pushingrockNote from Art: my week of alternative blog fare continues with this very autobiographical reflection on the formation of my later life leadership viewpoints! What about your early work life has shaped your style today?

As a college student way back in the 80’s, I had the good fortune to have a regular job during summer, winter and spring breaks.  The fact that it might have been at times one of the world’s nastiest jobs adds some flavor to the story.

The work was for a company that reconditioned and leased old power generation equipment and mining parts.  Yep, boilers, transformers and coal mine parts.  When these things returned to us, let’s just say that they were in less than pristine condition.

As trucks and railroad cars returned the equipment, I would operate the overhead cranes and that was enjoyable, as long as I could read the mind of the ex navy plant manager who communicated my next crane moves for 60-ton pieces of equipment with his eyes or his perpetually annoyed facial expressions.  (FYI, Ed was 5 foot 8 about 300 pounds of rock solid muscle and had the strength of a horse. You did not want him to be mad at you!)  If his expression shifted from a sneer to a scowl, I knew I had moved the wrong way and would reverse course.  To this day, I believe I can read subtle facial cues better because of this experience!

Crane time was in the minority at about an hour per day, with the rest of the time spent cleaning boilers and mill parts without much corporate concern for the safety of the workers.

I was in charge of my own safety and I purchased a high quality particulate mask for the jobs where the fine black dust would permeate every pore on your body.  Avoiding black lung was a priority.  I was also sharp enough to steer clear of things that just screamed asbestos or the dark sludgy liquids that I was certain were filled with pcbs.

Typically, we would clean these 30 to 60 ton monsters or the mountains of coal mill parts with rags, mineral spirits and scrapers.  Speed was not a priority.  I did take pride in being told by the owner of the firm that the reason I was constantly welcomed back was that I managed to outwork the regulars by about 2 to 1 and that I was always busy doing something.  The regulars knew this and laughed, and when I finished up my project, they always had some of their own work to share.  There was nothing malicious or secretive in their pace or their approach, they were just wired to move at the slowest acceptable pace.

Long story short, which is already too late, the plant manager, Ed, had a unique outlook on project work.  If I finished up something by Thursday afternoon and went looking and asking for more work, he would get this sneer on his face and retort, “We don’t start new projects on Thursday…the week is almost over.  Go in the back and %$k around.” (Sorry, that particular word was used as every figure of speech in this environment.)

This created a real dilemma for me, because I am constitutionally incapable of following through on the orders to waste time for a day and a half.  As a result, I would find something to do like rearrange an aisle of product, build a new set of shelves, inventory parts and create a re-order list, patch holes in the roof.  It was common for my slower moving cohorts to jump in and we made some nice headway in improving, organizing and fixing things during that time when Ed had given us the leeway to go in the back and $%&k around.

My Lessons from Ed

  • I wanted his approval as a crane operator and worked incredibly hard to master my equipment and understand our objective.  Placing a 60-ton boiler on the back of a truck with a 35-ton capacity crane (do the math…this created a lot of strain and smoke) while your view on two sides was partially blocked, is character building.  Learning to follow the subtle facial signals of a man of few words…and most of them rugged: priceless.
  • There is no such thing as down time.  I never have figured out if Ed was smart like a fox, but his encouragement to kill time always resulted in the crew improving the place. Perhaps he understood that conscientious people given some freedom to create would find ways to productively fill the time.  Either that, or he generally thought we would go in the back and %4#k around.  I’m opting for the fact that he was smart like a fox.
  • The most creative and motivating period of my early life was sitting on an upside down metal pail scraping the crud off of coal mill parts for $6.50 an hour.  Your brain either turns to mush or you start making plans in your mind about your future.  I plotted college and career steps and mentally outlined more than a few life goals, of which one was to never scrape coal mill parts again!

The Bottom Line:

Fill your down time with creativity.  As a leader, learn to moderate the pace so that people can find time to work hard and sweat and so that they can take time to reflect and improve and create.  And if your own job feels a lot like you are sitting on an over-turned 5 gallon pail scraping the sludge off of a mountain of grimy parts, keep scraping and start thinking through how to make the changes in your life that will allow you to hang up your scraper.  Then do it!  Oh, and never take Thursdays and Fridays off.  Too much good time to create and improve.  Your enthusiasm to do new things will likely prove contagious as well.