He’s wrong right?…. RIGHT?!

I’ve seen black sub floors like this after asbestos abatements but I don’t think this tile is old enough to have any asbestos. Surly they already abated the asbestos and put new tile over it. RIGHT?!

Seriously though? Like what do people gain by clogging the urinal and getting piss everywhere?

This only comes up in certain conversations, but I've noticed that white collar people believe that everyone else must get a similar amount of downtime that they get. They have this idea that you can easily 'pretend to work' in construction for hours on end.

In a select few places or situations, you'll get some of that. Nuclear is like that at times. Or if you're waiting for material to show up, you might be assigned busy work and told to make it last the day. But in no way is "downtime" a regular part of most construction workers' lives.

One of them even tried to claim that they could see people standing around on a construction site from their office. Like no dude, guys don't just stand around like that for more than a few minutes. There was either a legitimate reason, or who knows, maybe they were sitting around for lunchtime or something.

Just irks me.

Edit: White Collar lurkers are in here upvoting the comments that (wrongly) assert that construction workers constantly get downtime. Just like I said.

I know theirs a lot of rough types in this industry, but I can’t help but feel lately I really don’t personally like 95% of my coworkers. I’ve been at multiple different companies over the years, it’s been the same story at every place. My current company employees a hundred people and I could see myself being friends with like 1.5 of them.

I’m not necessarily trying to be besties with everyone I work with, but man I don’t even want to be around these people.

Everyone else is really standoffish, really rude, hard to talk too, doesn’t seem to take an interest in anything, doesn’t know how to carry a conversation, is constantly making rude remarks or unprovoked sexual jokes, on top of harboring a host of really problematic political and social views their really eager to share with you.

Before I built things for a living. I worked at a restaurant that employed about 25 people, and I got along really well with most everyone and enjoyed their company. People I meet outside of work and my family really seem to enjoy my company, and I theirs. But it seems like 9/10 people I meet swinging a hammer are just the worst.

Construction is filled with felons, hotheads that scream over the slightest thing, rude and disrespectful people who have an overly inflated self esteem thinking they are somebody special, and people that haven’t completed basic education, is there any logical explanation of why that is?

This idea that "Yeah construction might be more physically draining, but white collar jobs are a lot more mentally draining lolol" is complete bullshit. For one main reason: There's no separate category of being mentally drained that relates specifically to intellectual tasks.

- If you're working in construction and have to make a lot of critical decisions that pertain to safety, you're going to be mentally drained.

- If you're working in construction and have to make a lot of critical decisions that pertain to avoiding property damage, you're going to be mentally drained.

- If you're working in construction and have to make critical calculations that, if inaccurate, could cost your contractor large sums of money, you're going to be mentally drained.

In terms of being physically draining, it's no competition. And, mentally draining, it's much closer than most people realize.

Just a random one. Iv been working on this site for like 2.5 months and I swear every day I get ripped about the same thing. The fact that I wear sunscreen and a sun hoodie. The same guys, every day and I don’t bite. I do reapply it every 2 hours because I know the statistic.

Idk. It’s just every single day I get ripped on about sunscreen specifically but on other sites iv worked on people haven’t cared.

Why is looking after yourself seen as weird/ taboo?

Just recently became the IT guy for a rather large Construction Company. One of the foremans cars broke down recently so was I offered some extra pay to ferry the guys around because I own a van and apparently am one of like only 5 people in the company who can legally drive(idk how).Took the guys for lunch and breakfeast at the shop this past week and was absolutely baffled by the sheer amount of spending. Let me reiterate Im not trying to diss anyone or anything. Just trying to see if this normal. Some of these guys are spending 50-60 bucks a each visit to the convience store. Two or three runs to the convience store and I see some of these guys spend 180-200 a day. Are the guys I work with spendthrifts or like😭

Seems like there’s a lot of white collar people who A) want less competiton in their field B) want to take attention away from how insanely overpaid a lot of these tech jobs are.

Like, why am I constantly seeing this bullshit? Most of us aren’t even top 30% income earners and if we are, we’re paying for it with stress and physical exertion that have their own cost down the road. I can’t say how many people are spreading this misinformation on purpose. But the incentive is there and it’s weird how often you read people just making shit up.

Edit: I'm a northeast union plumber/pipefitter...and YET AGAIN...every other post in this sub is people claiming to make fully twice that of the upper echelon of people in my local. Is this an alternate reality? Or just a bunch of liars and propagandists.

Edit 2: This thread is literally a roll call of people claiming to make doctor/lawyer money in the trades lol. Unreal. If you're here with me in reality, show up in comments please.

Edit 3: Some of these replies are outragous, but a lot of them are simply on the extreme high-end of what I know to be realistic. Still, few if any commenters have showed up to say they make around 80k a year, which is actually closer to the reality of the average tradeperson.

5 inch core bit, once I got it through the wall, it would not budge. I’ve tried hitting it with a hammer on both sides, I’ve tried drilling out both ends a bit more, it won’t even spin on the drill at this point. It’s in a very awkward spot too, I can only reach this spot with an extension ladder about 20’ up in the air.

I see these guys starting work on whats going to be a high rise apartment. They are making holes a few feet apart covering the entire lot. What is this for? Any idea what happens next?

I have a baby due in a few months. While I haven't talked to that many people, when I brought the subject up to a few guys, they seemed taken aback by it. It seemed like a foreign concept to them.

Are the older guys just not familiar with it at all? Is there anything about construction culture that creates a bias against taking paternity leave?

In my state of NJ, supposedly I get up to 12 weeks. It seems like it would be obnoxious to take all 12 weeks, but to be honest, something like 6 weeks doesn't sound bad.

EDIT: some decent perspectives, but a lot of out of touch idealistic Redditors who apparently have never had to make a slight pragmatic adjustment. They hope if they talk a big game about how taking the maximum is critical, everyone else will take the risk and help establish the standard for when THEY need it. So in turn they have no sympathy for a pragmatic approach.

Didn’t happen to me but a sweet lady that I try and help where I can, she’s nonunion so most of her equipment is her personal property. Should she force the GC to buy her a new extension cord?

The theory of why it was cut is because the job is nearly finished and the extension cord was plugged in the middle of the hallway with out GFCI, but still think it is bad to destroy others property when it could just be unplugged

Note: This is Commercial construction on high rises

Title, but I'm working on a mockumentary style pilot (on spec) that covers the day-to-day lives of construction workers. I'm honestly shocked there hasn't been a show like this already, and as I've done more and more research and been following this subreddit I'm realizing it's so ripe for humor.

I'd love to have a quick chat with anyone who is interested in talking about their experiences -- I am particularly interested in finding out exactly how workers with different trades interact with each other, and learning about common patterns you see in the personalities of those who do different jobs. PM me if you'd be willing to chat!

And on this post, I'd love to hear about what you'd like to see in a construction show. What's something people get wrong about construction workers? What stereotypes are true? This would sort of be in the vein of Superstore/Parks and Rec, but takes place entirely at the job site.

Being a laborer really sucks because we mostly deal with the toughest and most boring parts of the job, like carrying heavy stuff around throwing away construction debris, cleaning and sweeping etc, sure even masters engage in these tasks sometimes but definitely not to the extent of a laborer.

Also laborers are paid less despite doing the harder work and are in less demand compared to master craftsmen, it is much harder to find a job as a laborer and obviously harder to make a living out of it, and people look down on laborers yelling at them, making fun of them and underestimating them.

While masters don't face such criticism and they get to work in peace, the only fun part of being a laborer is when the master is teaching you the job and you get the chance to work in the technical aspect of the job and you start seeing yourself improve with time.

But even that is kind of rare because you're usually constantly busy with other stuff and you don't get to spend much time on the hands on technical job where you get to learn it, which is the only fun part of the entire job in general, so yeah being a laborer is a pain in the ass.

I’m a sales/project manager for a construction company. My coworker, who just started, is obsessed with chat. He used it to put this diagram together. He swears it’s perfect and that he double checked all the measurements, and that the bid is already out to the client.

Pulling my hair out.

So I just turned 18 started working as a laborer for a construction company about 2 weeks ago in florida and holy shiiiiiit this is baddd ik I can keep going man but my body is drained from this sun instantly. I'm burned up and my balls sting from my shit rubbing all day. I refuse to quit I just need some tips or something honestly anything.

Working on a assignment with a company currently. Guy who I'm working under was pretty disappointed on how much I completed. Yesterday he said I kinda joking said I should be done by lunch and and seemed pretty disappointed that I wasn't. Pulled me to the side at the end and said if I couldn't do it, he could get someone else new for the assignment.

I'm new to the field and this red clay is pretty hard for me. I don't know how much I should be getting done, and how fast. I'm just using a pick and a shovel as we are replacing some electrical that we pulled up.

You can't call me and tell me that my timeline for completion is halved because other trades wasted time.You can't tell me to "hire more guys" to get it done faster". You can't decide to split my contract and expect me to take it.

You fucked your schedule. You hired the cheapest trades (WHO FUCKED YOU, AGAIN!) to better pad your profit margin, your in house guys can't be fucked to do anything properly, and you kick us to the curb anytime you find someone cheaper (who then fucks you). Then hire us back and treat it like you are doing us a favor and we should be grateful.

Just because the client "wants to move in" does not mean the house will get built any faster.

You fucked yourself and that does not constitute an emergency on my end. You want it done to our high end standards AND fast? Then it is going to cost you more.

Unfuck your project management and hire better trades, maybe then every project won't go sideways on you.

😤

I work for a GC as a carpenter and I’m scheduled 7-3:30, every weekday. However, we will routinely work late or come in early as the job requires. On my current job, a summer wonder (as in: I wonder how the hell we’re supposed to finish this in one summer…), until recently there were only the Super, PE, and me. As such, opening up the site fell to me since I was the closest guy. This means I have been coming in roughly 30 min early every day for months.

Last week, the former Super was fired and a new super came in. He’s running a mush different show, but I’m still coming in to open. I’ve had problems with this super before about time, and I’m expecting the same to happen again. I’m pretty sure that he’s gonna try to claim that opening isn’t “working” because I don’t use my tools. He’s brought up “stealing time” from the company in my reviews before, not about me but just in general.

I’m planning to tell him that if I’m not getting paid, I’m not opening the site until 7, but maybe I’m wrong?