Job Discussion Forums

route67 · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:23 am Post subject: TBI (Typical Botched Indo) job

The following could only happen here...

In my house I have a sink on the 1st floor - that's 1st in the UK, 2nd here - and, this being Indonesia, it's halfway to falling off the wall. It seems to be held up only by the pipe to the tap and the u-bend pipe under the sink. It hasn't fallen off the wall...yet. But you can understand my concern. I value my toesies.

I also have a sink on the ground floor - or 1st floor, if you are Indonesian - next to the kitchen. This sink is absolutely fine. With me so far? Good, then I'll continue...

Last Saturday, I asked one of the office boys to prop up the upstairs sink (being very careful to say "di atas", please note) with a couple of stout pieces of wood, this being a temporary measure until it can get really fixed. He comes back to tell me "Not broken, sir." Eh? It's obviously broken, I say. Go back and look again, I say. And off he pops, coming back later to tell me "OK now, sir."

I then pop off to the mall. When I return, I find outside my front door the pieces of wood he has had to saw off the planks to make them fit under the sink. Cool, I think - job done. However (hands up who couldn't see the 'however' coming...), when I go to the kitchen, I find the downstairs sink propped up. So, I check upstairs. No planks propping up the sink. Hmmm... I return downstairs and remove one of the planks from the downstairs sink, which promptly takes a nosedive to the floor. Aduh - it's broken! What has our OB done? Well, he's had to break all the plaster around the sink in order to justify propping it up with the planks.

Only in Indonesia...

Nabby Adams · Joined: 08 Feb 2008 Posts: 215

And thats why we all love Indonesia. In the world of the blind even a one eyed man is king.

SuperGeniusJonnie · Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 18 Location: INDONESIA

But only in Indonesia can one hire the services of a little man to happily attend to one's chores and errands.

Indeed, I have a little man who comes to my abode to polish my silverware. He is delightful, though I do not understand a word of which he speaks.

guruengerish · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 424 Location: Australia

Your little man who does your silver: he's not mumbling something like "orang bule itu, malas sekali!" Very Happy

SuperGeniusJonnie · Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 18 Location: INDONESIA

Yes, he is quite possibly saying something to that effect.

guruengerish · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 424 Location: Australia

To be honest, the little bit of laziness I really enjoyed, was having my lunch delivered.

Every day, a motor bike would stop at my front gate, and we'd exchange the stainless steel rantans, his filled with the dish I'd chosen a month before, to which I added my own cooked rice, mine empty and clean, for refilling next day.

He had a neat inverted "U" shaped carrier on the rear of his bike, and this was filled with layers of rantans, ready for delivery.

I think the cost was around Rp6000 per day, and a delivery fee at the end of the month of Rp2500. I added to this quite a bit, to ensure I got mine early before heading down to the school.

I think the only 'error' I made was having a guess at one menu item, and I ended up with a heap of chicken feet. The thought of these formerly scratching around in the yard put me off a bit, but I was hungry, and there was a surprising amount of meat on them. Laughing

malu · Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 1344 Location: Sunny Java

The difficulty I find - as in any country in the world - is in locating a competent tradesman. Any Indonesian labourer will happily turn into a 'tukang' at the drop of a Rp20k note and apply himself with gleeful ignorance to plumbing and electrical jobs that you or I would approach with great caution.

In the days when I lived in school housing I had to put up with cowboys from the school maintenance dept. (or 'Teknisi' as they were grandly called) who would invariably turn up with a hammer and a few bent screwdrivers in a carrier bag to do any kind of work. Quite often I ended up doing things myself.

Good craftsmen do exist here, but they are few in number and in great demand. I was lucky enough to get to know an excellent firm of contractors who previously did some good quality work for a neighbour. They did some work on my roof which has lasted like it should.

Trouble is that so many people here - including a few bules - want everything done on the cheap and that encourages the bodgers and cowboys to dominate the market.