ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A Dutch roofer has been chastised by his boss this morning for completing a roofing job on a Betoota Heights project home inside the allotted time frame and to a standard that makes it stand out from the other pieces of shit the volume builder has slapped together in recent months.
Martijn van den Hoogenband, 24, is a qualified carpenter currently in Australia on a working holiday and recently found work with local construction company, SandBuild, who have been contracted by a multinational property developer to complete 40 new homes in an exclusive new enclave of Betoota Heights in just one calendar year.
There is a significant amount of pressure on SandBuild foreman, Kevin Kite, to get it all done before the financial penalties for late delivery begin to take hold on January 1.
Which is why Mr. Kite has told his tradies and subbies to “just get the thing up” and worry about defects if the owners launch legal action.
Employees like Martijn are making life hard for Kevin, he says.
“Mate, I got up on the roof of number 45 this morning and there’s no fucking gaps anywhere,” he said.
“This stupid fucking Dutch cunt has actually measured twice and cut once. He’s not even a fucking qualified roofer. He was up here on Friday in fucking Teva sandals and no shirt screwing this roof down. It looks fucking immaculate. I’m fucking furious,”
“I fucking told the cunt to fucking drag it out until this Friday! He’s fucked me. This fucking dogbox of a house is fucking near air-tight. A fucking Hotondo dogbox built to near PassiveHaus standard! What a fuckwit. This is why we can’t keep letting foreign tradies in. They’ll fuck the whole grift for everyone.”
Martijn is seemingly unaware of how much he’s upset his boss by completing his job quickly and to a high standard. He told The Advocate he likes being in Australia for a number of reasons.
“Man,” he said.
“What a great country. You can be borderline illiterate and make more than a school principal or even a hospital doctor. This country is heaven. I love my boss but for someone so wealthy, he is very angry.”
More to come.
