A job nobody wants

I know I have seen these people in the States, the lucky construction worker with the job of waving the flag at the oncomming motorists, warning them that there is construction going on. Apparently here in Salvador, they don't even want to bother paying someone to do this, so they put up these nice little wooden men to hold the flags. They even paint them in the worker's uniform and give him a real flag to hold. This one in particular has a severly shortened arm, I think because the traffic here was so tight it was in danger of being (or had already been) hit by a passing truck or bus. There are several of them along this route, guarding the ever present project of the Salvador Metro (begun over 10 years ago I believe, and still no where near being completed), an L type of public transportation desperately needed in this city.