Janitor's lottery win helps build his school a new track

[ballvalve]

I hate to tell you Ian, but the vast majority of Englands tilesetters, plasterers and mechanical guys are Poles, Turks and Czecholsovaks. They take 3/4 of your guys money, send it home and build huge castles with the cash. I know, I know them and I know the houses they built on doing better work, faster, for less money than the English who were out having their hair bobbed.

Some great Vets and doctors in eastern europe make a lot more money parking cars and waiting tables rather than being paid by the "free" health care system that leaves only the incompetent drunkard to slip the knife on your liver.

Better hone your skills, because aftet the debt ceiling gets dropped, you'll have your desk sold for scrap and can start parking those Jags of the congressman. Be careful, one of them was my partner in a winery development and ended up in the ethics committee after he screwed me and 40 or 50 other honest souls. Get your tip up front. Or get a Polish accent and go set tile in London.

[Ian Gills]

You're right Ballvalve. Those Eastern Europeans in England are doing exactly the types of jobs that British people no longer want to do.

Very similar to fruit pickers here.

Not so long ago you would pay a fortune for a plumber in England. Immigrant labor from Eastern Europe put an end to that.

But plumbing and electrical work is still fun to do at the weekend. Not for a proper job though.

[ballvalve]

The best thing my ancestors ever did for me was not to encourage me to follow in their footsteps (all of them mechanics, electricians, plumbers and engineers).

I was off to university to pursue a desk job.

Doing DIY at the weekends.

Twenty years on, the complaints I heard then about their trades turned out to be true, at least in Europe but here soon as well.

Sure, you can still do those sorts of jobs in Poland and the Czech Republic if you want to earn the same as someone working behind a counter in an American (or London) fast food restaurant. Not for me. Or my kids.

By the by, its illegal to do that without a contractors license. Better watch that passport carefully!

[Ian Gills]

No, around here you can do your own work as long as you pass a simple test, pull a permit and get the work inspected.

Hardly freedom, but there you go. Nobody lives in the US to be free. They live here for the rules! Just like Russia used to be without the shared income.

Thankfully a lot of fun DIY does not need a permit at all. Tiling. Replacing doors. Replacing windows. I could go on. The unions didn't get those.

[Terry]

If you nail a window in upside down, it doesn't pollute your neigbors water supply.
And laying tile crooked in your home doesn't really affect them either.

[Ian Gills]

And yet I can change the brakes on my car?

This permit issue is either about taxes or unions and I am still trying to work out which.

Permits are a very Soviet solution.

I thought America was all about freedom and lawyers.

Don't get me wrong. Permits should be required for building or extending structures but for a water heater?

Please don't show the video of the water heater exploding again.

[ballvalve]

You really have to WORK to blow up a water heater, but running gas lines in a house should be the scary issue here.

Amazing how few houses blow up.

You weekenders are still taking work from the pros with license fees, bonds and liability insurance. You must be the "Pole" in Washington.