Back in high school, I took a summer job working construction.
When I arrived for my first day, the guy who hired me nearly fired me on the spot. Boom. Done. Goodbye.
Why?
Because of a life lesson I didn’t know at the time, but one I still use to this day.
Let me tell you about Big Jim:
Big Jim was a grizzly bear of a man. Every old school construction site in the 80s and 90s had one of these guys. Doesn’t matter if you were building houses, strip malls, or high schools. This guy was a beast:
He stood about 6’2”. Huge beard. Hair slicked back. Never wore sleeves. Never flinched. Never stepped foot in a gym but was the strongest guy I’ve ever seen.
He could pick up 3 panels of sheetrock one-handed (if you know, you know).
He flipped broken cinder blocks into dumpsters like they were pennies.
I once saw him bound over to the side of a house and push back scaffolding that was about to tip sideways like he was putting a book on a shelf. Oh, and there were two dudes installing a window on the scaffolding.
Badass.
At 18 years old, I admired him and was intimidated by him. I was also terrified of letting him down on the jobsite after he hired me.
So the afternoon before my first day of my summer job, I went to a local Ace hardware store and bought all new tools:
A shiny leather belt, pristine wrenches, glistening hammer, sleek flat bar…
Just the basics, but I wanted to have new stuff and show that I cared.
Cut to 6:30AM the next morning and I’m driving to the jobsite with my boots and jeans and my gleaming new gear sitting on the front seat. I’m so pumped. I took the initiative to have quality tools. I’m proud of myself.
I roll onto the gravel lot at 6:50AM. Ten minutes early, ready to make a strong impression and show Big Jim all the cool new gear I got.
I jump out of my Jeep, strap on my pristine Carhartt toolbelt, load it up with my Stanley hammer, my Lowell wrenches, and toss a handful of ten-penny nails in the pouch for good measure.
I’m smiling as my feet hit the dirt on the construction site. Big Jim spots me, waves, then stops as I clear the Jeep. A scowl darkens his face, and he jogs over to me pissed off. More than that. He’s livid.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
He looks around the jobsite at the other guys, making sure nobody’s watching.
“You can’t show up like this. You tryin’ to embarrass me?”
“Um, what are you talking about?”
Then he grabs my waist and shakes my tool belt with his meathook hands.
“Nobody wants to work with a guy swingin’ a new fuckin’ hammer!”
“They don’t?” I ask.
I have no idea what to say. I feel dumb. Confused.
He pauses, crosses his arms and snorts.
He looks me over and could see that I was completely and totally lost.
What the hell just happened?
“Take that shit off,” he says. “Follow me.”
I take off my tool belt and hold it in one arm as I lamely walk behind him, wondering if I’ve been fired before I even started.
He walks me over to his truck and one-by-one pulls out a set of old, worn tools. Then a crusted, frayed toolbelt to wrap around my waist.
“Ditch that shit,” he says, pointing to all of my tools. “Work with these.”
Then he hands me the pile of used, dinked, dented, rusted, paint-spattered tools of his.
“These are all beat up,” I say.
“No shit,” Big Jim barks. “They’ve done jobs. They’ve been around. You got tools like these people think you know what the hell you’re doin’ out there, not some flashy asshole.”
“Oh,” I say, still kinda baffled.
He could tell.
“Rule of thumb,” he says. “On a job site… in life… the shinier the tools, the shittier the worker.”
Then he walks away.
Took me a decade to understand what he meant.
But now I realize it’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard.
“The shinier the tools, the shittier the worker.”
I’ve found it holds true about 98% of the time across nearly every scenario.
Case in point, when we moved into our neighborhood a few years ago we needed to have some roof work done. Called around and had a few guys come over for estimates.
One guy rolled up in a newly branded, company-wrapped F-150, had glossy business cards, a shiny company shirt, fancy watch, well-done folder with the estimate printed neatly inside. Dude looked like he’d never held a hammer, let alone stepped foot on a hot ass roof in the summer.
The second guy pulled up in a faded maroon Chevy Silverado from probably 2004. Slats piled in the back. Concrete splatter. Guy came out covered in sweat from another jobsite. No folder. Talked me through the job in four minutes. His price was about the same.
I told my wife we’re using the second guy. No need to even think about it. But of course, we asked around. The second guy had done about half the damn neighborhood the last twenty years. Everyone swore by him. The first guy did one house we could find and the people said the job took twice as long as they were promised and had to be repaired six months later.
Like Big Jim said, “The shinier the tools, the shittier the worker.”
I’m sure you’ve come to the same conclusion.
Thanks, Big Jim.
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Jon Finkel
Editor-in-Chief, Midlife Male
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