I almost got fired on my first day of working construction back in high school and I think about it every summer. The lesson I learned has held true for three decades, across almost every field and activity, and has proven invaluable throughout my life. I think you’ll agree when you hear it, so let’s dive in.
It’s the summer of ‘95 and I’d just taken a job working construction with the foreman who did the addition on our house the previous fall. He’d seen me around the house, knew I lifted and played football and asked if I was interested in joining his crew as what he called a ‘hump’ AKA, a guy who carried stuff, cleaned stuff up, demolished stuff and tried to learn a few things along the way.
After a no-fun job at TCBY the summer before and then a summer landscaping where I mowed endless miles of lawn every day bored out of my mind, the idea of smashing decks, lugging plywood and learning to build stuff outside with grown men seemed cool as hell. So I accepted.
When I arrived for my 1st day I was nearly fired on the spot. Boom. Done…
Why?
Because of a life lesson I didn’t know, that I now use to this day. But first, let me tell you about the foreman how hired me, Big Jim.
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Big Jim was a grizzly bear of a man. Huge beard. Hair slicked back. Never wore sleeves. Never flinched. Always had a pipe in his mouth with cherry-flavored smoke puffing out. Never stepped foot in a gym but was the strongest guy I’ve ever seen.
He could pick-up 3 panels of sheet rock one-handed (if you know, you know). He flipped broken cinder blocks into dumpsters like they were pennies. I once saw him push back tipping scaffolding with two dudes on it like he was putting a book on a shelf.
Bad ass.
At 18 years old, I was terrified of him (and of letting him down after he hired me). So the day before my first day I went to a hardware store and bought all new tools.
A shiny leather belt, pristine wrenches, glistening hammer, sleek flat bar. All the basics. When I showed up to the job site at 7AM I was super proud to show Big Jim all the cool new gear I got. So there I was, smiling as I pulled into the dirt lot. Then, I got out of my Jeep with a hop in my step, thinking this is gonna be fun.
Big Jim spots me, waves, then stops. Then he jogs over to me with a pissed off look on his face. Actually, he looked more than pissed. He was livid.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t show up like this. You tryin’ to embarrass me?”
“Um, what are you talking about?”
Then he yanked at my brand new tool belt.
“Nobody wants to work with a guy swingin’ a new fuckin’ hammer!”
“They don’t?” I asked, dumb and confused.
He paused, and could see that I was completely lost.
What the hell just happened?
“Take that shit off,” he said. “Follow me.”
So I took off my tool belt.
And he walked me over to his truck and gave me a set of old, beat-up tools.
“Ditch that shit,” he said, pointing to my tools. “Use these.”
Then he handed me a pile of used, dinked, dented, rusted, paint-spattered tools of his.
“But these are all beat-up,” I said.
“No shit,” Big Jim said. “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 wannabe asshole.”
“Oh,” I said, still kinda baffled.
“Rule of thumb,” he said:
“On a job site…in life… The shinier the tools, the shittier the worker.”
Then he walked 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.
I’m sure you’ve come to the same conclusion.
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Jon Finkel
Editor-in-Chief, Midlife Male
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