These boots are made for working...

[woodhutt]

SWMBO has been using her lock-down time to sort through the family photos and put them in albums. Among the bundles of loose snaps she found a photo of a young yours truly back in the day posing with a bunch of mates on a site in Saudi Arabia. It reminded me of an incident (guaranteed true) which happened to me.
I was flying out of Dhahran on R&R back to the World and found myself seated next to an American bloke. We got talking and he told me he was a Rep for the US company that manufactured Redwing work boots. At that time, these boots came with an unconditional one year replacement warranty which indicates the confidence they had in their quality. More than a year earlier, they had received and supplied a large order for hundreds of pairs for a Korean building contractor working in Saudi. Within six months, virtually the whole order was returned to the supplier in a deplorable state and with a demand for replacements under the warranty. They were duly replaced. Another six or so months passed and once again, hundreds of boots were returned, completely ruined, with a demand for replacement. Again the company honoured the warranty but this time also despatched my fellow passenger to investigate what was going on.
For days, the Rep surreptitiously visited the site where the contractor was working. He watched the workers but could see nothing untoward and was not looking forward to telling his boss that he had failed to discover any reason for the boots failure.
On his last day before leaving, he decided to take one more look at the site and struck lucky. His visit coincided with a shift change and he watched as one shift came off and handed their boots to the next shift. The boots had been going 24/7 Pete

[AlexS]

I was put on to Redwing boots by one of the surveyors in Bougainville. It takes a good pair of boots to survive in that wet country, especially when you're climbing over waste rock dumps or squishing through tailings.

[woodhutt]

I was put on to Redwing boots by one of the surveyors in Bougainville. It takes a good pair of boots to survive in that wet country, especially when you're climbing over waste rock dumps or squishing through tailings.

Certainly impressed me, Alex. As a result of this meeting I bought a pair myself and had them for almost 20 years. Finally gave them to my son while he was working on renovating his first home. I must ask what became of them. Maybe Redwing will replace them if I lie about my age? Pete

Something else just popped back into the old memory having mentioned a Korean contractor.
I recall seeing a bunch of them working on a site I was involved with and got talking to their foreman who had passable English. He pointed to the tools the men were using which, even from a distance, looked pretty crude. He told me that each man was given a new set of tools on arriving in country but with the instruction that they had to be returned in good order at the end of the contract otherwise the cost would be deducted from their pay (which I'm guessing wasn't a whole lot).
So, as soon as they got the tools they were put into their lockers and never saw the light of day until it came time to hand them back. The foreman took me over to where some of his team were working and showed me the tools they were using. Every single one, hammers, cold chisels, wrenches, everything - was made of reinforcing bar! Pete