Today i was working on a construction site out Manukau. The job was to put up the bars for the wall. The Boss I work with is from Chile and his accent is really hard to understand. When he explains what the job is for the day he says words i cant hear properly so I interrupt and say what i think the word is. When we work on-site and he calls me to bring over some bars and he'll use his fingers to show how many to take over. Also when putting up the bar to tie on to the vertical bars the person at the end has to make sure that the overlap over the other bar is 600mm. The person will either say 'towards me' or 'back to you', when it's in place he'll say 'yep' then well tie up the bar. And there are the two forms of communication on this site.
The Documentation involved was the plans and a few drawings. This helped out quite a bit because I understood what he was trying to say and where and what to tie the steel bar to. To avoid this problem happening again, Next time the boss tries to explain something to me I'll have to grab the plans to help me know what he's talking about.Also interrupt him if I don't understand , that way I don't stuff up the job if i just when and did whatever .
Good Riki, this sounds difficult in terms of communication, and it is good that you interrupt when you don't understand what has been said to you. Documents and drawings can also help, for instance steel plans which show the placement of the reinforcing steel. - Campbell
Posted by: Campbell | 04/22/2010 at 10:26 PM