I’m shooting for the phylosophical area here, Like where the wood is grained this way… so I need to nail a certain direction, and distance from the edge … glue ups tell me I need to alternate my rings up and down, wood has crowns, and twists and weeps till long after it becomes a wall stud,
I cut out checks, choose material (maybe it is still dictating to me…) I crown up and choose a “good side” …I think I have been dealing with what is dealt to me…
When I skim some “mud” on the wall, I have cleaned rust from my “stainless knife”, and I am popping it on the edge of my pan to clear it of doo-doo, and Skimming fast to avoid streaks, Sweeping through the tape corners,Bending my knife to skim out the puddles…
I feel the “love of these trades when I deal with an appreciative client, who reveres the skill…One even in tears, thankful I have dealt kindly with her, in comparison to the other contractors who cheated and mis dealt to her,due to machismo or whatever their problem, I have loved the lessons this has taught me,Even when I realized I was wrong…
Scribe once, cut once!
Replies
You all right tonight dude?
Just wanted to clarify....
Wasn't knocking you or anything like that. A week or so ago I remember reading about you being ready to hang up your hammer. You post tonight sounded a little bit down. Thoughful, but down. Just wanted to make sure all is well over there in Houston.
Yes I'm really ok and if any one were going to "knock" me I would say it's either ok coming from here where I know it would be a voice of reason or I'd just forget it and consider the source... After I posted,I thought I would get some real roaring responses,besides the on the level replies...The problem with hanging it up, I think is, there is nothing like what we do... I am actually waiting some kind of divine inspiration or the like to show me what I will like to do next...I have to enjoy what I do, I've had sorry jobs before and can't bear that...Scribe once, cut once!
I hear you loud and clear dude. I really feel bad for folks who dread Monday mornings. I don't really like 'em, but it's more because the day off beforehand screws up my rhythm and I'm all out of sync all day. I couldn't imagine going to a job where I hated the boss, or my co-workers, or the job itself. To me what I do is often deeply intertwined with who I am. Therefore, if I'm hatin' my job.... I'm hatin' life.
I was having a discussion recently with a good guy I'm doing work for. We were talking about the construction business in general. Sometimes it just feels like a bad relationship. Remember that girl you dated way back when? The crazy one? Where the sex was great, but the battles neverending? The one who you knew was making you crazy, your friends were telling you she was making you crazy, but you loved her anyway? And you just couldn't seem to break up with her cuz you didn't know what you'd do afterwards? That's contracting in nutshell from where I stand!
Just try to keep it simple brother. Never let anything own you any more than you wish to be owned. A line in a movie back in the day, "the things we own end up owning us." So true sometimes it's scary.
Somedays, I think I too should just hang it up. Just dissappear into the sunset. What do I really need to get by? The truck full of tools and the dog in the passenger's seat and I'm gone. But that's usually me just focusing on the 5 things going wrong in my life instead of the 105 things that are going right. Sometimes it's just all about perspective.
How's that saying go... the path of your life is 5% what happens to you and 95% how you deal with those circumstances. Something like that anyway. I'm no poet as you can probably tell by now.
All in all, yeah sometimes my business owns me. Tells me when to get up, where to go, how to behave, what to do when I get there, etc..... But that was my choice. I'm slowly getting better at letting go of the things I don't have any control over. That seems to be the key. The Serenity Prayer is really the key to a happy life. I'm not preaching or saying that prayer in general is the key....just that the words of that prayer are remarkably honest and wise.... words to live by really.
Grant me the serentity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can.
And the Wisdom to know the difference.
Hell, we master that, we've mastered life in general. Hang in brother.... just another day in paradise!
Nice post.sobriety is the root cause of dementia
Thanks Rez.
Well, for me, it helps to remember the difference between carpentry as a craft and contracting as a way of choosing which parts of that craft I practice most. Like many here, I like the craft much more than the business.
But I try not to forget how painful it was all those years as an employee, making the customer happy at the expense of irritating my employer, or making my employer happy at the expense of my sense of craft - this "faster, faster, faster, make more money" line of thinking can make you forget the pleasure of a job well done, can stop a person from trying alternate techniques, or stopping and really thinking through what they are doing.
I still get the azz at the estimator (me) ocassionally, but the trade off is that I work to my own standards most of the time, not some knucklehead with a business degree who measures "sucess" on the bottom line and could care less about the craft.
I'm sure impressed with all the 30ish contractors here on the board who take carpentry seriously. I hope you guys can stick with it long enough for the road to smooth out. It does, and it's worth working towards. Steady on.
To me this is way cheaper than therapy. If I could get affordable insurance (at 60) I would do this full time. I still average 15 - 20 hrs. per week during the school year and 35-45 in the summer. As others have said way more eloquently, I just like the feel of doing a good job. I left the trades 40 years ago after one too many $%@#$ that I worked for. I like doing it solo.
I said on my last post ,I was looking for a divine direction,It reminded me of some one I contracted for,who said his business belonged to Jesus...It hacked me off because it was a dodge from his responsibility... He would need to ask Jesus if he should do this or that...I told him if Jesus were really in charge he would have workmans comp for his workers and a soluble safety plan and other things, I figured after feeling I got a brass heaven cast over my head while asking the lord for a boost in my business,(and feeling like he was telling me he didn't want in those affairs) that I needed to do my best and ask for "soft-help"and hope he will accept my work.
A biblical passage lead me to work that way "do all that thou mayest with thy strength,unto the Lord, and I shall bless it" I feel like I will just go on doing the same thing, Only doing it even better...I feel like the Lord is not only looking for compliant, useable people, He wants people who have their own wills and strength,and devices (our minds)...
Scribe once, cut once!
I figured after feeling I got a brass heaven cast over my head while asking the lord for a boost in my business,(and feeling like he was telling me he didn't want in those affairs)
I learned a long time ago not to ask God for anything other than the strength to do His will, and the knowledge to know what His will is. Asking for specific acts or tangible objects has always resulted in disappointment. Not from Him, but from myself.
When I'm jambed up and talking to the Big Man, I just ask Him to try to help me do "the next right thing"... whatever that may be. Then I ask him to take my own will away from me and give me clarity in knowing what His will is. My own will (self-will run riot) is what gets me into trouble. I get messed up, ask for help and turn the proverbial "keys to the bus" over to Him. Once He gets the bus back on track, I inevitably grab the wheel back from Him and wreck the dang thing again. Some of my wrecks have been closer to train wrecks than bus wrecks! ;) But I'm learning.... I guess that's all we can hope for.
I just try to give as much thanks to Him for as many things as I can account for. I ask him to replace my own self-will with His will. Then I ask Him for the courage and the strength to be best Dieselpig I can be with what He's given me to work with. Gratitude is everything in life.
I'm constantly messing up. I fall on my face time and time again. BUT... I do float in faith instead of sinking in fear.
FWIW, I'm not a religious person at all. I don't go to church and I don't follow any one organized religion. But I do pray. I had a life altering change take place in my life six years ago this October. The change was not my doing, and despite the efforts of many who cared about me, was not their doing either. It came from a power greater than myself and greater than any on the planet. That's the guy I pray to.
Well said.
Both of you.
"Criticism without instruction is little more than abuse." D.Sweet
Yeah, amen and amen.
DP, Luka earlier (weeks back, telling me of his cat)made himself my brother,And now you are If you ever need to be fed or need a bed, You guy's have got it...I was once baptized with the Holy Spirit,and gained many brothers,I have reached out to them now and again and never got enough to tempt me to go back to their church... All of you with out exception have excelled in brother-hood... and all are comendable men
Men,I was taught a man contains all emotions and that humanity plus embracing it is what makes us real MEN...
LOL...Scribe once, cut once!
Never be afraid to hug. To cry. To tell someone you love them. Or to be vulnerable.
It takes a bigger, stronger man to do all those, than it does to not do them.
"Criticism without instruction is little more than abuse." D.Sweet
DP, you are a walkin talkin buddy of Bill, {wink}.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
I try not to ram it down people's throats.... but it sure saved my sorry azz!
Yeah what Diesel said, working in the heat this week? DanT
I admire someone that does something to lift it to a level more than work. The customer thing, that I understand. I need andy clifford to explain the zen of the building trades. Could never surreal myself out enough to think that way. Seek him out, have a couple and let it happen.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
It's a marrige, ya own each other and ya owe each other.
SamT
Oh, I suppose it owns me. I love carpenter work. I hates being a businessman and employer. If i'm left alone, I enjoy every aspect of working with wood. Ok, I'm 55 and humping 16 ft. boards isn't near as exciting as it used to be, but it beats sitting in an office all day. I think. The times I think about bagging it are the times when the guywho I employ, 30 years my junior, misses two days during the week and whines about 1/2 day Saturday. Or when some government or insurance entity wants MORE out of my pocket. I've been blessed to find what I love in life and I actually make money doing it (usually). There isn't anything I'd rather do than build houses and I'm too old and stubborn to work for anyone else, so I just take the bad with the good.
It still owns me, and I haven't been in the trades for more years than I care to say.
"Criticism without instruction is little more than abuse." D.Sweet
I guess I got things a little backwards from the way everyone else seems to mean it.
I said the trade still owns me. But what I meant was that I still love it. It "owns" me, in that I still love to work with my hands, and I still love the craft.
I just haven't been able to give it justice for many years. Not even when I had the time and opportunity.
It is frustrating.
I am still "owned" by the desire to do the best job I can, and then to be proud of the results.
"Criticism without instruction is little more than abuse." D.Sweet
i do not use my spackle tools daily but when i am finished with them i keep a rag with wd 40 and give them a final wipe
Mapache: I would say I own the trade I am in...stairbuilding. I can honestly say I love my "occupation"...I refuse to call it "work".
I have every bit as much a passion as when I started. I feel I have purposely kept it that way by remaining small...no employees....and set a time to walk away each day. I work at a leisurely pace....not like I am killing snakes. I am making a very good living,,my wife helps part-time...and I not being subsidized by any other income.
Time management is very important...time for the business..and just as important...time for the family and myself. Without this...the trade then owns you.
Stan
Sounds to me like it's not so much a question of owning/being owned as what you do being a part of you, or more apropos, you and what you do being inseparable. Sounds like you have a very Zen way of doing what you seem to love. Nothing at all wrong with that--most of us, I think, aspire to that.
as far as the "trade own" or "U own" deal ...
Ithink a lot of it comes down to options.
I work in the trades bacause I choose to. I have worn a suit and could wear a suit again. I have a different set of skills outside the world of carpentry. I choose to be a carpenter. I don't have to be a carpenter.
I have a buddy I work with at times ... and he's always bitching about "getting out" .... but then in the next breath .. says he's "stuck" because he's never done anything else.
Maybe he is stuck .. I dunno.
But I do know my general attitude in life is way brighter than his.
I've met lotsa carps thru the years that "are stuck" ...
Always think mayeb I don't hate this line of work because I choose it .. and could leave it tomorrow if I wanted to ...
Not stuck here.
I've also noticed ... the guys that are "stuck" ... are forever employees .. and rarely even make it to lead.
My buddy is a sub... talks a good game about growth ... but never moves toward that direction. He's stuck.
Jeff
Buck Construction, llc Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
I saw an ad inthe local paper for garage door installer with sales exp. I am so tempted... then I think about the slack time I might miss from doin it for some one else,I wonder if your Buddy has any sales skills, in the home trades? If he has the temperment he may be able to sell carpet and flooring in general for an outlet, and be applying his mathematical skills and his talents in dealing with home owners...Scribe once, cut once!
do you own the tradeor does it own you ?............It's an even trade off.
Stuck
Yup, I know some like that as well. I left the trade for a few years and have come back to it. Now I work for myself. My question would not be "What else could I do"? and therefore am stuck, more like "Why would I want to do anything else?"
Beats the shid outa sitting inside all day, beats working for a boss who always wants faster faster and more money for him.
No way can ya top a satisfied customer going into orbit over the new shower that is better than they hoped, or raptures of delight that you put down drop cloths, or the little weird job you fixed when nobody had managed before.
I wouldnt want anything else. Once ya find your spot, thats it. A carpenter forever.
The trades at the highest level is art. If it was easy everyone could do it.
I suppose it is part of me and i am part of it. Cant separate the 2.
Everything, 100% of it, depends on how you look at it.
DW
It owns me, it owns me, and I sold myself to it cheap!!! Fortunately or unfortunately Im addicted to it too.
Ahhhhhh!
-m2akita
This might be kinda heavy for some of y'all, but I'm going there anyway. I've been in the trades for 31 years, and many times I've thought about getting out. Mainly because I felt like I should be doing something more meaningful, something that contributes more to humanity than building houses. So I brought this up when I was having a reading with my spirit guides. (Actually, they brought it up before I had a chance to.) Their guidance to me was to stay where I was because it was a good place for me to work on some of the things I came in this life to work on, mainly feelings of inadequacy from some things that happened in some previous lives. They gave me a little exercise the next time I was having those feelings, which was basically to exagerate those feelings as much as I could, i.e. "I'll live a miserable life if I continue in this business, and I'll die a miserable death, etc." Do this for 5 minutes. Then calm down, and tell yourself that these aren't truths about me at all, but just feelings. Release the feelings, and resolve to release them the same way the next time I have them. I've never had to use the exercise, because I've never had the feelings again. Just knowing that I'm on my true path, the one I set up for myself before I came into this life, gave me the peace about my occupation that I never had before. They also told me I could have had far more joy in my work all along, and I know that's true.
Well,
that's really something.sobriety is the root cause of dementia
I look at that "angle of it as I'm keeping a lot of folks warm,safe,dry, even giving them dignity...(ain't I Big?)...Scribe once, cut once!