Our backyard project kicked off earlier this week, started a day earlier than scheduled. I’m not gonna lie: I had a bit of anxiety about this project, but now that things are underway, I am feeling better. First, the journeyman is a 70+ year old man named Jesus. He recently came out of retirement to help his son Junior who is another journeyman at the landscaping company. Turns out, he didn’t know how to NOT work, so Jesus is back on site. And what a win for us: he is super experienced in all areas of construction. Wakes up daily at 3am, comes on site at 6am (to beat the traffic), works a full day, in bed by 7pm. I am always a fan of people who are disciplined and punctual. And dayum, that time in the saddle really shows.

As you might expect, I’m pretty hands on about construction/project work. I had all kinds of questions about the HOWs of this project. Naturally, I’ve marked all those questions with green tape all around the house exterior. Jesus, who walks the site every morning examining and observing, said this morning he noticed a lot of green tape. Yesiree! I talked to him about drainage, plumbing, hose bibs, hose reels, HVAC… in these moments, I realize: I love me a project to manage with competent, knowledgeable peeps.

But dang, construction is serious labor. Even after they brought in a bobcat to break up all the concrete around the house, a crew of four men had to manually shovel all those chunks into a wheelbarrow and haul it to the driveway. Over 3 days, nearly 20 tons of concrete plus rebar hauled to the dump. Holy fuck. For just one modest house!?! SMH. It just blows my mind.

And we’ve had shitty air quality lately due to wildfires plus major heat: to see these guys hurling the pick axe and shoveling the rubble with dust flying everywhere… it really reminded me of a phrase my my father used to say to me (that my grandfather used to say to him). The pen is mightier than the shovel. When you witness just how physical these manual labor jobs are, you really understand why my family (former farmers, later contractors) emphasized education from the beginning. White collar work is so much easier than blue collar work. It’s not to say, white collar work doesn’t carry its own form of stress and liability but gosh darn, on blistering hot days like today, how lucky am I to sit in front of my computer in the comfortable air conditioning. The difference in work environment/lifestyle is so freaking stark!

So today, I step back to reflect on my current gripes and bad attitude: slow business, no respect, difficult clients, frustrating/annoying parents. And I think about my extremely fortunate lot in life, made possible by my family, my spouse, and to some extent, by luck and chance. Like seriously, STFU already.