IBO’s are Free Labor

The Platinum had a canopy gazebo in his backyard, you know one of those metal and canvas roofed numbers that can be picked up at a department store for $100. Though his might have cost a bit more than that because it had mosquito netting walls.

Here's a photo I found on the web of one that looked similar to the one in the Platinum's back yard.

Obviously they didn’t have it anchored or weighed down too well because one night we had a good wind storm and his canopy ended up a few houses down the street in various pieces. So he bought one of those wooden gazebo kits from Lowes or maybe somewhere else I don’t know where he bought it, just I think I’ve seen kits there. It cost around $2000 and I’m thinking holy shit can’t you get one already made for that price but I guess I don’t know much about construction and construction materials.

So now the sack of shit Platinum needs it assembled. You’d think he would phone a carpenter or someone with experience putting boards together. Instead he sends the call out to the IBO’s for anyone with a hammer to come over and help. Ambot grabbed my hammer out of the junk drawer and was all excited about going over to serve his Platinum. So a small team of eager-to-please-their-Platinum IBO’s showed up. And to give them credit it actually looked pretty decent once they had it assembled. Not bad for free labor.

Another time the Platinum decides he’d like to take a corner of their bedroom and turn it into a master bathroom. Ambot knows someone who does renovations and gets him to come over to give a quote. I’m not sure how much the quote was for. Materials would include a bathtub, sink and cupboard, toilet, 2x4’s and drywall to frame in a room, tile or linoleum for the floor, and then the electric and plumbing. Maybe two or three thousand for materials on the low end. I suppose the sky’s the limit depending if you want one of those toilets where the lid closes automatically or a Roman tub for two. Then there’s labor on top of that. So for the sake of argument let’s say about the same price for labor, so around $5000 or higher for a bathroom. I think the sack of shit had a second quote as well from a renovator. And he's not happy. Its too expensive and he hates spending money. But he really wants a bathroom in the bedroom. So now he gets a great idea. If he gets a team of IBO’s together they can build him his bathroom. Uh, yeah, there’s a wonderful idea. Having people who don’t know what they’re doing cutting into the house’s existing plumbing and electrical wires. Probably picked up some book from the library to learn how to do it. Very wisely Ambot stayed out of this one. He never saw the finished bathroom because we stopped our association with these people before it was built but he heard about it from another IBO later on. Apparently it was the shits. Really shoddily put together and you have to wonder about the wisdom of having people reading a manual while splicing electric wires together.

So these upper levels think they can order their IBO's around and get work done for free around their houses because they suck the IBO's into its an exchange "you'll be spending valuable time with me". In other words the privilege of their time equals what they would be getting paid in labor.

Ah, the old saying comes to mind - you get what you pay for.