Per Swenson said:
Tinker,
II started out of college mind you laying brick and block.
Forget the philosophy of Plato Christ and Socrates, I Had a intrinsic and irreversible need to know how building systems worked.
The rest of the story involves reading every darn thing I could get my hands on and then taking the next step and doing it.
I was twenty four years old when a construction fore man asked me to spackle.
I told him I couldn't as I didn't know how.
His retort was life changing.
he said, you sit here with more degrees then a thermometer.
These folks will never have your advantage.... just get up there and do it.
And there you have it.
Per
About two months after getting out of HS, i got a job working for a mason. He needed another laborer. His two oldest sons were working with him, so you know who was doing the toughest work. i did not complain. i just did my job and worked hard at it. i did some reading about construction and>>> kept working. Eventually, the following winter, we got a contract to do all of the masonry on a new developement. Another couple of masons and three laborers were hired. since the two sons were acquiring experience "using the tools", i was relegated to leading the laborer crew. I was directing all of the scaffolding construction and heading the materials preparation and movement including doing most of the "mud" mixing.
about a month into the project, one of the sons brought a buddy to work. The buddy did almost nothing other than to hang out with the boss all day. about 4 o'clock, the oldest laborer came to me and asked if i knew the boss was going to put "Rudy" onto the bricklaying crew to learn how to construct the veneers on the job. He was going to teach "Rudy" how to lay bricks. I did not say a word, but as soon as everything was cleaned up, instead of hanging around for a beer or two, i hopped into my car and headed to the local hardware store. i bought a brick trowel, pointing trowel, several jointing tools, brick hammer, two foot level and a four foot level. The next morning, i got to the job an hour early and dry mixed up two batches of brick mortar. I then added water to part of one of the batches and moved up onto one of the veneers that had been started late afternoon of the previous day. I started laying bricks.
As the rest of the crew started trickling onto the job, nobody payed much attention to what i was doing until the boss showed up. As he flew by in his big car, he all of a sudden slammed on his brakes, went into reverse, and with dust flying from his spinning wheels, he roared back towards my scaffolding. i thought he was going to smash into it, but kept working as if i did not even notice.
As he brought the car to a stop, he jumped out of the car and ran to the foot of the scaffold yelling, "What are you doing?"
"Laying bricks," was my reply meant to be as casually as possible.
"Oh. Who told you to do that?"
"Nobody."
He stood watching for a half minute and climbed up onto the scaffold. As I continued working and paying no attention to him, he all of a sudden started yelling, "NO! NO! NO!, Not that way!" He grabbed the trowel out of my hand, nearly knocking me from the scaffolding. He placed about six bricks so fast i could hardly see him doing so. He turned around and slammed my trowel into my chest and yelled, "You do it."
He finally calmed down and worked with me for a little while making sure i got the motions down to perfection. After a while he told me i could continue to fill in on the bricklaying as long as the other laborers were not falling behind. Most importantly, he wanted me to continue directing all of the scaffolding construction. From that point on, I carried my brick hammer and brick trowel with me everywhere i went on that job. I worked practically at a dead run, much to the consternation of the other laborers AND, especially, the two sons. The other masons were glad to have me jump up on the scaffolds now and then and throw in as many bricks as possible. it meant they could take a little break (slow down just a bit) while the job looked like they had actually done more at the end of the day. The laborers hated my guts. the two sons were even more hateful. (One of them even ended up working for me a bout a dozen years later.)
I often, after I started my own biz, took on jobs that I had never experienced the methods of construction involved. I enjoyed the challenge and ended up getting a lot of unusual projects just because i was willing to try new ideas.
Tinker
