Stories from the Celtic Tiger Years *Mod Warning in OP PLEASE READ*

KevRossi

Back around 2005 a stonemason from our area was doing work on a wall outside a house near us. Car stops, driver compliments him on the quality of the job and asked would be be able to do something similar on his house. "Yes, but I'm fully booked out for about another year". Driver of the car offered him an extra €15K cash on top of his normal fee for what would be 3 weeks work, if he started in a couple of weeks. Agreed. Then asked him where he got the stone, stonemason gave him a piece of the stone, told him which quarry to go to and who to ask for.

3 weeks later, almost finished the job he's on, he rang the guy about the details for the job; turns out it was in Bedfordshire. He was told the hotel etc. would be booked, so he flew over and the stone was already dumped in front of the house. When the stonemason said it looks exactly like the Irish stone, down to the seams, the home owner told him that he had 4 truckloads shipped over from that exact quarry to make sure it was the right stone. It was a local man who made good in the UK and wanted a bit of 'home' for sentimental reasons.

Marty Xavier

Good story, I think that's ok all in all, a bit mad but harmless. Good stonemasons are hard to come by. The guy that did my house last year is a genius. Everyone remarks on the stonework.

partyguinness

timple23 wrote: »

One of the more interested jobs I had was working labouring in a place owned by a millionaire one day fencing. There were shrubs in the way of where the machine needed to drive stakes. This was 30/40 ft up an embankment. I think it was 500m of shrubs, every one was pulled by hand and carried down by hand, walked up another 30ft bank where they were temporarily sot to keep them alive. Phone said I walked over 20km that day, it was all either climbing or going down a bank, never done a harder days work since and I've done some 20hr days. 2 full days or work, just moving the plants, cost probably near 1k as machinery had to be brought in to water them over a few days. They were then all replanted in original place.

This was done during a heatwave. Every single plant died.

Ah come on...phones circa 2002- 2007 didnt have that technology. I had my first mobile in 1999 and kept up to date unless there a phone out there that passed me by.

blackwhite

partyguinness wrote: »

Ah come on...phones circa 2002- 2007 didnt have that technology. I had my first mobile in 1999 and kept up to date unless there a phone out there that passed me by.

I had a Sony phone around that time which had a pedometer - think it might have been walkman branded.

ELM327

blackwhite wrote: »

I had a Sony phone around that time which had a pedometer - think it might have been walkman branded.

Yeah but you need something to count the steps, not to keep the pedos away

Strip club circa 2007..
2 young lads from the Central Bank..
Spending.

heldel00

Marty Xavier wrote: »

Good story, I think that's ok all in all, a bit mad but harmless. Good stonemasons are hard to come by. The guy that did my house last year is a genius. Everyone remarks on the stonework.

We had to wait 7 yrs for our original stonemason to come back and do another job for us. People kept saying to just get somebody else but in my mind it's like handwriting, every stonemason has their own style.
Worth the wait though.

Ubbquittious

timple23 wrote: »

One of the more interested jobs I had was working labouring in a place owned by a millionaire one day fencing. There were shrubs in the way of where the machine needed to drive stakes. This was 30/40 ft up an embankment. I think it was 500m of shrubs, every one was pulled by hand and carried down by hand, walked up another 30ft bank where they were temporarily sot to keep them alive. Phone said I walked over 20km that day, it was all either climbing or going down a bank, never done a harder days work since and I've done some 20hr days. 2 full days or work, just moving the plants, cost probably near 1k as machinery had to be brought in to water them over a few days. They were then all replanted in original place.

This was done during a heatwave. Every single plant died.

Should have tied a long rope to all the shrubs and one end of it onto the helicopter and taken off. You can't bate the auld helicopter for removing shrubbery from awkward places really

McGinniesta

I took an accounting job with a financial institution (that shall remain unnamed) just before the banking crisis started.

When the proverbial hit the fan, they looked to the wage bill to cut costs as companies will.

However, they discovered a snag that prevented a lot of the staff from losing their jobs. A lot of staff members were offered large mortgages on relatively modest salaries. A lot of staff on 30k-35k had 200k + mortgages. What they discovered was that the savings in wages would have resulted in an estimated 150 million euro worth of mortgage writedowns.

Ubbquittious

McGinniesta wrote: »

I took an accounting job with a financial institution (that shall remain unnamed) just before the banking crisis started.

When the proverbial hit the fan, they looked to the wage bill to cut costs as companies will.

However, they discovered a snag that prevented a lot of the staff from losing their jobs. A lot of staff members were offered large mortgages on relatively modest salaries. A lot of staff on 30k-35k had 200k + mortgages. What they discovered was that the savings in wages would have resulted in an estimated 150 million euro worth of mortgage writedowns.

Ha! Serves em right the phooqqers

McGinniesta

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Ha! Serves em right the phooqqers

That was only the tip of the iceberg.

It was a real mess.