Where is Big Don Kev Alviti when I need him?

Anyone glancing down the side bar of my blog will recognize that I follow Big Don Kev Alviti’s blogs.  For me, it makes very hard reading but, perhaps out of sheer masochism, I punish myself repeatedly and force myself to read his posts.  His cover is that of a caring family man, skilled carpenter and smallholder, all of which he is, making his cover even more credible.  We all know, however, that he is really the underboss of the Alviti Family in UK and could, were he so inclined, fell a horse with a single right hook.  Since he is an animal lover as well, though, if you upset the Family you will wake up to discover a beautifully carved horse’s head in your bed rather than the bleeding real thing.

So if he is one of the nicer Mafioso, why is his blog such hard reading for me?  Easy.  I look at his craftsmanship and then go down to my site and I can’t help compare Don Alviti’s well publicized work to the shoddy shit I am paying for.  Believe me, it is hard for me to pretend to be hard when I burst into tears seeing what my ‘craftsmen’ have done.  Jesus, I have already selected the beam from which to hang myself but I bet it wouldn’t take the weight; me dropping suddenly onto it would probably bring the whole roof down and leave me not only with a very sore throat but a lot of explaining to Marcia who would quite naturally wonder why her new house was little more than a pile of rubble and I was wearing a six foot neck tie the colour of which was hardly fashionable.

I have sacked my contractor.  It’s a decision about a year overdue but he was, as Marcia never failed to remind me, a friend of mine so it was a hard decision to make.  Clearly I am not made of the same stuff as the ruthless CEO’s of major companies which is why, rather than nail gun his limbs to the floor and play football with his testicles, I just let him off the hook.  Marcia was hopping mad, she always clung to the notion that we would get our money’s worth but as I pointed out to her, every month we are not open is losing us far more.  It is rather like sitting outside someone’s house every day for a week until they finally cough up the twenty bucks they owe you and in the meantime losing thousands in income.  I can understand the principle of not letting people get away with it but sometimes you have to take it on the chin and move on.  With the restaurant open, we can recover the loss in only four months if we are as busy as all the signs indicate we will be.  After that, it’s all clover.

Now I have no alternative but to pay for work I thought I had already paid for and directly hire the crew I need to finish the job off.  We have managed to hang on to one of the Filipino carpenters, the best one who did such an excellent job with the tables and chairs, as well as a couple of laborers but we do need a bigger crew if we are to finish quickly.

So I spoke to my new foreman, Alex, and told him he was responsible for hiring the extra labour we needed.  He may only be four years old but he did not let me down.  So, without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you my new crew.  Child labour, you can’t beat it.

Note that Foreman Alex has all his crew issued with Personal Protective Equipment.
Tomorrow he will teach them the safe use of power tools.