The time an old foreman told me to stop babying my swing

I had this foreman back in 2015 on a job in St. Louis, big guy named Sal. He watched me inch a load over a beam for like 2 minutes and just yells up, "You're not threading a needle, just set it down." It stung, but he was right (I was way too cautious). After that I started committing to my swings more and trusting my spotter's signals. Cut my cycle time by maybe 30 percent on those tight pick jobs. Has anyone else had a boss yell something that actually made you better?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer_perry778d ago

Man, Sal sounds like my old boss. Dude once watched me spend 5 minutes setting a brick and goes "You're building a wall, not a watch." Still think about that every time I overthink something stupid.

lily2308d ago

So you're building a wall, not a watch" is one of those lines that sticks with you, yeah. I feel like that's the bigger pattern with life these days. Everyone's so caught up in making every tiny thing perfect that they forget the big picture. Like when I see people stressing over a font for 45 minutes on a poster that's gonna get seen once and thrown away. Or spending an hour picking out sheets for a guest room nobody ever uses. We get so focused on being precise with the details that we miss the point of the actual project. That boss sounds like he understood that better than most.