There is a satisfaction in learning a skilled trade. Satisfaction in knowing you can work on your own house instead of hiring someone. Satisfaction in knowing that you can take that skill anywhere in the world. Being part of The Union Building trades will give you satisfaction in knowing that you will live a comfortable life.
For me, learning to work with my hands gave me confidence and satisfaction I couldn’t find sitting at a desk. Joining an apprenticeship isn’t for everyone but I found that it worked for me. Before joining, you must realize learning a trade is much like learning a sport or to play an instrument. You will suck at first but don’t be discouraged. Like anything else, you must learn the fundamentals and build from there. You will receive a structured education as well as hands on training. The more you keep your hands in the work during those early years, the better you will be later. When I was going through the apprenticeship, I must have learned fifty different ways to do the same task. I wasn’t a mechanic when I first joined and every journeyman I worked for taught me something new. In my opinion, everyone you work with has something to offer. Learn something new on every job and take that knowledge with you to the next.
Ask plenty of questions. You may feel stupid at first but remember none of us were born knowing. Most everyone in the trade will understand and at most we will tease you with a lighthearted joke. If you take everything so seriously, it will be hard to see the guys teasing you the most, like you the best. It took a while for my skin to thicken up, and I shied away from asking questions at first. Fortunately for me, I had some good journeymen that got me out of my shell.
Do not concern yourself with the mistakes you made but how quickly you bounce back from them. Even the old timers mess up from time to time. The ability to quickly change course and correct the problem will take you a long way.
The following is a list of advice you’ll learn in the building trades:
When in doubt, stub it out. Measure twice, cut once. Do something! even if it’s wrong. Send it! Don’t forget the direct burial tape. That ladder is yours until someone says different. Work as much overtime as you can but take off what you can afford…. Don’t mess with your Journeyman’s tools. Don’t piss into the wind. Don’t mark up the portalet walls and don’t mess around with Jim.
In my experience, a good journeyman benefits from an apprentice as much as an apprentice benefit from his journeyman. This might be common sense but after so many years of being in the trade, some guys forget where they started. During your apprenticeship you will receive a good education in class and on the job. In order to master the trade, you must be ready to teach it. Luckily, by the time I met Adam, I had some experience under my belt. My foreman had told me that Adam was a good apprentice but needed a push.
“This is my material cart now!” I said sternly as I threw his Dip spit bottle across the building. Asserting my dominance, I never broke eye contact with him as I waited for a reaction. I could tell that I rattled him by the puzzled look on Adam’s face.
“Okay Bro, it’s your cart now, but I still need a spit bottle.
I wasn’t going to keep this tough guy charade going forever and so I decided to turn it down a couple of notches. “That’s fine,” I shrugged, “You can keep it. I just don’t want to see it.”
So, we introduced ourselves. Adam told me which contractors he worked for, what side of town he lived on and how ready he was to finish his apprenticeship, the usual stuff. I told him that I had been in the trade for twelve years and I bragged about some of the places I traveled to when work got slow in our local, typical young journeyman stuff. After that I quickly switched gears and started showing Adam what our foreman asked us to do. We had to build a rack of thirty 3/4 conduits and drop two of them off at each patient room of the hospital. There were fifteen patient rooms and were supplying power from a life safety panel and one normal power panel. We started looking through the prints to see where one room ended and another began. We talked about where to set a box in each room and Adam hesitated, then he asked where the ductwork would hit. Through our planning, I realized how sharp this apprentice was and maybe it was just a confidence boost he needed. I remembered when I was about ready to top out and how unsure I was. You start thinking that when you finish school, you’ll have no one to lean on and that is true to a certain extent. We sometimes forget that we are part of a brotherhood and that we are here for each other.
It was lunch time and I got to meet the rest of the crew. Although I was very confident with my work, at that point in my career, I wasn’t very confident speaking in front of large groups. I started to introduce myself and Adam interrupted, “This is Jimbo…. Jimbo Splice, he’s an MMA fighter. Don’t Mess with him or he’ll break your neck!” There was silence for a moment as they stared. I put my head down to keep from laughing and that of course gave it away.
It was during our breaks that I discovered Adam was very confident person, just a little unsure when it came to work. That’s when I decided to take a step back and have Adam take the reign. It was difficult not butting in at first, but I soon only offered my opinion when he asked for it. After a short time, we fell into a groove, and we learned to work well together. At one point the owner of the shop came out and told us how professional our conduit looked. Our foreman had us run all the conduit in the electric rooms as well. As an electrician, the electric room is where we showcase our work the best. All the conduit in electric rooms are exposed and should look pristine once installed.
When I met Adam, he would remind me he was an apprentice and now I was reminding him. I was glad Adam was stepping up. The hall had just come out to appoint me as the Job Steward. If I was going to have to answer guys questions about the contract, it was good to be working with someone I could trust. The union steward is responsible for enforcing the contract, advocating for members and acting as the liaison between workers and management. It was a proud day when the hall appointed me steward. I was gaining respect for my work as a craftsman and now I would have a direct line to the hall. Things were looking up!
Adam and I did some really great work together, but after 6 months, our foreman split us up. The job was at full capacity now and I was busy listening to people’s complaints and concerns. You must know that electricians love to complain and I’ve done my fair share, but I never had to listen to everyone else’s gripes. I kept a notebook and wrote everything down when people came to me with their concerns. Not all the complaints were legitimate, but I did address the ones that were valid. Throughout the job, one guy’s name was brought up time and time again. If this guy was a chicken who thought he was a chicken hawk, then I was Foghorn Leghorn. After hearing numerous complaints about the chicken hawk, I thought it was time to take care of it. I pulled him aside one day and had a little chat, but I only bruised his ego. When that didn’t work, I spoke to the foreman and suggested he should be transferred to another job.
I would like to say this story ends well, but as the old adage goes: Experience is a hard teacher, it gives you the test first and the lesson later. I picked a battle that I couldn’t win. It turned out the guy that half the job was having trouble with was a third generation to work for this company. The foreman asked me to give him the names of the guys complaining about the chicken hawk, but I refused. In the end, I was the one who got transferred and as for the chicken hawk, karma took care of him.
Brotherhood is the backbone of all good Unions. When we look at the historic pictures of jobsites the sense of comradery is visible. And I believe we are all wanting that feeling of belonging. In fact, the constitution of the IBEW list cultivating friendships as one of its main objectives. There is an epidemic of loneliness in this country and comradery is more important than ever. Brotherhood/Sisterhood is still alive in the IBEW, sometimes we just have to seek it out.
After getting laid off a few times in the early 2000’s and not landing a job that would stick, I started getting a bad attitude. I was working at a middle school for a short stint, and I ran into a journeyman named Eric. Eric was this tough guy from the west side. He had this scowl that could’ve made Jimmy Hoffa throw his own self in the river. (I later found out he needed glasses but refused to wear them at work because he knew it intimidated people so much.)
Eric had been on enough jobs to know when a guy was getting (the red ass), and he could see it every morning when I showed up for work. Needless to say, we didn’t get a long at first and I met him with resistance. He tried telling me that this was a good job to be on, which was a lie. Eric also told me if I was so unhappy, maybe I should drag up. There really wasn’t much work in Cincinnati and I told him I didn’t want to travel for work at the time. He fired back, “Oh so you traveled huh? Where did you travel? An Hour from the house? Did you go to Hamilton’s local? And now you call yourself a traveler.” I was furious, but once I listed off places I worked, he seemed impressed. After that Eric told me some stories about his experience working on the road, now it was my turn to be impressed.
We had debates about the union and how to fix it. After a while, our heated debates turned into serious discussions. Eric thought we should bring back the daybook to our local and since I only knew of the bidding system, he explained it to me. Currently, if you put a bid on the job line and you are the closest person to number one on the out of work list, you get the job. When we had a daybook, the first journeyman to make it to the union hall got the job first. When I asked Eric why he liked the daybook, he said, “I feel like the referral agent is held more accountable with a daybook and it more personable when they see a guy’s face that hasn’t worked in six months. ” I understood what he was saying. This sort of separation weakens the brotherhood, however once a change is in place, it’s hard to go back. I remember thinking to myself, if more people in our local were willing to have these hard discussions, our local could change for the better.
The more Eric and I worked together, the more I felt myself getting out of a slump. It turned out we had the same sense of humor. Eric would always say, “Now Jimmy, why leave and put them in a bind when you could stay and keep them in one.” That made me laugh every time. I did a pretty good impression of our foreman that made Eric laugh just as equally. We would walk over to The Half Day Cafe for Coffee at break time for coffee. Just imagine two construction workers walking into a place that served Avocado and toast, what a sight! To this day, Eric will still remind me that when he showed up, he “Made it better.” Eric wasn’t wrong. I was in a bad head space about the changes in our local. After working with Eric, I was feeling positive about the changes I could make if I got more involved. I am eternally grateful to Eric for getting me back on the right path.
After leaving that job, I took a call for JSI* and gave them my best work. I had honed my skills, and I was feeling confident with everything I did. I was with JSI for a year in a half when they sent me to Mercy Anderson to help build a new wing of the hospital. When I got there, my foreman told me I would be working with this fifth-year apprentice named Adam and that he needed a little push. Adam would soon become a journeyman, and it would be my job to help get him ready for that big step in his career. My foreman took me to the second floor and introduced me to Adam and then he told us our job was to run a pipe rack for all the branch circuits of the hospital. I remember waiting until the foreman left to set my tools down on Adam’s material cart. I picked up his spit bottle, looked at it and said, “Get this nasty fucking spit bottle off my cart!” I looked at Adam sternly and flung his bottle across the building. Adam was a little puzzled, “Hey man! This is my material cart!”
I fired back, ” It’s not yours anymore… This is mine now and you work for me.” I wasn’t much for being a tough guy but if they thought Adam needed a push, I was going to do everything in my power to help him succeed. You see, Adam was Eric’s brother and what Adam needed was some tough love.
It took me about ten years to build up my reputation in Local 212, so when I took a call for J.S.I. people already knew me. J.S.I. demanded more of their employees but I was young and willing to put in the time. The foreman gave me my own gang box filled with power tools and a bender. I had an apprentice to work with and to train. It seemed like if I kept working hard, I would keep moving up in this company.
After a months’ time, there was a buzz circling around the break rooms about my work. There was at least one guy jealous of the praise his foreman was giving me. Of course, haters are going to hate, so I just shrugged it off. It seemed to me that as long as I kept a positive attitude and impressing the right people, it didn’t matter if guys got jealous. I kept my head down, as always and continued to do a good job.
After the data center, they sent me to Nippert Stadium, where I had a new group of foremen to impress. I had my obstacles at the stadium, but I maneuvered through. Every job you take in construction has two lessons. Some will tell you dealing with different personalities is difficult. I disagree; it’s not the personalities but egos people bring to the table. No one wants their ego bruised and yet we are all guilty of taking that mental swing. The second lesson is a much simpler one and can start as soon as you join the trade. As a skilled tradesman, you will never stop learning and honing your skills. Always take what you learned from one job to the next one. Never be afraid to show people what you know. If you can show your skills and do it without bruising someone else’s ego, you can go far.
Once Nippert was complete, I was transferred to a job that humbled my ego. My first twelve years, I had only worked on jobs that merely had entertainment value to the community. My new jobsite got me thinking about all the good I could do with being an electrician. My new job made me think of how I was contributing to society in a meaningful way. My new job was a new rehabilitation facility that connected to The VA Hospital.
I should tell you now that my dad is a Vietnam Veteran and I am really proud of him for that, among other reasons. When I first stepped onto the jobsite, I thought about what he did for my country. When I learned that this facility would be for the men and women coming back from Afghanistan, I worked even harder than before. There were six electricians on the job and we had only a few months to finish this facility. We kept to a forty-hour schedule, and it seemed like we wouldn’t finish in time. I remembered a time I took a trip with my dad to Washington DC. While we were there, my dad wanted to stop by The VA Hospital to show his appreciation to the young veterans injured from war. I remembered how bad I felt for them, and now It was my time to give back. I ran so much conduit on that job that I started dreaming about conduit. We all did an impressive amount of work in a very short time. No one was found slacking on this job, we all wanted to give our best and we did just that. Everyone should be proud of the work we did their because we worked with sincerity.
I worked another ten years, not giving that facility any more thought. In August my dad had heart surgery and there were many complications afterwards. My dad spent three weeks in the VA hospital, and it seemed like there was no end in sight. Once my dad was stable, they moved him to the rehab facility next door to the hospital. He is currently building up his strength so he can go back home. I never in a million years would have thought the building I helped build would one day help my dad see the light at the end of the tunnel. My dad is still recovering at the VA, and he is fighting a good fight. He has taken many steps forward and a few back but he continues to get stronger so he can soon return home.
My first layoff in 2009 was the hardest, but as they say in construction, I had a good run. I can say this casually now but at the time, I was a little angry and I was scared for my family. My daughter was a year old! I had to stay employed to have insurance and to have a steady check coming in. Fortunately, some of the guys that got laid off with me knew where to find employment. Work had dried up in Cincinnati and so I began seeking work elsewhere. When you are unemployed as a Union Electrician, you sign the book at your local union hall. This book is essentially a waiting list to go back to work, and I signed my name behind 400 electricians on a book that wasn’t moving. Don told me I had nothing to worry about because come Monday morning we would meet at the hall and go sign books together.
Monday morning came and we drove to St. Louis, signing books in other locals along the way. There were many uncertainties, but I was in good company. When we talk of brotherhood this is a perfect definition. Don had traveled before, and he was happy to show us the ropes as none of the others in the car had ever traveled for work.Traveling, signing books and taking calls out of town is a different skill set and having Don there to help us through was what being a Union Brother should be. We left Cincinnati around five in the morning and returned around seven at night. There was five us in the car that day. Don and I chose to work right away. We both had families depending on us.
Don and I spent a month out in Collinsville, Illinois. That’s when I really came into my own. We noticed that everyone had their names printed on their hard hats except us. When we asked our foreman about this, he replied, ‘This phase of the job is winding down. You won’t be here very long.” We were disappointed but I tried to shrug it off. I was determined to make the best of it, so I reached for my sharpie. I took my hard hat off and wrote JIMBO on it in big block letters. By the end of the day a dozen people introduced their selves to me. By the end of the week, I was making jokes at lunch and making friends. Being away from my wife and daughter got a little easier. A month on the road went quickly and I was ready to see my family. I had made it through my first time working out of town.
Don and I took one more call together in West Virginia before we parted ways. Don landed a maintenance job at the University of Cincinnati, and I continued seeking work out of town. I was happy for Don and appreciated all the help he was on the road.
Networking while I was out of town is how I found my next job. Don had inspired me and I wanted to pay it forward. I called my buddy Dave who I went through the apprenticeship with. He was looking for work too. “I heard there was some good work in Terre Haute, Indiana. Would like to ride with me and sign their book?” There was a long pause over the phone. Dave sighed, “Yeah I suppose. I haven’t had much luck anywhere else.” When you are out of work it is easy to start feeling very negatively. That is one of the reasons it is important to help each other find work and get back out there. After all being a Union Journeyman Electrician is a big part of our identities. I felt like this was going to be a good call. “Okay, I’ll pick you up in the morning.” I had enough optimism for both of us.
Terre Haute’s book was loaded but moving. With any luck we would be out to work before the end of the year. After a few weeks I began to get nervous. I was really counting on this job. My unemployment was running out and I had to get back to work soon. The first week of January, there was a 12-man call for a coal gasification plant in a small town of Edwardsport. I quickly threw some clothes together, grabbed my tools and then ran to the car. I picked Dave up and we were on our way. That is exactly how working out of town is. One minute you are waiting on the couch for that call and the next you are giving your loved ones a quick kiss goodbye as you run out the door.
Once we finished our safety orientation, the general foreman took 2 of the guys to run conduit. As for the rest of, we became the wire pulling crew. We were a motley bunch. There were two guys from Chicago and two from Detroit. There was a guy from Saganaw, Michigan and two guys from Indianapolis. Three of us were from Cincinnati. There was a lot of personality in our group and we just enjoyed it completely. Our foreman Todd picked us up in a work van and drove us around the site. Todd explained to us that we would be pulling cable through manholes around the entire jobsite. Each location needed one person dedicated to monitor the co2 levels. If the detector set off an alert, we were instructed to evacuate immediately. Monitoring the co2 levels was important but standing there for ten hours was so mundane. We decided that we would rotate who pulled the wire and who ran the monitor to keep it fair.
After a few weeks the crew started to click. On Fridays we would go to a bar or have dinner together. Our foreman was one in a million. Todd had a southern draw with a gravelly undertone. Every morning when we hopped in the van, Todd would start the day off by saying, “We’re going to pull a little wuyr, have a little fun, get down tonight.” Then Todd would give a little chuckle like he was saying it for the first time. We all had radios and gave each other nicknames. Some were appropriate and others were not. We were having so much fun on the job that we didn’t notice we piqued the other crews’ interest. One day we were at the bar and some other guys from the job came over to have a beer with us. They introduced themselves and went on to say they wished they were in our crew. When we asked why, they said we seem like a tight knit group that’s always having fun together. From a distance you look like mannequins. We all started to laugh, and I said, “Yeah, Todd just places us in position every day.” After that, the word spread like wildfire that our crew was known as The Mannequins. I did not appreciate how rare this type of job is. I hadn’t traveled enough to know that clicking like this and having so much fun doesn’t always happen.
I ended up working in Edwardsport for seven months until I could take a call back in Cincinnati. It was tough being away from my wife and daughter so long, but it was a sacrifice I had to make back then. I made enough money to put a good down payment on a new home. this job allowed me to make lifelong friendships and gain a lot of confidence as a Journeyman. The realization that Cincinnati was just a small part of the IBEW really helped shape my approach and attitude. I started my new job at home with a new perspective. The future was looking bright, and I was ready to take on a new challenge.
Some jobs just need a little help to make them better and some jobs need a lot of help. This is a story about a job that had many ups and downs. This was the second gas plant I worked at, for the same contractor and the same foreman. John was and still is a great guy. He would have his outburst of frustration, but he did care for his workers. On Fridays, he would invite us all to The Eagle and buy us buckets of beer. All the guys knew him there and I think this was his first chance to be a big shot. I sympathized for him. My career hadn’t gone the way I wanted, so I really understood how he felt.
John really took me under his wing on this project. Most days we would spend the first hour going over prints before joining the crew outside working. There was a lot of underground work on this job, so we spent our fair share of time working in the trenches running conduit. It was around May, and no one minded working outside. The weather had been working in our favor until one week. One Monday morning the rain started coming down in buckets. We tried to wait it out but ended up going home due to thunderstorms. Tuesday wasn’t bad and we had work we could do to keep us going until the ditches dried out. Wednesday came and worked half a day until it started raining again. John told us all to go to the trailer. We all sat down in the trailer, but John was pacing back and forth. We had our first deadline that Friday and he didn’t want to tell us about it. John took a peek outside and it had stopped raining. John looked at us and said, “Let’s get out there and finish these two runs of conduit. ” We all hurried out of the trailer and headed toward the ditch. If you hadn’t guessed, it started raining again and John hit the ceiling! “I know I said we wouldn’t work in the mud, but we have to get this shit done today!” We grumbled a little but kept working. John had an old school way of motivating people through verbal jabs. Needless to say, John started in on all of us and he went on and on until he struck a nerve. “Are you guys even electricians?” We were soaking wet and our boots were sticking in the mud but we were getting the job done.
I came unglued, “Damnit John! I’ve had enough of your shit for one day. Just wait until I get out of this ditch….”
I was interrupted by John’s laughter, “I’ve been picking at you for a year and I finally got you to yell. You don’t let anything get to you. Do you?”
“Everyone has their tipping point, John. ” I was finishing the last of the pipe run, “We’re finished. Let’s say we clean up and get the hell out of here for the day.”
“That sounds like a good idea Jim.” As quickly as John would get fired up, the next minute he would give us fist bumps and tell us what a great job we were doing for him.
On the drive home it had stopped raining, and the sun came out. I replayed the whole scene in my mind and started to smile. I was humming a familiar tune, but the words were coming out different. The words were so clear. I had to pull over and write them down:
The Drag Up Song (Escape)
I was tired of my foreman. We worked together too long. He sounded like a broken record, I couldn’t take it no more. He was at the shop sleeping, I called the job line instead. And on the recorder, there was a message it said,
Do you like pulling wire? Running pipe in the rain? If you are not into health food, if you have half a brain. If the shop calls you after midnight. Would you throw on that red cape. This is the job that you hoped for. Your chance to escape….
I wrote a full version of this parody and typed it up. On John’s birthday, I gave it to him as a gift. I figured a guy like John would appreciate a few verbal jabs being thrown at him. I don’t know this for a fact but I’m pretty sure he took it home and framed it. Now John has been retired for the past five years, and we haven’t really kept in touch. I sometimes imagine he is singing that song and it makes me laugh.
In 2020, I found myself laid off because of covid. The hall was putting calls out for the soccer stadium, so I decided to take the job. The consensus about the job was it was not somewhere you wanted to take a call. After being laid off for 2 years during the housing market crash of 2008, I thought it best to work as much as I could before the whole world shut down. Along with the rest of the world I was concerned of what I might bring home to my family due to working outside the house. Wearing a mask made it hard to understand my Foreman and my safety glasses would steam up so it was hard to see But the fear of bringing a deadly virus home to my children kept these two items firmly on my face. There were so many uncertainties. Doubt was a constant, was working the right choice? How long would this last? Was i killing myself?
As much as I hated heights, when I found out I would be hanging stadium lights, I was thrilled. Working in a 150-foot boom lift seemed like the definition of social distancing. The negativity in the crew that I was working with was immense. A truth that spans all worksites is the job is that much harder when you don’t get along with the people you are with. I was determined to make it through. Fortunately, things started to click between me and a couple of the guys in the crew.
Like any job, there were ups and downs, but you learn to take the good with the bad. People were going home left and right because of COVID, but I felt safe out on the soccer field. For the first part of the job, I worked with another Journeyman named Rich. He too was having a hard time with what was going on in the world. Rich had a positive outlook and always had a good story or a joke to tell to keep the morale up. After all the conduit was run, Rich got transferred to another crew.
It was time to hang the stadium field lights and I had a new tool buddy. Brent was a young country boy, and he was strong as an ox. We were the brute strength of the crew. The stadium lights were big, bulky and weighed over 100 pounds. Ultimately, Brent and I were the only ones who could hang them. We were working 10-hour days at the time. After a few weeks of heavy lifting, we were worn out. Just out of the blue Brent starts singing in a country twang,” Just swinging… In a basket… high in the air… With my pal Jimmy!” I just chuckled and told Brent, “You’re not right, kid.” Deep down, I wasn’t right either, but I couldn’t let on to that.
We were making good progress on the stadium lights, but as I said, the deadline was coming near.
For the month of August,we worked on those lights without a day off, working 12 hour shifts. The days began to run together.
The last Sunday morning of our shift, I stepped onto the the field and it was already sweltering. The entire crew was mentally and physically drained. I felt like I was awake in a dream, so when the soccer ball rolled up to me, I rubbed my eyes a little. I looked around and no one was there. Most trades had the day off. My crew was there to finish up the stadium lights so that the field could be prepped for sod.
It was time for work. Before I hopped on my lift, I kicked the ball as hard as I could. I smiled at the thought of the ball being passed around the rest of the day, reminding us all not to take life so seriously.
I’ll see you on the next one
this soccer ball came rolling up to me on our last day over time. I never figured out who kicked/tossed it over to me.
All new construction sites, every new project begins the same, with so much potential! It’s a chance for young craftsmen to create their first masterpiece. For others close to retirement, it’s one last chance to pass down their knowledge. In the third year of my apprenticeship, I was fortunate enough to work with a highly skilled journeyman before he retired. The greatest lesson Tony taught me was to broaden my view of the job. As an apprentice, it is exceedingly tempting to only focus on the skills you are trying to learn. Tony knew that a Union job site is not just about one trade, but about all the trades. In fact, it is about a large group of people doing their best work and making sure the site is safe and fair for all. He taught me how to cross reference prints in order to do my work more efficiently. He always said that his goal at work was for no missteps, meaning measure twice and cut once. He said that being part of a union sometimes requires you to fight in order to maintain the quality of work expected. I think about this often. Now I’m the grumpy old journeyman trying to teach his apprentices the same. Although deadlines have grown shorter and customers’ demands are greater, I’m still fighting to maintain the quality of work that was taught to me.
Depending on the size of the project, it could last anywhere from six months to six years. You get a set of blueprints and learn the place inside and out. All the crafts come together to get the job done. We live on these jobs for sixty to seventy hours a week and breathe life into the structure. If a passerby listened closely, he could hear laughter, loud, booming voices and sometimes, a bit of colorful language. Those passing by should know that construction not only wears on the body but also challenges the mind. You see, for every concrete pour, every brick laid, with each wall built and every conduit ran, we put our names on it. Every good craftsman wants this to be the best job and better than the last. We work out in the elements and the majority of us don’t get paid time off or sick days. We take off what we can afford and for most, that’s not enough.
My first job in the trade was at Great American Ballpark. I had never worked with tools or climbed a ladder, but I was very determined. The first group of guys I worked with, seemed to have put me through a “Boot Camp” of construction work. They wanted to see how much I could carry; how much I could lift. I hoisted rigid conduit up the light towers which are 200 feet tall. The higher I raised the conduit, the more I feared the weight would soon take me off the ground. My foreman Dan told me to lean into it. Once it reached the top two journeymen were there to retrieve it. I still remember the day they asked me if I was afraid of heights. I only responded with a nod. Timmy exclaimed ‘today you are climbing the light towers’. He led the way and even gave me a hand when I reached the top. At that moment Timmy slapped me on the back and said, ‘You made it kid’ and I still believe he meant I made it into the trade. I worked at Great American from spring of 2002 until opening day of 2003 without missing a day of work. I met a considerable number of people there, some good and some bad. I am the first generation in my family in the trade so I learned to stand up for myself quickly. I received high pay for doing work on the towers. I learned how to use a boom lift. I worked through what seemed like the coldest winter imaginable. My first year in the trade came with many challenges. I felt that if I could make it through that first year I could make it through anything. I worked the hours they wanted me to work, which included a handful of Sundays. I was going to become a union electrician and do it with few complaints.
Since we work more hours than we are at home, we form bonds. We make lifelong friendships. We share stories about other places we helped build. The work is difficult and demanding at times, so we try to have fun when we can. We give each other nicknames. It builds character. I have a list of nicknames a mile long. One of my favorite nicknames was given to me while working at BP Oil Refinery near Chicago. My foreman was from Texas, and he was very short. He owned a ten-gallon hat that was taller than him. One day Rick was doing a walk through with the superintendent of the job and as he passed by me, he stopped mid-sentence to say, “Now that’s a full-grown man.” I turned to my tool buddy Dave, and I just shook my head. Dave chuckled of course, for the rest of the job I was called Full Grown. As you can see, comradery is very important when working long hours. An occasional trip to the bar is required to discuss the events that took place at work that week. When something doesn’t work out, we pick each other up and help where we can. Sometimes we take a stand. Sometimes we fall. When we stand together, we are in good company. Sometimes we forget the strength we have in numbers.
One hard fact about construction is that the day you step onto a project, you are working yourself out of a job. When work is abundant, the contractor will send you to another project. When times are slow, they might send you off with two checks and a handshake. It’s not always a pleasant goodbye, but the sooner you can accept that all jobs are temporary, the easier it gets. Towards the end of the job, we are often filled with uncertainties. We hold our heads high and finish strong. There are punch lists to complete and troubleshooting to be done. The measurements we took finally show us that our worries were in vain. When the walls are up, the wire is pulled, and paint is starting to dry; we get a sense of accomplishment that cannot be taken away. We may not always get a pat on the back, but we know who put the time in. Towards the end of the job, we get a newfound respect for some, and we learn who we can count on. In the end, we walk away a little stronger and wiser. We use our knowledge and pass it down so that future generations can do the same. At the end of the day, we all want to go home safe and little bit richer.
