table in the morning with a beer as we would go over the days schedule. Sandy would just shake his head and laugh about it. There would be occasions when Sandy would tell Warren straight out not to booze it prior to a job, but only a couple.

An example of how cheap Sandy was. In 1990, he got a contract to paint the fence around the Navy base in Annapolis, MD. Yes, we has to paint the chain link fence that surrounded the entire Navy base.

Well first, Sandy decided to try to save on labor by spraying the fence. Perfectly legit. On the first day of spraying, 3 cars got misted with silver oil-based paint and had to be re-painted. Sandy was ordered no more spraying. So we had to roll and brush the chain link fence.

Next, bidding the job, the Navy people estimated how many gallons of paint it would take to actually cover the 7 miles of fence (both sides). What ever the number was...they gave him a check for that paint...then contracted his labor. Sandy proceeds to buy thinner and suddenly 5 gallons of paint became 10 cutting Sandys paint cost in half. And making for a very messy job on our side.

Finally, it was in the contract that all of Sandys laborers belong to some Painters union and make a certain $ amount per hour. I believe it was $15...and he actually paid us $8/hr under the table.

When Sandy hired us for the job, he made us agree if we were ever audited, and we were, we would agree to tell them we made $17/hr.


And...I would probably rank myself with Kenny & Bill.