Random Sunday: "Uku Pau" System in Honolulu
[Find the video on youtube.com entitled: City and County of Honolulu Mcneilus Autoreach]
As the sun rises on trash pick up days in your neighborhood, you will hear the big collection trucks revving their engines as if off to the races. In Honolulu, it is like they ARE off to the races because we have a long tradition of the "Uku Pau" system for trash collection. What's that? It's a get paid for 8 hours of work as long as you finish your route: start when the sun rises (right now that's about 7 am, in the summer, it's close to 6 am), finish your route in two hours, and have the rest of the day off ... or ... if available that day, pick up extra routes for overtime pay.
In the olden days before mechanization, one person drove the truck and two hung off the back, jumping off, lifting rubbish cans and emptying them into the open back. It was hard work, especially in the heat of summer (even if nothing like the steam baths along the East Coast or Tokyo summers). People used to leave cases of Primo Beer or soda on top of trash cans for Christmas. The workers had people in trucks help collect their presents.
They called it "uku pau," which translates into English as "flea finished." In other words, finish as quickly as a flea jumps.
In modern times, we have mechanized trucks. One driver operates the trucks which have replaced the two guys hanging off the back with an automatic robotic arm controlled by the person in the cab.
The traditional "Uku Pau" system continues on and may need to be adjusted because of modernization ... but nobody wants a garbage strike, yikes. What politician wants to be blamed for that?
"No rock da boat," as we say in the islands ...
See story: http://khon2.com/2015/01/29/trash-workers-payment-system-racks-up-major-overtime/
My first job out of college was like this. It was awesome. My boss would give us our scheduled work to do and as long as we could get it done we were free to leave afterwards.
I worked a swing shift 10-8, four ten-hour days, and would beg her to give me more work because I was getting done too quickly. She didn't so I would put in over-time on the weekends to make sure I wasn't abusing it.
By treating us with a modicum of respect they got more work out of us in less time than they would have otherwise.
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Mahalo (thank you) plenty :)