In the winter of 1999, I worked as a rough carpenter for about 5 weeks. I was going to be studying in Germany for a semester, and I had a couple months off before I left. My dad used a connection at church to get me a job for a little while to earn a little bit of pocket money. They told me all I needed was a tool belt and a hammer, which my dad graciously paid for. I learned a lot in those 5 weeks:
- how to swing a hammer – hold it near the bottom of the shaft to get the full leverage
- how to keep warm while working outside – burn scrapwood in a barrel
- how to build walls
- how to rebuild walls – one time we had a wall fall down in high winds, and had to put it back into place
One tip probably sticks with me the most though. I believe it was the only time I kind of got scolded on the job.
Don’t walk around with empty hands
I was lucky to be on a small winter crew, which meant that I got to do a lot of the actual building. Had I been working on a big crew in the summer, I probably would have mostly just been sweeping up. Nevertheless, I still did a lot of carrying wood from one place to another. At some point I must have been walking from point B back to point A to get more wood, and my supervisor saw me with empty hands, which prompted this advice. Almost invariably, on a job site, it doesn’t take much to look around and find something which is out of place. I learned to be on the lookout for these things, and put them back along the way from point B to point A. I try to do the same thing at home. Especially right now since I just moved, we have stuff all over the place which is out of place. I spent an hour this morning doing exactly this – start in one place, find stuff which is not put away. Put it away somewhere, and look around for other stuff to put away. Housework like this is actually pretty good exercise; I probably climbed 20 flights of stairs this morning.