My first bribe

I work in a municipal building with 5 floors and 1 maintenance person. Needless to say he is a bit hard to get a hold of.

As part of our Youth Employment Centre we are setting up a business incubator space that youth who have been through our business training can use as an office space.

My challenge – to put up a white board on the concrete wall. Before my arrival this had already been established as a pending task and I didn’t act on it right away. I was wrong to wait to see if it would happen on its own…

I called the maintenance guy (using my own cell phone because everyone else had no phone credit left) and asked him when he would be free. We set up a time and he didn’t show up. I proceeded to attempt to chase him by phone and even got some of my colleagues to call on my behalf hoping that would result in greater pull.

Finally he did come and we showed him what needed to be done and he asked where the hardware was. Of course it was my job to supply the screws and a few other indecipherable Spanish words referring to random bits of metal he needed.

Off I go to the hardware store accompanied by a security guard from the municipality to help me navigate the stores. By then, of course, we lose the maintenance guy. We have to wait to catch him another day, all the while chasing him down by phone and trying to convince him that we now have all the useful bits he needs and a few extras just in case.

When he came the second time, I bought him a coffee as a deal sweetener on the suggestion of colleagues… my first bribe…

And we did manage to get the whiteboard installed on the wall (of course without the assistance of a measuring tape or a level – all eyeballed)! What an accomplishment!!

Here’s the kicker: I heard the next day through a colleague, that the salaried maintenance guy had been complaining about how little we offered him considering how much work we asked him to do….