I'm Thankful

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It doesn’t come with a lot of religious guilt, it hasn’t been crassly merchandised to death (how much money is there in turkey and cranberry sauce, anyway?), and it’s not infected with a lot of cheap sentiment.

No, it is a day where one gets together with loved ones, eats a tremendous meal, watches a little football if so inclined, and, without too much effort I think, calls to mind those things in life for which one is thankful. Pretty simple…and pretty hard to screw up. And so, simply, I am thankful for:

· My wife. Gratitude and thankfulness for your continuing choice of me as a spouse don’t begin to describe it. We are truly greater than the sum of our parts!

· My family and friends. You are the people who sustain me, delight me and in whose company I take refuge from the craziness of the world.

· My colleagues in NARI. A more generous and giving bunch of folks would be hard to find. In a business that is tough enough in good times, your willingness to share knowledge, encourage one another and hold each other to high standards is inspiring.

· The architects, subs, vendors and employees I talk with almost daily. Working together year after year, as a team, has made my projects go smoothly; delighting clients, making the day fun and producing well built and truly beautiful work.

· My clients. Without you, my business would not be here. The trust you place in me and my team is appreciated and something that I never take for granted.

· My hands. Guided by the gray matter upstairs, they have allowed me to make a rewarding living for the last 23 years, creating tangible things, and freed me from what, to me, would be the pure torture of sitting at a desk for the rest of my life.

Simply said, I have a lot to be thankful for; not just tomorrow, but the rest of the year as well. Finally, I’ll be grateful if you read this, and have, for yourself and your loved ones, a very Happy Thanksgiving! Just don’t expect me to get all philosophical about Christmas, though!

How do you know what you don’t know?

Way back in the early days of my career in construction, I was a lowly laborer/apprentice. My days were sometimes interesting, but many days were spent humping materials hither and yon on the jobs, loading the dumpster…basically at the beck and call of the foreman and lead carpenter.

One day, on a job in Georgetown, another laborer and I were given the task of getting an old, cast iron bathtub into the dumpster, which sat three floors below, in the back yard. We didn’t know much, to be sure, but we did know that:

· The tub weighed at least 300 lbs.

· No, we could not push it out the window.

The other laborer and I looked at each other and then to the tub, and began doing the best we could to get the thing down three flights of stairs without damaging the stairs, the walls, or smashing ourselves in the process. It seemed like all day, but it was probably at least an hour and a half later that we finally had this beast of a tub down the stairs, into the yard, and ready to put in the dumpster. Walls and floors had been scuffed, knuckles skinned and ankles twisted, but we had done it.

Problem was, however, that the dumpster was placed in the yard in such a way that opening its rear gate was impossible. How to get the thing up and over the 6’ high sides?

We pondered….smoked a cigarette or two….and pondered some more.

It wasn’t long before the foreman came over and asked us, not so nicely, “why the hell that f***ing tub wasn’t in the f***ing dumpster, and were we going to take all f***ing day about it?” We shrugged sheepishly, our body language asking “What do you want us to do?”

He went back inside the house, and came out a minute later with a sledge hammer. In three or four stiff licks, he had broken the tub into several pieces, which we could easily pick up and throw overboard into the can. We stood; slack jawed, as the truth of the last hour and a half slowly flowed over our feeble brains.

“The next time you don’t know how to do something, f***ing ask me!” said the foreman, and then stalked off, thinking to himself, I’m sure that, for a couple of “college boys”, we were dumber than a bag of hammers. It was a feeling we shared.

Education is not free. It is paid for in tuition, sure, but also in skinned knuckles and twisted ankles. Since I’ve been in business, I’ve also paid in lost profits on jobs that were bid too low, lack of knowledge about particular means & methods, working for psycho clients…..the list is long and expensive! It’s true though, that you don’t readily forget things that you paid so dearly for.

The next time you’re looking at your own monster “tub” though, take a moment to think about what you don’t know that you don’t know….and remember to ask!