The Stress of Progress

Welcome to “Onsite,” a fresh perspective brought to you by contributing writer Matt Ohley, founder of Bluecollar Mindfulness. In this column, Ohley cuts through the noise and delves into the challenges encountered by those shaping our world through construction. Ohley offers a unique perspective, amplifying the voices of those who experience the daily pulse of life on the job site.

Onsite is our commitment to breaking down the barriers and misconceptions that shroud the construction profession. Ohley aims to initiate open and honest conversations, from job insecurity to the transient nature of projects, physical strain and often-overlooked mental health struggles.

The “old timers.” The giants whose shoulders we stand upon. The gruff old guys who were in their 50s and 60s when we came into the game. In my experience, it’s a love-hate relationship with these guys.

We love what they taught us, we revere their abilities to push through, problem solve on the fly and just downright make stuff happen. With them, failure was not an option. They’d seen most problems, and even if they hadn’t, they somehow instinctively knew how to overcome the majority of them.

The hate part was often how they spoke to us. The atmosphere was one of “they didn’t have time to coddle anyone;” you either paid attention and picked it up the first time they told you or you received a verbal lashing. Sometimes, when you screwed up, you didn’t get another chance at the task for a while. They just took over the task again themselves because “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” It’s how they came up in the industry and they carried on the tradition. More often than not, it wasn’t that they genuinely disliked us greenhorns, they just practiced a sort of tough love, one might say.

Fast forward to today, and we’re watching many of their skills get phased out. Technology is ever increasing its footprint in the industry. Theodolites have been replaced by Total Stations. “Feeling the grade in your seat” has been replaced by automated machine guidance and GPS. Paper plans and radios have been replaced by iPads and iPhones. Eyeballing a pile to guess how many loads it’ll take to haul it out has been replaced by drones and sophisticated software. There is an app for everything from calculating the material you need to inputting your field logs — gone are the days of the pencil-to-paper field log journal.

Have you ever felt like the world is moving faster than you are?  Like you’re unable to keep up?  Imagine being the go-to guy on the jobsite, the best of the best at your craft, the guy all the young bucks learned your trade from, only to reach a point in your career where technology has, in many ways, replaced the talent you worked so hard to develop over the decades.

How must that feel?

For those of us who’ve remained close to them, befriended them, recognized we owe a debt of gratitude to them for what they taught us — hell, looked up to them like father figures — we see it on them. It wears on them. They were once kings in the building game; now, often, they struggle to find their place.

Many of us have embraced and appreciate the technology as it has made our lives and work easier, but let’s not forget the giants whose shoulders we stand on; the ones who came before us and built the world we live in without all the fancy gadgets we now rely on.

Do one of those ol’ boys a favor and tell them how much you appreciate them next time you get the chance. Because you should appreciate them — without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today.