Working Like a Messiah

I've finally gotten to fulfil my long term dream of being a tradie. On Thursday and Friday last week and on Monday and Tuesday this week I got asked by a friend who's a painter to do some work for him stripping wallpaper of the walls of a unit.

It was good fun. I was working with another guy called Mitch. John, the painter, let us into the unit on Thursday morning, bright and early at 7am, taught us how to strip wall paper properly, and then left us to it. He told us we should be able to get the unit done in the next two days.

Mitch and I set to work. Mitch was better at it than me. It took me a while to get the hang of it (like a whole day). At one point I was feeling inadequate about my stripping abilities and was about to pipe up and say "I'm not sure anyone would pay me for my wallpaper stripping abilities" until I remember that someone was paying me.

Despite my lack of skills I enjoyed doing something that was physical with very tangible results you can see. I like that at the end of each day I felt tired from many hours of scrubbing walls and scraping paper. I felt like I was living the tradesman dream. Plus Jesus was a tradesman which makes me feel extra pleased about the work.

By the end of my first day Mitch and I had done three walls of the lounge room. It didn't look like we were going to get the unit done in two days. In fact by the end of the second day we still hadn't finished the first room. John emailed me asking for the account details and mentioned that he was very pleased with the thoroughness of our work. What a nice boss.

In the end after four days we still didn't get everything done, even after getting a hand for a while.

Still I guess I wasn't too terrible because I have some more work with them next Tuesday. On Tuesday I'm planning on wearing stubbies and get a bit of butt crack happening. I wanna be a real tradie.