Sometimes you hit the jackpot with work crews, sometimes you pick up sticks - The Advocate

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In the last two weeks, I have felt like I’ve been living in the nursery rhyme, “One, two, buckle my shoe.”

With the mess that the storms left and the changing weather, I’ve thought more about that old nursery rhyme than I care to admit, occasionally muttering it to myself. According to my research, the little rhyme probably dates back to American lace-makers in the late 18th century and was meant to teach kids how to count.

Shoe-buckling has not inspired my mumblings. I haven’t seen any lace either. Instead, I have focused primarily on the lines that say “three, four, shut the door” and “five, six, pick up sticks.”

Thanks to two giant trees that fell in our backyard, we have had a ridiculous amount of cleanup work. Simultaneously, we’ve decided to do some interior improvements, including having our living room painted. Both assignments were bigger than we could tackle on our own. So, we hired two crews to do the work — one for the outside and one for the inside.

The difference between the approaches and work ethic of these two work crews has given me plenty of food for thought , which combined with the cooler weather has also made even my family of non-Cajuns ready for some gumbo — hence, “nine, ten, big fat hen”.

When the crew to do the outdoor work arrived without basic tools, I should have known how things would go. Even though they were here less than three hours, they did a lot of standing around and talking loud, looking at the work to be done, as opposed to actually doing the work. As I was trying to use a large piece of equipment in the yard, one of them looked at me and said, “If you need help with that, we can re-negotiate our price.”

Ultimately, they ended up using our shovel, our rake, our garbage bags and our garbage cans. When they left, they left our tools strewn hither and yon across our yard. How people treat their tools tells more about work ethic than I realized when I was younger. The primary reason I hired them was to finish the yard cleanup after the big logs were hauled away from the downed trees. I specifically said, more than once, that they needed to pick up all the sticks in the yard — a task I view as being objective, either the sticks are picked up or they’re not. Two hours into their work, the yard guys texted me to say they were done. I came out to pay them. When I say that at least 14 sticks were within a five-foot radius of where we were standing, I am not exaggerating. I’m not talking twigs either — I’m talking some full-on two-foot long sticks.

I explained to the two-man crew that our agreement had been that they pick up sticks and began to pick them up myself to demonstrate what they task looked like. When they called the second time to say they were done, I asked my husband to go pay them. At that point, I was more ready for them to be out of my hair than to continue to wrangle. It was never going to end well. I ended up cleaning up after the guys I hired to clean up.

Five, six pick up sticks.

In stark contrast, the guys working in the interior of our home arrived with everything they needed to do the work — and then some. They have, on multiple days, meticulously covered everything with plastic and drop cloths. They wash their ladders and the rest of their tools several times throughout the day to make sure everything they touch remains pristine. When one of them saw me struggling with the same piece of outdoor equipment, he approached with socially distant considerations and asked if he could help. Professional painters, these in particular, amaze me at their ability to be neat and precise in their work.

The only thing is, and astute readers may have seen this one coming. (Three, four, shut the door.) Yes, with all the drop cloths on the floor, they seem to struggle to shut the front door of our house. Other than that, they have been quiet and diligent and their work is a thing of beauty. I am grateful for their presence.

The juxtaposition of these two work crews, their approach to the tasks at hand and their overall work ethic has been a reminder of so many lessons in life — in how to approach a task, in how to finish strong and in how to be of service to others.

The Link Lonk


October 31, 2020 at 10:15AM
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Sometimes you hit the jackpot with work crews, sometimes you pick up sticks - The Advocate

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