It’s been said there are two kinds of people in America, those who shower before going to work and those who shower afterward.
Though the sentiment could be considered classist, it reminds us of the dignity of work, all work, when it’s done with pride and honesty.
In June 1973, 45 years ago, I was a high school graduate for barely 12 hours when I grabbed a short-handle square-point shovel and waded into a pile of hot asphalt dumped at the end of a driveway that had to be repaired before Itaska Drive in Oceanport, NJ, could be repaved.
New jeans and workboots from Sears, a white T-shirt. Not quite a ditchdigger’s ditchdigger, but I wanted to look and feel like a real man on this summer job.
I danced around in the blacktop, doing more damage with my feet than making any progress with the shovel. In a matter of minutes, my jeans were nearly off my sweaty backside and my Tee was transparent, soaked through.
The foreman grabbed my belt and yanked me away from the driveway. I barked at him, “What’s the matter with you, man? I’m working my ass off here.”
He looked at me, shook his head, and said, “You may be workin’, but you ain’t producin’. Until you produce, you’re off my crew.”
When my first payday came around, he made me turn around, put my hand behind me, and back up to my check — a sign that, in his mind, I hadn’t earned it.
I vowed that would never happen again. Not on the road crew; not on any job.
It wasn’t easy to get past that, not at first. I was 5-11 and 125 pounds. The laborers called me “Muscles” because I had none. These were guys who routinely carried a cast-iron manhole ring under one arm and the manhole cover under the other.
No way I’d ever achieve that, even if it had been a goal.
But producin’. That was a different consideration.
Hard labor demands that you turn off your brain. Dig. Scrape dirt off curbs. Smash concrete with a jackhammer. Slice old asphalt with a cutter. No time for what-ifs or what-I’d-rather-be-doings. Thinking gets you hurt or, worse yet, injures somebody else.
Turning off my brain, though, was harder than hauling concrete.
Producin’. Hmm. How about helping with the daily report? The materials tickets? These guys were summa cum laude from the College of Hard Work and Harder Knocks, so the college kid was perfect for paperwork they detested, including the orders for coffee and buttered rolls.
I soon found the sweet spot between work and work, and after a while Ol’ Muscles actually had some.
Producin’ is everything. It takes hard work and the right skills, used to their fullest. It requires identifying what you’re good at, best at, and throwing your entire self into it. (No “percent” clichés here.)
I spent five summers, four winters and one autumn on that foreman’s crew. For nearly three-quarters of my life, what he taught me has guided my career.
