Ep. 14 - Trade School vs. On-the-Job Training: Building a Successful Construction Career

Reconnecting with my longtime friend and inspection supervisor, Ben Sarratt, promises a blend of personal stories and valuable insights into navigating the blue-collar business world. Our conversation provides a retrospective on our early industry days and how those experiences sculpted our careers, highlighting essential communication strategies for newcomers. As fathers, we reflect on how parenthood has shifted our priorities and perspectives, emphasizing the significance of discipline and adaptability both at home and on job sites.

Ben's career journey is nothing short of inspirational, evolving from working in a ditch to leading a team of inspectors at Crafton Tull. We discuss the importance of fortifying relationships with engineers and understanding the motivational drivers that fuel the blue-collar market, like family time and financial incentives. Ben offers candid advice for those contemplating a similar path, stressing the value of connections and consistently delivering quality work. Our chat also touches on trade school experiences and the importance of gaining hands-on expertise for stability and success in trades such as plumbing, electrical work, and carpentry.

Effective communication is the backbone of successful construction projects, and we explore its impact on relationships with engineers, contractors, and city officials. By sharing personal anecdotes, we underscore the importance of trust and conflict resolution, and how modern technology has reshaped industry workflows and expectations. Through these stories, we illustrate the intricacies of project coordination, the challenges of managing design flaws, and the necessity of starting from the bottom to build a reputation that opens doors to lucrative opportunities. Join us for a candid look into the blue-collar world, where adaptability and professionalism pave the way for career advancement.

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Sy-Con is a family-owned civil contractor specializing in water, sewer, storm drains, & earthwork.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:09

Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast, where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue collar business. I'm your host, cy Kirby, and I want to help you in what it took me trial and error and a whole lot of money to learn the information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Whether you're under that shade tree or have your hard hat on, let's expand your toolbox, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast. I'm thrilled to be joined with my guest today, a guy I've known almost half my life at this point. We started our careers at the same spot. We both had jobs previous, when we were younger, etc. But kind of our first big boy job. We met there and we have just happened to land in the exact same industry and have dealt with each other day for day, depending if we're on the same project, et cetera. Anyhow, if you guys have loved all of these episodes and you're going to love this episode, I promise you this is going to be a very laid back episode, but you can find them all at bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom. Subscribe to that newsletter on there and, if you're listening to us on any of your streaming platforms. Make sure you give this a rating when you're done with it and let us know how we did.

Speaker 1 1:30

We're going to be talking with a true friend of mine for outside of work, outside of industry, so it's going to be kind of a relaxed conversation today, guys. But we're going to be talking about from the inspection side of things not in totality, ben, actually worked in the field as well but we're going to be talking about the communication back and forth. I know a lot of you guys. The first jobs you're stepping on are got some heavy duty inspectors and if you're not ready for it you'll get slapped around very quickly. We're going to talk about some communication tips that are going to help you communicate very basic communication tips that will help you so much with an inspector when you first get started and just navigating relationships between contractors, inspectors and clients. This guy across the table from me probably deals with it just as much as I knew from being from the owner's side of the table. So, furthermore, ben Surratt, the inspection supervisor at Kraft and Tall, appreciate you, bro, seriously thank you.

Speaker 2 2:40

Thanks for the invite, Dude.

Speaker 1 2:42

I've been waiting for this one because I previously just mentioned to it, but we started out. Ben was a hell of a golfer. Let's just start with that and his brother Bo.

Speaker 2 2:53

Shout out to Bobo. Bobo had me, but we could handle ourselves on the golf course.

Speaker 1 3:02

So I end up Cody Ward Another shoutout there, best buddies with him. He's like, hey, man, I'm working over at Lost Springs, you should come over, we need somebody. I'm like, oh okay, and that's where I met Ben and I literally it wasn't three or four weeks ago. I shot him a text message, a picture popped up on my Facebook time hop 15 years ago. That's not even tangible in my mind, my guy, but raking bunkers. In the cold In the cold.

Speaker 2 3:32

Freezing cold.

Speaker 1 3:33

Face masks on because Sergio, or whatever his name, was going to walk that day.

Speaker 2 3:37

Wasn't that his name. There was a guy we had to beat and, yeah, every day, every day.

Speaker 1 3:44

Every day 5.30, 6 o'clock. You had to beat him, but that hey, discipline right, that was a lot of fun. Dude, it was so much fun. That's when times were easy, eh, Bob oh?

Speaker 2 3:54

No Bill, no idea, you have no idea how easy it was. It's so much simpler.

Speaker 1 4:01

Oh my God, it's simpler, oh my God. But you know it's okay and you've been married oh, don't tell me this.

Speaker 2 4:07

Seven years eight years.

Speaker 1 4:09

There you go, been with her for 14.

Speaker 2 4:12

You bet?

Speaker 1 4:13

And how many babies? Just one, that's right.

Speaker 2 4:15

That's what I thought he's nine months, a couple days ago.

Speaker 1 4:18

That's so awesome, dude.

Speaker 2 4:20

Oh, it's life-changing.

Speaker 1 4:21

I was wondering if you had number two on the way yet, or?

Speaker 2 4:23

not, that's where I was going with that because I got number three on the way.

Speaker 1 4:26

I don't know if you do.

Speaker 2 4:27

I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 4:28

I didn't know if you did know that or not. We're seven weeks out, no way.

Speaker 2 4:33

Yeah, another little girl, that's exciting. Yes, sir, it is Very cool. No, he's changed everything, but for the better everything but for the better.

Speaker 1 4:47

It's so crazy, isn't it? It's nuts. I try to tell my guys we've just had three, have babies in the last little bit yeah and we're the younger generation.

Speaker 1 4:53

As you know, you've been working around us but I've tried to instill in younger guys and give them opportunity to fail or succeed. And sometimes they fail, sometimes they flourish. And to half the team that we have today is still with us. But man, I watch. I got to talk about one guy, wesley. I have seen. He's been back from maternity leave for four weeks. I kept telling this guy before he had that baby, I said let me tell you something. It's going to be life-changing the moment he's here. From that moment on, you think differently, you move differently, you have purpose now.

Speaker 2 5:30

You're like we have to get this done because I've got to eat dude.

Speaker 1 5:34

It's so from law springs to being fathers. Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:39

It's crazy, dude. No, it is, it's great. And I had a buddy at work and he's got two little girls and he said it'll change it immediately and I called him on the phone the other day because I was actually driving by his house and he hadn't seen him yet, and I said hey are you home? He goes no, I'm not home. I said, man, I was going to show you Cal. I said you haven't seen Cal yet.

Speaker 1 6:05

And he, right. I said, yeah, you're right. Oh yeah, 100 there's. No doubt it's changed everything, but it's good, dude, 100 it is. And now I've got this will be number three on the way. The two, uh, seven, he's seven, she's five, and yeah, I want to be here christmas day. Miss baby caroline and I'm so excited and um, but man, we've known each other a long time, honestly, through hunting more or less than anything um a little bit of work a little bit of work.

Speaker 1 6:30

We I think we stayed more in contact at work about work than yeah really other than anything. And then, when we would go to call each other about hunting, we both missed the phone call because we think it was yeah exactly. So a little bit of background about ben and kind of how he ties into my world, y'all's world. Ben took a different route. In the blue collar side of things he started off same place I was doing utilities Diamond.

Speaker 2 6:58

C Shout out, mr Cordero. What a guy, man, what a guy.

Speaker 1 7:04

You started out there doing utilities Dirt. We did a little everything. Good dude, what a guy you started out there doing utilities Dirt.

Speaker 2 7:07

We did a little of everything Storm drain, the city was small, yeah you know, and so we did pavilions.

Speaker 1 7:13

Oh, you did the Prairie Creek. That's right, we did Prairie Creek.

Speaker 2 7:16

We did the pavilion at Cave Springs. That's so cool. We did a lot of that fun stuff that bigger guys they don't want to mess with, and not only that bike trails.

Speaker 1 7:26

You know we did that, did a lot of that so you started out in the field grinding every single day, and there obviously came a time for you to jump over into the inspection side of things. What year was that?

Speaker 2 7:40

that was I think I'm going on eight at Krafton.

Speaker 1 7:43

That's impressive, brother.

Speaker 2 7:44

Seven or eight, I don't remember.

Speaker 1 7:46

It wasn't very long after I had come out on my own.

Speaker 2 7:51

No.

Speaker 1 7:51

Because we're working on our ninth year in business, yeah, 2016. So we're nine years in and it wasn't but I didn't really get in the commercial side until two and a half three years, really strong into that before I started hopping into the fire game.

Speaker 1 8:07

Right, so obviously Ben works for Kraft and Toll. We had Mr Ellis Shout out to Mr Daniel Ellis. Wonderful episode, first episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast dot com. You can check that out. But we started doing a lot of craft and toll work through the fire line side of things and we were doing man everything on the hill?

Speaker 1 8:33

yes, everything right here, everything right here. I tell people that, dude, I'm so proudful, like the four buildings in pinnacle heights people have no idea the amount of underground fire suppression we did walk-ons and sawgrass and a part of Topgolf and the building we're sitting in.

Speaker 2 8:49

Yes.

Speaker 1 8:54

Like literally all the Northgate, not the first Hunt Tower but Northgate, northgate parking garage, pretty much the whole freaking hillside.

Speaker 2 8:57

Oh, at one point I could stand in a spot and see every job on my list. I just stand there. It's like okay, here's, you know. I just wait for a phone call and I just go to whichever job I need to, Because we had eight or nine going at one time up here. That's insane. I mean the whole hill got built.

Speaker 1 9:16

If you haven't, seriously you need, there's a time lapse of the hillside.

Speaker 1 9:28

I know you've seen it, but but, guys, if you haven't go check out Craft and Tall I would assume it's somewhere on their social media platform but there is a time lapse of the pinnacle hillside here in Rogers, arkansas, that we're talking about.

Speaker 1 9:34

That is, I guess you would call it, the uptown area that has been developed in the last five to 10 years, depending on what you want to call what started the development, but it has blown up since Anyhow. So, ben, working for Kraft and Tall, the engineer draws it, the civil engineer, he's got a degree of some sort right, so he's a smart guy that tells me how to do my job. But at the same time you got to have a guy from the engineering outfit that knows the rules of the engineer and the rules and specs of the city that we're working in. That has to adhere the contractor that they're putting the design in by the designer civil engineer, whoever. So that's how Ben, kind of tied in, and, as you guys know, cyclone, excavation and Utilities shout out there. We definitely do pipe and a whole lot of it and that's how we kind of met.

Speaker 1 10:38

And that's literally leading into my first topic of man talk to some of these guys that were maybe in your position and obviously think inspection's a good route for anybody to take if they have a little bit of knowledge in this game. Talk about a little bit about that transition from you being in a ditch, just like me and you were 10 years ago, to where you're at now leading how many guys you got.

Speaker 1 11:03

We've got seven, including myself so you got six guys and not only are you answering uh for those six guys, you're answering the phone from those six guys all day long about uh probably five to ten projects a piece, you would assume a dozen exactly, and that's a lot of plans to have up, but talk, talk about how did you get here man Shout out to the guys on the team.

Speaker 2 11:24

They're awesome.

Speaker 1 11:26

They are awesome.

Speaker 2 11:28

They, you know, I, you know pat ourselves on the back. I think we've got a good group. I don't hear a lot about troubles with any of them and I don't get a lot of phone calls about a lot of it. A lot of it stems from hey, hey, did you hear in springdale we're doing this? Hey, here in favor because, things, things change, things, mold.

Speaker 2 11:49

But no, I mean I did five years with mike. Uh, enjoyed all of it, love running equipment, miss running equipment. Um, don't miss long weeks or hotter, cold days. But um, we did. We did several craft and toll jobs in a row. When I was, mike kind of handed me the keys to the backhoe and some concrete guys and he said, hey, go build a trail. And that was like he's like cut my teeth. Yeah, here's your number. That's the way to do it here's your rock number.

Speaker 2 12:19

Here's your concrete number. Wow, here's your serving number. Get after it. We got it staked and you know, I built a mile and a half trail with some guys and it what's happened was the engineer that actually hired me. Bill burnett shout out him super good dude. He was my inspector for some reason, so I got to be a good relationship with him.

Speaker 1 12:42

Well, that that's a really good key there too, straight with the engineer, oh yeah, and every day 8 am pour concrete 90 days in a row all summer long.

Speaker 2 12:52

So me and Bill are eating biscuits cutting it up every morning.

Speaker 2 12:58

And so me and Bill got real good buddies. Good, dude, rotate that into the next fall. We do another bill burnett project, me and rome, and it's over on bentonville, off of rainbow, and we're doing a drainage, a ditch paving and a precast bridge layout and did that one with him, did a lot of communication with him and it just it just come down to I had the right connections, worked hard, you know people saw, you know showing up, saw good work, and when the time came, bill called me one day I was actually leaving mike's and he goes hey, I got a job for you. And he goes yeah, you'll be an inspector. I said I don't have the experience for that right you know that's eight years ago.

Speaker 2 13:46

And I said no. He said you're good. He said we got some older guys, they'll train you. I said we need somebody that's going to hang out for a while. I said okay, so we started talking. I remember, here we are, you called me and you were like man.

Speaker 1 13:59

I'm kind of thinking about this.

Speaker 2 14:00

I'm like.

Speaker 1 14:02

I think you absolutely should do it, Ben. I mean I think you're, don't get me wrong. You're probably making more money Back then eight years ago. You're probably making more money pulling overtime and doing stuff like that. You're pulling overtime, I get it. Family time's a lot to me and you and it's so funny not to just cut you off in your story there but to jump on that train, it's funny in the blue collar market.

Speaker 1 14:23

To jump on that train, it's funny in the blue-collar market. You've got to find what drives that human being to success. Is it more family time? Hey work Monday through Thursday. I don't care about overtime. Get it done. You can have Friday off.

Speaker 2 14:33

Dude.

Speaker 1 14:34

I'd make some things happen.

Speaker 2 14:36

Is it money?

Speaker 1 14:38

Is it money? Is it the whole kit and caboodle of? I want as much money every single week on my paycheck as I possibly can, and I want to hit you for every hour. Keep as much work in front of me, and it's those two types of drivers I was in the same bucket as you, bro is that I loved working, don't get me wrong, but I'll put my 50 hours in and I want to go to the house.

Speaker 1 14:58

Like five tenors is good enough for me and, of course, if you want to be any better at your job, you're spending a little bit of time at home prepping stuff for the next day especially pouring concrete every single day. Oh yeah, it's a lot on a lot of fellers, but continue man.

Speaker 2 15:19

No, and you know we built that relationship. I built that relationship with Bill and got to know him and he gave me that phone call and you know, like I said, I called you, I talked to the wife and a handful of others and everybody thought it was a great opportunity and I went ahead and took it and I'm glad I did, because it's opened up a lot of doors and, you know, knowing new people and getting into different positions and, you know, getting to a delicator position which is good and bad.

Speaker 2 15:47

It sucks, you know, because you know, instead of my 12 jobs, I try to keep tab on our 100 jobs, you know. So if Daniel calls me, hey, who's got this? I can tell him who it is, and I've got a generalized understanding of it's a water job.

Speaker 1 16:06

And what do you mean? You're asking me about sewer on it.

Speaker 2 16:08

Yeah, yeah. And then you know, I'll take the guys to eat every other week and we'll you know whose job's a hare's nest right now, you know. So we'll break it down. And then Daniel comes and he goes. What the heck's going on out there? I said, well, that's whose job. Yep, we talked about it at lunch. They got a plan We'll get it figured out.

Speaker 1 16:26

That's really smart about you, Ben.

Speaker 2 16:29

And so it's one of those deals. It's like covering that wide of a spectrum and, like I said, I'm going to give the guys a shout out. They do great and I don't rarely have to handle a whole lot of anything. That's so awesome, they do good, they do a good job. They know the deal, they know the spec, they know what's expected. So it's pretty simple.

Speaker 1 16:50

Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:51

But you know and I have a lot of guys in the field They'll say how did you get your job?

Speaker 1 16:57

What school did you go to?

Speaker 2 16:59

I said I quit school. What?

Speaker 1 17:00

do you mean?

Speaker 2 17:01

quit school, I said, well, I did five years in the field, which ain't a lot. It's a lot, though, if you're good at it but worked hard, got to know the right people, you know, and they noticed.

Speaker 1 17:36

Yeah, and they gave me an opportunity. It's all about relationships dude, no it is, and I met Mr Rodney. Anyways, they have a night program and a daily program and he is unbelievably passionate about our younger youth, and not just in the heavy equipment world. They have a. Cdl school. They have HVAC carpentry.

Speaker 1 17:54

They can be almost to a journeyman's license before they leave him, depending on how much work they put in and I try to tell these guys on the channel all the time that I had no experience with a high school education and I just jumped in a ditch and, like back at Lost Springs, I can sit here and tell you I probably wasn't the best employee at Lost Springs.

Speaker 2 18:13

I was a lazy sack of crap Was anybody.

Speaker 1 18:15

No, I mean come on.

Speaker 2 18:16

It was a high school job. It was a dream.

Speaker 1 18:17

I get it. But at the same time I'm looking back and I'm like man, I could apply it here and I could have learned that here and I could have took this as an advantage and this as an opportunity. But I try to strongly encourage hop in a trade in that 18 to 20-year-old mark. That's fine.

Speaker 1 18:35

Hop around to seven trades. I don't care, Find one that you may not like it but you may be damn good at it. And I don't know A whole lot of guys that absolutely enjoy quote-unquote work because it's work. Yeah, it's not fun, but at the same time 18, you hit that 20-year-old mark. By the time you're 24 years old man, you can dang sure have a lot of experience and be past that journeyman on the plumber and electric scale.

Speaker 1 19:05

I mean you could be touching that master's license other than a test. But in our neck of the woods water, sewer, storm drain, dirt you get thrown to the wolves. I don't care who you are. If you want to learn our trade, here's what I got for you.

Speaker 1 19:22

If you can figure out how to run this job and make money on it every single day. By God, you're going to be a good one, and nobody really teaches you. There's really no. You either get it or you don't. Now, at the same time, spend that time between 18, 20 years old, jumping around a few trades.

Speaker 1 19:38

Again, you may love sitting on a machine, but you may be terrible at it and can't keep a job sitting on a machine, but you may be terrible at it and can't keep a job, but you may grasp the concept of electricity way better than I do because of that crap.

Speaker 2 19:51

This is airplanes to me.

Speaker 1 19:53

And I can make water and sewer flow in any direction you point, but trying to get a light switch to work what I'm trying to get, as you might be 18, 19 years old and walk in and understand a schematic of a house very easily. Now is it the most fun roping houses? No, but you can probably be making $25 an hour by the time you're 21, 22 years old.

Speaker 2 20:13

When I quit school I called my mom. I quit school, I bought books for my second semester, my second year, and the moment I bought books I knew I was done. Really yeah, I had an epiphany because I spent like $2,000 on books and I just squeezed by on the first semester.

Speaker 1 20:31

Dude what?

Speaker 2 20:32

Oh yeah, books are high, which they're probably all online now, so it's not as bad, but you're buying books for college. That blows my mind Paperback and I might be overzealous.

Speaker 1 20:43

No, but at the same time.

Speaker 2 20:44

They're high. Yeah, they're high, it was more than 19,.

Speaker 1 20:48

20-year-old Ben wanted to spend you bet.

Speaker 2 20:50

Because I'm thinking, man, I could get a new bow and arrow for that much money. You know, yeah, I do. What a shotgun? Yeah, anything.

Speaker 1 20:57

Anything Other than books.

Speaker 2 20:59

So I, squeezed by my first semester, bought books. My second semester I was like all right, I don't want to do this anymore. Called mom, told her.

Speaker 1 21:07

I was quitting.

Speaker 2 21:08

Went to trade school and prior and went to carpentry school.

Speaker 1 21:12

I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 21:13

Yeah, that's cool, so I had and I don't know what the classification was out of that school, understood A journeyman or a apprentice? It was probably an apprentice, if I had to guess. But I did OJT training out of that school with a crew that the teacher knew, and so we framed houses in Owasso and Tulsa and. Claremore and you talk about guys who work hard.

Speaker 1 21:38

Oh my God, I watch them. It drives me crazy, man.

Speaker 2 21:41

And I've got big feet and I don't like walking around on little skinny two by fours. But I did it a couple times and I was like and finally boss man saw me one or two times. He's like okay, you're done, you stay on the ground. I'm like, thank you I'm a pack mule.

Speaker 1 21:57

Yeah, I got you boys big, big gringo.

Speaker 2 21:59

But you know, we went on, we went on the job and show up and he's like you, the guy from trade school. I said yeah, I am. He goes all right and he pointed me over to a pile of 2x4x10s and he goes you're grabbing eight or you're leaving. We're laying out a house. Okay, I said eight. I said how am I supposed to carry eight? He said well, don't figure it out, or you're going to go back to school. I said how am I supposed to carry eight?

Speaker 1 22:24

He said well, don't figure it out, or you're going to go back to school.

Speaker 2 22:26

I said okay, you got it. So I grab eight two-by-fours, you know, and I'm just laying them out every 16 inches on chalk line. And the guys ahead of me. They're already done. They've already got the house laid out.

Speaker 1 22:35

Really oh yeah.

Speaker 2 22:39

Just testing you. Huh, oh yeah, the young guy, which was fine. It was a lot of fun Talking about working hard, but it was a lot of fun. We took three 15-minute breaks a day. Oh my God, it was like 10, 1, and 3. And you ate granola bars chicken anything you find.

Speaker 2 22:56

You sucked her down and then you're back at it, you know, and the sheathing and the stuff, and we were on the top of the hill in Wausau, oklahoma, and it's windy all the time. You're grabbing two sheets of plywood or you're headed home and I'm like Rick, two sheets, I'm going to go away like a kite.

Speaker 1 23:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2 23:15

And so here I am, grabbing two sheets and we're, you know, chucking them up louder 14, 12, 12, 12 pitches. Oh my God, but it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it yeah 12, 12 pitches oh my God.

Speaker 1 23:26

But it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it. Yeah, probably learned a lot of experience too, just in life.

Speaker 2 23:28

A lot of experience getting up, having responsibilities. It changed me. I was a bum there for a little while, Me and you both, you know. Ask my wife, she knows I was a bum for a while and so it helped.

Speaker 2 23:41

And Mike called me. He goes when are you done with school? And I said, well, you know it'll be a month or two. He says, well, come when you get done. I got a job for you. I said, well, what do you do? He says, well, we run equipment. I'm like, well, that's not what, anything, I just did, but I was he's got an understanding of grade and elevation and things meeting and he could take that and massage it Me and a buddy of mine.

Career Advice and Communication Tips

Speaker 2 24:07

We were one and two in that class. Of course it was full of high school kids and my buddy was a little bit older and I was a little bit older and a little bit more mature. But if you can learn what you like to do and you want to go, do it and you're going to have fun at it and you're going to get good at it, it's going to help everything in the long run, Bruh, Because if you hate it, you're not going to want to go to work. Go find something else. There's a lot of trades, it doesn't matter. You could be in the office doing estimating if you want to.

Speaker 2 24:39

Yeah, very quickly, dylan, my freaking first ever employee, yeah, or you could be on a track all day, every day, yep. It doesn't matter, as long as you like it, yep, because if you like it, you're going to excel. Yep, people are going to notice. People are going to give you more opportunities. They're going to give you more money. They're going to give you more time off Yep, they're going to get you in.

Speaker 1 24:59

A hundred percent. All those things, dude.

Speaker 2 25:02

But there's a lot of things and the circle all the way back to it. You know, everybody asks what you do. What you do, what you do, it's like man. I got to know the right people A hundred percent. Work hard, you know. Try to do good work as best as you can and be personable, be nice. What you know Goes a long way, doesn't it? Don't be a bum.

Speaker 1 25:25

Don't ask the same guy on the crew for a cigarette every single day.

Speaker 2 25:33

Be professional. If you're a professional guy in the field, you'll get noticed Very quickly.

Speaker 1 25:38

I notice talking about I've got my pipe guys. I can tell you right now, speaking on that professionalism, who they are, what they represent, where they're going, and I can name four or five of them in my head that I could see in five years really excel. And I could probably name two or three that I don't think that are going to excel as fast. But to your point of just switching up trades, you went to carpentry school but Mike probably smart man noticing, oh well, he went to school, got through school, got a trade under his belt. This guy's got half an ambition. He is professional in the sense of he probably already knew, you knew you a little bit of course in

Speaker 1 26:25

the sense of he probably already knew you, knew a little bit, of course, knew who you boys were and been around you a little bit and knew the personality that you are. And I can take your personality and teach him a trade man, as long as somebody wants to ask questions. So to have that kind of understanding. But to that point is that you can go to vacational school, finish that school. I don't care what kind of school you go to, just finish it. It means a lot and normally you'll have a job, whether you're using that set of skills or not. But if you've been an electrician for eight years and you freaking hate it and you want to go learn a piece of equipment and you're really, really, really top of your line and you've figured out electrician school or roping houses and, being an electrician, finished your school up.

Speaker 1 27:09

You hate it. Jump over Like in three to four years you already have the recipe and the sauce of. Okay, guess what? You're probably not going to make the same amount of money newsflash because you're not worth as much to the company right. But as soon as you jump over, start learning that trade Dude, within four to five years you can have a very good general understanding of everything that's happening around. That shouldn't necessarily catch anybody completely off guard because you've got that experience.

Speaker 1 27:39

So, that's a good point. But my next point, dude, I want to talk about communication tips. You're sitting here talking, you know we've got a good generalistic background, you came from the contractor side of things but say, you know we're talking to the guy talking to sy kirby six, seven years ago, stepping on his first commercial job site. Don't know the order of operations. Do I just go tap the water main right off the bat.

Speaker 1 28:08

You know, talk to those guys and talk about just a little bit of what you expect from a good contractor and maybe a few things to avoid on their first go-round big boy commercial project and they're having to deal with somebody like you.

Speaker 2 28:23

Man, overcommunication is not a bad thing. In our world, there's always a pre-con or pre-construction meeting, correct? You'll have a sheet of paper just like this it's got everybody's phone numbers, emails on it, and you're sitting in a room similar to this with plans on a TV and you're breaking it down with your utility, your utility owner.

Speaker 2 28:46

Springdale, benville whatever, you need to keep that for sure and you need to listen to what the man's saying at the pre-con. What I know right? Listen here, guys If your EOR is your contact, you need to call your EOR Every time.

Speaker 1 29:04

Every time.

Speaker 2 29:05

Every time, because that person's probably done a job in that town already, and so he's going to know the chain of command within the city inspectors, or the engineers or the head boss within that city. Before you even start, yep, have a tailgate pre-con.

Speaker 1 29:23

It's amazing, dude, what they'll do.

Speaker 2 29:25

Get a set of plans. I'm old school, I have printed plans in my truck. I don't like digital, other than when it gets down to revisions on a big job where you've got to fill pages.

Speaker 1 29:36

I'm with you. I'm just too cheap to have them printed out for every single crew every time I don't know. Yeah, I get you.

Speaker 2 29:45

I don't have to worry about that. No, but you know, call your EOR, call your contractor, call your city inspector, say, hey, we're going to go out, we're going to get started. Let's meet at 9 o'clock, let's pop the tailgate, let's get a small game plan of what we want to do and the steps we got to do. Well, okay, the first thing we got to do is we got to run this stretch of water Great. Find it, make sure it's in the right spot, Shoot it, make sure it's at the right elevation.

Speaker 1 30:12

Dude, I got to stop you Shoot it to make sure it's at the right elevation. He's talking about the existing water main boys and girls.

Speaker 1 30:20

It could have changed. Let me just pop somebody's cherry here. Contractors shall veal verify. It is on every single set of prints in North America that I have ever seen when you're doing a water tie-in etc. Etc. Unless somebody has done some pre-engineered studies, do not expect that water main to be whatever it is. On that print dig I have been known to here in the last little bit especially if I know the water say we're sticking a hydrant in a. As you know, this place has been going vertical spacing has been getting extremely tight. Yes, so we'll go in and I'll send two guys over there on kind of a rainy day, obviously not kill production, but I'll go over. Hey, spot did get freaking water main. Make sure it's. Give me a shot on it. Make sure it's in the right spot and make sure it's the right freaking type of pipe that's on the prints you know it's that simple, so continue.

Speaker 1 31:16

Sorry, get a shot on your.

Speaker 2 31:18

Get a shot on your pipe, yep. And then it's like, okay, everything's great, we're not going to T-bone anything when we take off, we don't have to worry about verticals, everything looks to be like it's going to be okay. And then from there, it's like hang your saddle, test it, get it pre-tested, get it pretty.

Speaker 1 31:34

Talk about it, though. Talk about that who do you call during that test?

Speaker 2 31:39

Your engineer record. Okay, call your engineer record. He's going to have your contact for the city utility you bet they're our inspector. So we'd call them set it up email. However, it works within that town.

Speaker 1 31:52

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 31:52

Say all right, si you got, I got you tomorrow. 930,. You ready to rock? Yep, I'll be ready to rock. Your city inspector will show up. We'll test it to their spec. The city will either tap it or witness the tap. Yep, and rock and roll. Take off, pour your thrust block, make sure you're three foot from your bells, that'd be cool. Before you hang your saddle and test it and do all that man, you're dropping some knowledge right now. I don't know how many times we've hung a saddle and you've got a wall of dirt here and a wall of dirt here and your saddle's right here and we test it and the city comes out and they say you've got three foot of clearance and you get a hot shot. And you're doing this and you go ding, ding crap.

Speaker 2 32:39

And you've got to slide that saddle.

Speaker 1 32:40

I've got to tell you, just to hop on a few topics there, that you brought up Overcommunication with your engineer. As soon as you from the pre-cons get a shot, you don't have to write the name and numbers down. You've got a phone in your pocket. Jump out, grab a picture of it and then spend the time putting those numbers in your phone and guess what? A phone call.

Speaker 1 33:05

Well, he didn't answer the phone. Well, people are busy. You just heard Ben he's sitting here talking about he's got six different guys, 12 different jobs. One could be a freaking nightmare, need everybody's attention One day. The next day it may be. Just what I'm trying to get at is give them a call before you start.

Speaker 1 33:24

Number one introduce yourself, hey guys. I'm Cy Kirby with Cycon Excavation. I know you guys probably haven't heard of me before, but we got awarded this restaurant job over here fixing to start this water and sewer. Would you guys mind meeting me that right, there is everything. Because, ben, this is probably where you wouldn't feel as much, where the contractor's been, but we're sitting here going.

Speaker 1 33:53

Well, I can't let anybody know that I'm new. You know that's how you're thinking. You're just like oh my god, because if I do there, might they might say this or they might feel that way and they're going to tell and that's what you're nervous about. I'm like I am here to tell you guys. I still to this day when I don't know something, I pick up the phone and go hey Bob, I ain't got a freaking clue what I'm talking about here. Got an understanding? What do you think? And that may be from accounting, to putting something in the ground that I know very well how to do. So don't feel that feeling from the contractor side, you guys sitting there listening to that, well, but I know that engineer, and that engineer kind of knows me from family.

Speaker 1 34:34

Well, guess what? Show him what you can do by over-communicating every step of the process and go past that phone call is what I'm trying to get at. You ring Ben for the first time. Ben don't know who the crap you are. So I'm sitting here trying to get a hold of Ben. I may have called him two or three times and he's had 80 phone calls that day. Shot him a text message hey, ben, this is Cy with CyCon. I just wanted to let you know I'm trying to get a hold of you to maybe meet you over here to get this waterline started. That right, this guy's not trying to snake me right off the bat, because there is. There is also that line in the sand too between good and bad contractors that you've got to watch out for as the engineer engineer representative, because you've got your good guys that you trust.

Advancing Communication and Technology in Construction

Speaker 1 35:19

You know how things are. You ain't got to worry about them sticking a saddle right next to a bell and trying to cover it up on you or some silly thing. That's going to get you both freaking in trouble. And there's that line between the engineer and the installer. If you guys go check out the first episode, I'm telling you be very insightful to this conversation leading up to this episode, daniel Ellis bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom, check that out. But literally the engineers are feeling like, okay, this installer is going to try and cut a corner and try and screw me some way and he's got to sit here and make sure I do my job and that sets up a terrible run job. The contractor's going to lose money. The engineer's trying to make sure he's got all his T's dotted. It's a fight from the get-go. But if you freaking, just make a phone call and go.

Speaker 2 36:10

Hey, brother this is where I'm at.

Speaker 1 36:12

I don't know what I'm doing. I've never even worked in this town. You ever had any experience over here?

Speaker 2 36:16

It's easy, it really is, and we get started on whatever job and everything's smoothly. He's calling about everything. He's calling before he backfills his pipe because he wants it to look that you bet. He's forming up his thrust blocks. He's making them pretty, pretty thrust blocks man Aesthetics go a long way.

Speaker 1 36:35

Bud we stamp ours.

Speaker 2 36:39

That's cool, I like that. I've never seen it, but I like it. I don't know how many times I've seen guys put a big old, slobbery hunk of concrete behind a fitting Brian Turner and I'm like we can't tell what's there. Fellas yeah.

Speaker 1 36:55

Covering the whole thing. Is it on?

Speaker 2 36:57

the bolts? Is it on the flanges? Do you have plastic on it? And the city's like rip it out. Yeah, I'm like I know four-minute stinks, yeah, like rip it out. Yeah, I'm like I know four minute stinks, yeah.

Speaker 1 37:08

but it makes it pretty. I gotta say I gotta talk about brian turner real quick, the one since we're talking about my early, early start in the commercial world. I was at the bentonville climb and, uh, one of our first fireline gigs, and we poured some really crappy thrust blocks. I'm a municipality guy, dude.

Speaker 1 37:23

I started at p ridge yeah, I went to bentonville so I'm like thinking, okay, pouring a thrust pot, no big deal, I know exactly. And he hit the roof of that building and made me rip every one of them out. But I'll never forget. From that day forward, I have either formed don't get me wrong do we still pour an occasional crap one? Sure, absolutely it happens on your job.

Speaker 2 37:45

We got seven inches rain the last four days. You go pour one today. It's going to stink, you bet.

Speaker 1 37:50

And so with those tight working conditions, but literally taking the time and two contractors are like, well, what's a pretty thrust block. Go look at the detail in those details and I know I'm breaking this down even more elementary, but literally I didn't know what a detail was until I was a year in this commercial game. I just knew how to sling waterline.

Speaker 2 38:11

You know what?

Speaker 1 38:11

I mean, I knew what the print was, I knew how to read the print. That's all that matters. As long as it was exactly where that engineer told me to put it and it was at the right elevation, I knew I was okay. And then one day one of these GCs was like, hey, look at the detail for this. And I'm like, oh, he's calling this little picture at the bottom or the prints details.

Speaker 1 38:33

And let me tell you, guys, when you come from absolute nothing, that I have no idea and you're just pioneer and paving your way into this world. I'm from the municipality side. We didn't have plans, bro, we just made the crap go.

Speaker 2 38:44

You know what I mean Put it back together, turn the bro.

Speaker 1 38:47

We just made the crap go. You know what I mean. Put it back together, turn the water on. That was our pressure test. You know what I mean. I can tell you some several verticals down second street, leaving Bentonville. When I worked for Bentonville we were not required to do any vertical strapping, vertical blocking. Anyways, that's here and over there and I've talked about that several times with them. But there is a massive difference between the municipality and the contractor game and I learned. Brian showed me exactly what that meant. Look at this detail. You want this block to hit the back of and he meant it too. He wanted it two inches off the bolts either side and he wanted it beautiful and we did?

Speaker 1 39:25

We formed it up.

Speaker 2 39:30

But yeah, that goes a long way, man, and if you use forms and there would leave them in the hole, you don't have to strip them what you don't have to strip the form.

Speaker 2 39:34

Nope, it's still going to be concrete you do all these steps and you make it pretty and you talk to your EOR and the city's happy and they get to see what they want to see and they put your test corp where they want to. The next time I take my guys out to lunch I'm like, hey, there's some new guys in town. Yep, cy and his boys. They're not bad, yep, that's all it takes, we did 150-foot waterline.

Speaker 2 39:57

We talked every day. If I couldn't make it, he sent me pictures. Yep, you know. He left it open, he fenced it off. We tested it chlorinated it.

Speaker 1 40:06

We rock and rolled. I really like them, guys, and that's all it takes. Is you going to the table with your five guys and then one of those inspectors gets on to another job that they're fighting tooth and nail and go, and that GC looks at the inspector and goes. Do you know anybody that can come over here and do it?

Speaker 2 40:23

I cannot tell you how many times that happened, not saying that Kraft and Toll recommended me or any engineer recommended me in any sense of a format there, but just in the regard of being communicative and doing a good job.

Speaker 1 40:35

working hard and delivering a good quality product speaks more volume than I think anybody even understand.

Speaker 2 40:43

I did not, and we have massive clients building hundreds of houses out of Kraft and Toll.

Speaker 1 40:49

Yep.

Speaker 2 40:50

And they call Allie, Taylor, Libby, Daniel Morgan, the team, everybody up there who's working drawing stuff, Like, hey, we need a new person to put on the bid sheet, who's new, who's good, who's showing that they can do it. And you say well, you know these boys at PsyCon. They've done three or four things, nothing real big, but you've got a 60-lot subdivision, probably right up their alley.

Speaker 1 41:18

Yeah, you know one crew company.

Speaker 2 41:22

They're going to focus all their time on that job because he wants to make it as best as he can, because he wants to get in good he wants to get in good with the Roush Coleman the DR Horton, the Buffington.

Speaker 1 41:36

It's funny we're actually. You guys probably don't know this audience, but we are in the industry of the excavation and utility contractor. There's municipality and contractor side of things and then underneath that municipality bucket there's about nine different mini trades within our trade and then the contractor side. What I'm trying to get at is subdivision. Guys can't just leave a subdivision and go do a commercial site work like we do, and it's the commercial site where guys can usually go and perform in a field. But there's still going to be some parameters that they're going to get slapped with doing the subdivision. And that's what I'm kind of talking about.

Speaker 1 42:21

But SyCon being through the fire game and dealing with a lot of restaurants and doing the, you know we're doing turnkey, yeah, three to five acre commercial development, civil complete. But we've actually ventured off into the subdivision game quite a bit. And Jesus' crew done water sewer, 48 lots and it's two testing in five and a half weeks. We had some ridiculous production days, um, but they're good, motivated team, good guys doing unbelievable work, man. Um that they're putting out taylor subdivision video on psychons, a youtube channel, sy-con shameless plug there. But uh, it was last sunday's video and man, you got to watch it if you haven't.

Challenges in Engineering Project Coordination

Speaker 1 43:07

But, dude, speaking of that, we've talked some communication, talked about inspections, but since you've been in the field, you've been in this game as much as basically as much as I have talk about the technology that is taking over our world. And from a standpoint of how we used to procure shots, you'd go out there, grade laser, transfer everything over. You weren't used to having a contractor. The big big boys had the first initial GPS rounds, but not somebody to my size that could have a couple or two or three basin rovers like we got now, but it just wasn't a thing and we were still doing great shots. How has that changed for you guys as the engineer representative? Has it improved? Has it slowed things down? Is it because the contractors are asking too many questions and now they have proof?

Speaker 2 44:10

no, no, I mean it hasn't. It's probably sped. It sped things up for sure on the the building side of things putting things together, but as far as like an eor for inspections or density tests or building lots, road, pat road, you know, road subgrade it hasn't affected us a whole lot because our technology is pretty cut and dry. Yeah, you know we've got a spec book, we've got a set of plans and we've got a truck and we've got a phone that we abide by. You know we've got us, we've got a surface and we've got a phone that we abide by. You know we've got a surface and stuff we take pictures with and we can get on our files and pull our prints if we want to. It's really affected.

Speaker 2 44:55

You know you guys in survey a lot. Now it is good, I'll call somebody, call whoever, say hey, where are you at? Here he goes, I'll give you an elevation, I'll give you a long and lad, I don't care. And then I can take that to the survey team, say here's where they're at, and then the survey team puts it in there, sends it to the engineer and they could perform a fix, possibly without ever even having to see it or have a survey crew go out there and look at it. There's been times where things have needed to be shot.

Speaker 1 45:33

Well now everybody's got a basin rover so oh no, it's a.

Speaker 2 45:36

It's about to start pouring rain. We've got a backfill yeah 100. Don't want to flow pipe. I never hold anybody up. I'll be at home. It's 5 30 so I kirby calls me and says it is pouring rain here. I've got 300 foot of ditch line open. I'm shooting the fittings and I'm covering it up.

Speaker 2 45:53

I say rock and roll, buddy rock and roll you have to, man because we've worked hard to have a good relationship with the city inspector and say and we call, we call our city rep and say, hey man. So I called me yesterday. It's pouring, he's got pipe in the ground, he's covering it up before we can get to it. Here's a dozen pictures. Yep, here's a picture of every other bell. Here's whatever, and we can send that to them and if they trust us, which? We work really hard to with the cities around here you have to man.

Speaker 2 46:27

They can call a crafting tool guy and be like, yeah, rock and roll, you're there, have at it, yeah. And then you know, larry Peckin calls yeah, I heard they covered up some pipe. I know, larry, I got it covered, we're there. We didn't want to float any pipe.

Speaker 1 46:42

Redig ditch. We need to have Larry on the show.

Speaker 2 46:44

Oh, he'd be good. It would be a good one, wouldn't it? It would be good oh my God.

Speaker 1 46:48

It would be good he could talk about some experiences of watching Saigon grow. For sure, I learned a lot of things by Larry himself. Man, love that guy.

Speaker 2 46:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1 46:58

Seriously.

Speaker 2 46:59

But no technology. It hasn't changed a lot for us in the field.

Speaker 1 47:07

It's helped. Um, see what pisses me off, though, dude, I'll be straight up with you. I literally dealt with this today, not with craft and tall, I will make this very clear. But there is another inspector in town that we have had three or four jobs that have been really badly designed and we have had to deal with the repercussions of it. So now I've got a water line in bentonville that's 19 inches underneath the curb in the old part of town, and I've got a water line in bentonville that's 19 inches underneath the curb in the old part of town, and I've got six townhomes. I don't know if you know this, but I'm big in the townhome market up there in the northwest part of town. We got six different properties going and this one is 19 inches under the back of curb. Lose six inches for curb, bro, and that's your gutter line.

Speaker 1 47:45

This, this, this eight inch dr water main is 14 inches on the ground and I'm supposed to stick an eight inch valve on it and there's existing the existing, and tap it and go in and they're like, well, we'll just vertically it and I'm like guys, the valve's gonna be sticking out of the damn ground like it's literally, the bonnet is gonna be out of the ground and they're like, no, no, it won't.

Speaker 1 48:05

And I'm like, okay, that's fine. So we spent 45 days. I've been waiting on 45 days for an answer. Okay, they didn't. I really thought they would probably run out there and survey this information, because they didn't pre-engineer with survey. That's fine, I have everything exposed for 45 days.

Speaker 1 48:27

And then they send a new drawing into the city, get it through the health department and it is now, instead of one valve being on the existing line, we have two valves on the freaking existing line, and then we're going to vertical off of it and move this valve over there and created three problems while not addressing another problem. And so literally today, this morning, I was on the phone with this uh ownership team there's a couple of them involved. They're fixing to hit the freaking roof and they just do not understand and they're yelling at me and I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, whoa guys, Let me explain everything I said.

Speaker 1 49:06

I have shots on that existing line that I took Monday. I had the guys run out there because I wanted to make sure the plans that you guys are looking at is exactly what's represented in the field.

Speaker 1 49:18

And I go out there and the curb line is misrepresented by like almost three feet and they're showing that they have four foot of cover on this existing line by the time. It's final grade and it's right. It's curb and existing road, bro, it's not like it's out here where we can build some cover in the entrance it's not moving.

Speaker 1 49:39

So what makes me so mad in this technology conversation? Yes, the contractor has a basin rover, but now I have been asked to. During this 45-day period of time, the engineer not one time went out and took shots on this situation, and now it's up to the installer because he's getting his freaking ass kicked by the ownership and just absolutely punched in the face every time he turns around. Oh and, by the way, I've got an expense clock running on the project that I'm losing money while getting yelled at for nothing I can control.

Speaker 1 50:13

But now I have to take it in my hands. So I run out there, get the boys to spot, dig it again for like the third time and take shots on everything, procure all the data and hand it back to my owners and go. You can do that whatever you wish. And that's so frustrating for me as an installer because it's like don't get me wrong, ben. Hey, man, will you give me a shot on that or this or that? Or hey, do you really need that laid out? You got back a curb. I get all that. I totally get that.

Speaker 1 50:41

I'm not asking for a stake, but if you're in the middle of a change order situation that affects the contractor's relationship to the ownership level and I'm only a freaking installer per what the engineer designs, now I'm going to give the data information to the engineer to draw with, and then the owner now is happy because I'm moving. But guess what? What happens when I install something off the shots that I was given? And hey, zeus hit the wrong button and got the wrong shot that day. Well, now it's all Saikon's responsibility and the engineer goes. Well, I didn't procure the shots. I'm sorry, but now I have to look at the owner and I cannot tell you. That's the other side of that conversation. I wanted to hit is like watch that line between contractors, you know, of course, suggesting I'll help, I'll help, I'll help, and this is more at the ownership operations hat speaking, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 51:39

But it's that divvied up line that we're so close. If there's money that's going to be exchanged and normally in our conversations it's never cheap it's ten thousand, fifty thousand bucks between that range for any type of piping change order by the time you dig it down, install it and bury it. Yeah, and so now it's putting me in a conversation that I'm controlling, but at the same time I've got to give my information up because I can't legally draw and design what I think is going to work.

Speaker 2 52:09

Oh my God dude, it's not how we would handle it, I understand.

Speaker 1 52:16

I know for a fact it wouldn't be.

Speaker 2 52:17

You know if there's a shallow existing water line and you run into it in the old parts of towns.

Speaker 1 52:23

You do.

Speaker 2 52:23

You run into AC, you run into shallow Saikon spots it. Hey, ben, this sinks 19 inches to the top. It's we're gonna do. A saddle's gonna be sticking out of the ground in the curb. Literally I say perfect, stop, don't do anything, expose it. Yep, where we need to call the guys in the office, get a red line drawing, send it to the engineer, send it to the survey crew. Say, hey, I need these shots taken. This existing line is not four feet. We have a problem.

Speaker 1 52:56

Yeah. And it's not anybody's fault, nope. It's just an old line. The fault is to be put on the city. Who inspected it and put it in the ground, whether it was a contractor or whatever, the fault would lie there. But if it's city accepted and it's already passed that, good luck fighting the fight. I mean this certain entity literally told the ownership no, we're not cost sharing any of this, this isn't for your project.

Speaker 1 53:24

It's just for six little old townhomes, whether he's doing five other projects or not. But yeah, man, and let me talk to you contractors for just a second. While Ben just said that, now Ben's saying, yeah, we'll get the survey team out there, but it's going to take a couple of days, guys, they can't just jump out there. That's where, contractors, you know where I'll flip the switch on us just a little bit is that we're sitting here going well, I don't have time to wait for three days. I've got machines and labor and blah, blah, blah. Well, that's the toss up. If you want to just keep pushing, you place the liability on yourself when you procure those shots and hand the data in. Now I get it. Relationship, just like the situation I was talking about, puts me in an incredibly bad position because I don't want to tell my customer no you're going to have to freaking check.

Speaker 1 54:15

But, at the same time, I'm sitting here going hey look, I'm really screwing myself by doing this and you're going to have to pay me twice if I screw this up. And I need you to understand this in written format email preferably and discuss this. But if you're going to take the shots for your speed to keep you moving, that's totally fine, but you need to have it on in writing so everybody understands. Talk with the owner. If you're dealing with the ownership level, hey look, I'm going to procure this for the engineers Survey's going to to be like a week. You're going to look like a stud, but you need to understand that you're potentially screwing yourself too and you accept the liability when you move forward doing that. Yeah, um, in the certain situation I was talking, what was I supposed to do? Oh, now just be a dick and go. Well, that engineer. Well, we've been waiting on the engineer for 45 days, so you're already waiting exactly. I've got to kind of step up to the plate and understand that. Well, and if they're not there to.

Speaker 2 55:10

If they're not there to help resolve a problem, what are you supposed to do? I don't know. Man it's and crafting. We won't design a fix if it's not our shot, good because that was probably a costly mistake.

Speaker 2 55:24

Somebody learned from you know, and I don't know. We want our survey guys to do the shot and then that data will get sent to the engineer and then the engineer calls me and we have a redline session and it's like what can we do? Can we move this curb? Can we make it parallel parking instead of perpendicular parking? And we can do short stem wall, put some dirt on top of this thing. Can we save it?

Speaker 1 55:51

and I'll, I'll. I'll add to that, dude, because I actually have.

Speaker 1 55:55

I haven't had a craft and toll project in a long time, but we're doing park meadows for you guys and we have james tally and we've had kind of a different situation at the North tie-in spot and I cannot tell you I had James at his previous when he was at the Entity and the level he has gone to help me. I don't know what different transition there was between that and now other than experience. But that gentleman on this job has been unbelievable about getting back to the engineer Total flip of the script from three or four years ago when I dealt with him previously and I've had him other times since then. But this project especially dude, every single question coming from not my saltiest superintendent, um you know it's just a little different in the jargon.

Speaker 1 56:50

You know hey, ben, I've got this waterline, here's my elevation. I'm t-boning at this at this elevation. I figured out by that's what we and you can do. But in that situation he's gonna have to sit there and weed through what my superintendent's saying.

Navigating Construction Industry Relationships

Speaker 1 57:03

He's not as well versed. He's a municipality guy switched over. Anyways, um, james has done an incredible job. Yeah, taylor's done an incredible job in probably the toughest entity around here to navigate what I'm talking about doing. They are not the funnest to navigate with, um, and I think they're learning from that eventually.

Speaker 2 57:25

Well, and I was going to speak to this, they all are engines. It was there. There's four big ones pretty much up here right now.

Speaker 1 57:36

Depending on what you're doing.

Speaker 2 57:36

yeah, Depending on what you're doing. And it's like I have contractors call me, I have owners call me and they complain about the timeline, they complain about the process, they complain about how things are scheduled. And I said, guys, it's like that for everybody. I said I've done hundreds of jobs now at this point I said I sleep like a baby when I go home. I said, do it like they want to, it's very easy man, it might not be to their speed.

Speaker 2 58:05

It might not be to your speed, but you're not going to piss them off, they're not going to get on your back and if you can make a relationship with them, sure, it's tougher, sure, that town is tougher, but that's their deal, that is just how they are. They're not picking on you.

Speaker 1 58:22

Nope, they're doing it to everybody. Yep, 100%. And there was man three years ago. This is I've taken. We've done three projects in Fayetteville this year. I literally pulled out of Fayetteville for almost two and a half three almost three years and I lost half the others Exactly and I don't know if that ever spoke volumes.

Speaker 1 58:45

but man with the market of this year, as we've talked about on this show in length, the market of this year and the vertical impact of what bigger companies are having to do to stay alive right now obviously is going to make more hands in the bucket is what I'm trying to get at. But man pushing us down towards Fayetteville there's not really. Mainly I stay on the northern part of our working area because I'm a northern contractor. It's kind of funny. I've got other buddies that are contractor direct competitors here in Springdale and they kind of hang down Fayetteville, springdale area.

Speaker 2 59:21

It's what they know.

Speaker 1 59:21

Exactly. It's the specs that they know and they've got a better understanding. And I grew up in the working area up here, so we go down there every once in a while and back in the fire game. We were down there a lot, but now that we're doing more turnkey civil stuff. I'm very, very picky and choosy and it's not even just the town anymore. I can go off on the rest of ownership and engineers and I take it all into account.

Speaker 1 59:49

We dude our sales side. I've got two guys up there that literally handle nothing but pre-contract and getting opportunities and taking opportunities. But we have something very simple called a go-no-go matrix and we have sales opportunities and then we have another sheet with our bid opportunities. Sales opportunities are different than bid opportunities. Sales opportunities we weigh in who's the contractor GC when.

Speaker 2 1:00:17

I'm talking about that. Who's running?

Speaker 1 1:00:19

it? Or are we dealing with the ownership? Who's the engineer? Because I promise you there's some engineers that I just will not work with anymore because it costs me so much money. And then I lose a client over it because they build resentment towards a civil installer, although it had nothing to do with the install. Part of the things it was the design that the installer was.

Speaker 1 1:00:36

Either way, but, long story short there, my guy. We can talk about engineers and contractors, I think literally all day. But Ben is on the right track of you're in a tough entity. Everybody hates it. Nobody wants to work there. Nobody can make money there. If you can do a couple of jobs and figure out how they actually want it, you're going to make more money than a lot of guys around town, and just keep that in mind. But it goes back to over-communicating and document what you do during the day. If you talk to that inspector and you talk to your engineer inspector, follow up with an email. Over-communicate, not just from the phone standpoint, because nobody cares about verbal communication. They don't hang up in court phone standpoint. Because nobody cares about verbal communication, they don't hang up in court. Now, if you have it in writing that, hey, ben, I backfilled this just per our conversation. I do it all the time.

Speaker 2 1:01:25

I have to nowadays.

Speaker 1 1:01:27

Hey, per our conversation, ben. I went ahead and backfilled this Not only save your butt, save my butt and just CYA there, but it's gotten a lot more common nowadays, I think, especially up until 2024.

Speaker 2 1:01:41

gotten a lot more common nowadays, I think, especially up until 2024, but it's it's contractors have called me and they've put a, they'll put a line item, depending on the engineer, because they know the difficulties of going to that entity, going to that utility. If it's not something they know, like, oh well, we're going south, we don't know it, it's a little harder, it's just their process. Yep, it always has been, and I've got buddies down there that I've worked with on different construction companies and they'll roll through a fable project like it's nothing right because they've done it. Yeah, they know you know, they know the step. It's harder.

Speaker 1 1:02:21

It also goes back to you said it three or four times talking about thrust blocks. Have them nice and pretty and aesthetically looking.

Speaker 1 1:02:28

Once you figure out what that inspector, those tough inspectors, are actually looking and wanting to see as they walk up to the hole, it's a lot easier to provide yeah and ask them hey, is this what you want to see? I can't tell you how many times they walk away after a failed inspection. Hey, I just want some clarification. This is what you want to see. I'll make it happen. I just want to make sure this is clear and communicated as to what you want to see, and then I'll follow it up with an email. Save your butt and I didn't do a lot of that early on in the years and I learned monetarily experience very quickly.

Speaker 2 1:03:02

The quicker your city inspector or your EOR gets back to his truck and drives off your job, the better off you are. So you make it clean, pretty easy, neat, ready to go. Take a picture. On to the next one. On to the next one. Those guys are headed out.

Speaker 1 1:03:21

Yep.

Speaker 2 1:03:21

They're going to do a paperwork, they're going to do this, they're going to, you know, city boys. They're running 20, 30, 40 jobs. You know we're running 10 to 12.

Speaker 1 1:03:30

Yep.

Speaker 2 1:03:31

They want to go to the next one. Yep, they don't want to stand there and razz you about ugly thrust blocks. Nope, just be done with it, and then the next job is going to be that much easier. And then you call them and you say hey, man, it's about to rain, I've got thrust blocks poured. You want pictures? What do they look like? Well, they look like the last ones you looked at Great. Send me pictures.

Speaker 1 1:03:50

You bet, cover them up. You bet, or it rains and you're never going to again. Yeah, I know, it's all about working. You know and I think this really hits home here on one of kind of our last talking points it's navigating the relationships between and we've been hitting all over it but navigating relationships between contractors.

Speaker 1 1:04:15

But not only do you have to deal with contract relationships, you being the inspection supervisor, that means something's usually a pissed off contractor or a pissed off owner going through that inspector and that inspector is going okay, I'm going to have to go up the ranks, and then now you're dealing with a, normally by the time it makes it to you it's an elevated problem that people are pissed off about and there's time to take in for you to get an answer. So but I want to go back and hit one thing that you mentioned early on in this show. My guy is that you as a leader and I got to say you know you're a lot like myself that's been put in a leadership position at a younger age and have had to deal with older gentlemen who usually have a little bit more experience- than us as we come through our 20s and navigating that, but grabbing those gentlemen and showing them a new way to do things.

Speaker 1 1:05:13

Hey guys, every two weeks we're going to eat lunch, we're going to sit down, we're going to talk about all the bad ones. Maybe a good guy, good job, that's going great, cool, we can add that.

Speaker 1 1:05:22

But I want to hear about the fire's nest Number one that's setting you up to go back in on Monday, have a little talk with the designers and maybe go above them on a certain issue and get answers quicker and have the actual knowledge, rather than, okay, here's a problem, drag that said person in here, let's air it out for everybody to see. So you're going above. That's such a great leadership principle is having those mini meetings.

Speaker 1 1:05:48

Yeah, the guys love it, helps morale because you buy them lunch every two weeks but they don't even understand what they're doing for the whole system moving and the whole ecosystem that you're right, smack dab in the middle of and so navigating with your guys and those inspectors. I just wanted to give you a little kudos there as being a younger leader, because, man, it's hard, it really is, because you're always questioned, you're always doubted upon. Is he really making the right call? And we feel that, especially, I know, five, six years ago, when ben and cy were moving through this industry, we doubted ourselves a lot because we didn't have as much experience, sure, of course, but we were laid onto the personal bull and the personalities that we have and go hey, bob, uh, what in the hell have you done here before?

Speaker 2 1:06:37

because I ain't got a freaking clue and I'm not gonna sit there and act like. I do and he'll go well.

Speaker 1 1:06:43

Let me tell you a funny story. Back in my day.

Dealing With Owners and Clients

Speaker 1 1:06:47

Oh, my God Every time we would say oh dude, back in my day you weren't even in diapers yet, son. But I want to hear a little bit from your position, man. I want to hear a little bit from your position man, taking from the civil construction project, navigating owners and clients. We've talked a bunch about contractor relationship and what we already had a year's worth of communication with this engineer. So you stepping on the job and going well, I know what I'm doing and this engineer's done, you know, it ain't nothing. Well, they've already paid them a hefty chunk of money just to get you there to start installing.

Speaker 1 1:07:38

So easy, with that attitude, just a little bit, whether you like them or not. But dealing with those ownership levels, actually we had kind of a spiked ownership deal not too long ago. I won't go off into it, but it was. I called you out of the blue, I felt terrible about it, but it was a newer inspector deal. Anyways, new guy to the team and caught me kind of sideways and I caught ben kind of sideways because I didn't appreciate how it all went down. It all worked out fine, as fine as wine, but that owner that was standing there was the dividing factor between us, and normally that doesn't happen but, talk a little bit about having to deal with them stinking clients and owners.

Speaker 1 1:08:17

So I.

Speaker 2 1:08:19

Everybody asked what I do. What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? I'm an inspector observer for an engineering firm in northwest Arkansas. Yeah, Okay well, what does that tell us? Well, I'm a glorified secretary. I am the guy in the middle between you, the contractor, the city and the engineer, and any phone call to anybody goes through me, and that's kind of how the role in Northwest Arkansas works. Every town has an EOR. The engineer hires EORs because they don't want the traffic. They don't want the traffic on their phones.

Speaker 2 1:08:57

They already have traffic. They don't want the traffic on their phones. They already have traffic. They don't have the time, and so they hire people like us who can read plans, who know how to put stuff together, who's been there before? And we catch it all. We catch the mad owner who's mad at the entity because they only do finals on Tuesday. It's like buddy, I don't know what to tell you. It's like I'm sorry, you're from texas, you know, it's just how it is and I've got to.

Speaker 2 1:09:26

I gotta talk to those guys and said it'll be fine. Yeah, it's gonna be okay, yeah, we'll get through it. And I, and, and the owners, we, we train them. This is this is how it works. Northwest arkansas, arkansas. The cities are very involved with the closeout of their projects. They want to be involved, yes, very involved. Yes, they do, all the way to the very, very end, some of them a lot more than others. Guys, yeah, and so we're in the middle of this engineer, city owner, and we're getting all the phone calls. We're getting all the mad phone calls. We're getting the track out on the road, city calls. Hey, tracking out on the road, will you call those guys? Yep, great, I'll call them. Call the contractor hey, you're tracking out on the road. They're going to shut you down. You better get a broom on it, clean it up. Freaking Mercedes just ran. It's got red shit all the way down its car, you know. And everybody's freaking out. Yep, and that's north of Saratoga. It rains.

Speaker 1 1:10:25

We have red rocky clay up here. I don't think a lot of people actually in the country that's probably listening. Man, we have a lot of guys that listen from Canada from being obviously from Canada.

Speaker 1 1:10:35

We're actually going to have a guy one of the Canadian contractors on here next month, canada. I'm actually going to have a guy one of the Canadian contractors on here next month. But I don't think a lot of people understand the kind of dirt we deal with here. It's a little different for Select Phil. It's this red. It's red dirt Arkansas red dirt, right out of the mountains. It sits on the ledges, of these compacted limestone and sandstone ledges, and we take it and we basically build it to a compaction rating of 95.

Speaker 1 1:11:02

But when it rains, ladies and gentlemen, sticks to oh my god, your boots are orange, literally, and they weigh six, six extra pounds a piece and it is. It's not fun and it tracks out. I mean you can't. You can pull a freaking pickup through just the tiniest little puddle and you're tracking red dirt for a mile. It is a pain in the ass. And then you get a phone call from the band and go. Hey, man, so-and-so called me over there and man, they're real pissed off about how you need to get that cleaned up right now. Have a good evening.

Speaker 2 1:11:38

You've got to deal with it right now. Yeah, yeah, you got to do it now because we got too many nice cars driving down the road. Yeah, man, but we'll do that. And then we'll have the city engineer call and say, hey, my guy, his inspector, saw a problem. Let me get privy to it.

Speaker 1 1:11:56

And he calls me.

Speaker 2 1:12:00

Hey, what's going on. So then I've got to get in a loop with the city engineer, city inspector, take that back to our engineer, figure out what's going on and then take that to you all. Right, here's what, here's what we can do to fix it. You know, and it just it's constant it's a different, it's a.

Speaker 1 1:12:17

I don't think people understand the mental especially I think you know, with these stinking phones, man, everybody can get a right. Now answer can get it right now and not even 15, 20 years ago, back before the cell phone age really come on strong. Could you imagine working back then?

Speaker 2 1:12:37

bro, pagers, my pagers. Mike told me about the Pagers Day. They would get a page and they'd have to go find a payphone to call the number on the page. It's like what you know.

Speaker 1 1:12:51

And see, I grew up, dude, I grew up in a city, I grew up in Toronto. So it's funny you say pagers. I had a little pager when I was six, seven years old, but I rode my bike all over this part of the city. You know what I mean, and my mom needed me anyways. But I just I think about that often is that these phones everybody's right now? I want an answer right now. It doesn't matter who it's got to go through, I want it right freaking now, and especially when you're dealing with these owners of these $80, $50, $40 million projects, at the same time you feel obliged to give it to them because they're spending all this money.

Speaker 1 1:13:30

We want to give it to them.

Speaker 2 1:13:31

Yeah, you're conscious of that You're aware. He's building seven apartment buildings. That's right.

Speaker 1 1:13:37

And he's rented stuff out. That's right.

Speaker 2 1:13:38

Seven apartment buildings, that's right, and he's rented stuff out, that's right, and so a lot of our role would be guessing how far? Out, they are talking with the owners, talking with the contractor, talking with the builder. How far out are you from you being done?

Speaker 1 1:13:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:13:53

Because we have a month's worth of paperwork to close out to get.

Speaker 2 1:13:56

CFOs, and so then I go to Allie and I go to to the team and I go to Taylor and say, hey, we're getting close. These guys have leasing happening now, oh wow, and so it's going to hit the fan if we're not there. So we've got to get started. Get your record drawings up front, Understand the process of the construction, Know where it's at. That way you can go back to your team and say, hey, we're almost done. This apartment job's been sitting for two years. They've been building for two years. You've been sitting on water and sewer and you haven't had a maintenance bond on it because the project hasn't closed. I'm so ready. You fixed 14,000 meters and hydrants that have been backed over.

Speaker 1 1:14:41

Oh you know, I got one in this.

Speaker 2 1:14:43

Hey, you got a hydrant over here, that's crooked, yeah, and then.

Speaker 1 1:14:46

And then it comes to final and go, hey, uh, why these valve cans not line up with the valves? And hey, why is this hydrant leaning? Hey, why is this clean out not there? Hey, hey, hey. And we fixed it six times and the guy still ran over it before pre-final.

Speaker 2 1:15:01

It doesn't matter what you do, it's so crazy man. And we, we talked to everybody. We talked to the owners and and during the pre-construction meetings. I try to line it out. Of course, these projects take so long. Some of them take so long two to three days for staking. If you want staking, give me two to three days, you bet. If you want an inspection, give me 24 to 48 hours. Don't call me and say hey, man, where you at.

Speaker 1 1:15:26

That's not how the world works.

Speaker 2 1:15:27

We got to do a test now and I was like dude. I'll call our city inspector, but he's not going to do it now he's going to do it Best case scenario. You get tomorrow.

Speaker 1 1:15:37

Yeah, and I got to back onto the relationship thing here before we finally wrap up. But that whole calling inspectors, I need this thing to do right now. Oh God, I need it right now. It doesn't happen very often.

Speaker 2 1:15:53

No.

Speaker 1 1:15:53

But if you do work well with these engineers and you have a great relationship and you do what you tell them you're going to do behind their back, in front of their eyes, all of it together, and they can trust what you're doing, you can only imagine the things that you can get pulled off.

Speaker 2 1:16:11

Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 1:16:12

If you're a good contractor, you do what you say you're going to do, because I promise you. There's many times I can call Peckham Ponder boys over, I can call them all and hey, this is where I'm at. Some of them will meet me with some different reservations. Some of them I mean yeah, I mean the stuff I've pulled off has been crazy just by having a good relationship.

Speaker 2 1:16:32

And I just got off with Larry before walking in here and we're pushing pipe through a casing under 71. And we're pushing pipe through a casing under 71, super on grade and the boys want to start. They want to push their pipes back through their bore pit and get everything cleaned up, which I totally understand.

Speaker 2 1:16:47

It's a safety thing? Yes, everything of that nature. And Larry said give all the guys a call If nobody has time, and you're there, rock and roll, you bet. But it's taken years to get to that point, you know, to get to that point with the entity, to where somebody can call me or one of our guys and say y'all know what you're doing, you take your pictures, you know the spec, have at it and that helps that triangle, that triangle of all these phone calls between everybody, dude, so much so much and be able to just and it helps you as the contractor you're making money, Then I can show up and say Si, you got some guys ready, let's push pipe right now.

Speaker 2 1:17:32

Let's go it, don't have to be next week, which is their next first opening, oh my Lord. Week, yep, which is their next first opening, oh my lord. But it just comes down to man. You, just you got to have that relationship. You got to be trustworthy and professional I've been taught dude I cannot.

Speaker 1 1:17:48

And I gotta say ben's an active listener here on the blue collar business podcast and he's heard me probably talk about relationship, relationship, relationships and it's not all about relationships.

Speaker 1 1:17:59

It's not everything. I should probably quit saying that. But I promise you, in any capacity that you're operating a blue collar business in and I know we've definitely dove off into the excavation and utilities, underground utility inspection conversation Obviously that's what we're both well versed in. But this can go for absolute any blue collar business across the board, guys, seriously. So, um, I guess I've got one final question for you, buddy when we're shooting ducks well we can.

Speaker 1 1:18:33

We can talk about after that but I'm actually um, yeah, we'll talk about it just a little bit but me and ben have been talking about shooting ducks for I don't know how many years literally I've been. Uh, I was a big deer hunter. Uh, just to throw this little piece in here, uh was I can't even say a big deer hunter. Ben and bo were big deer hunters and had a little stout on tv a little stint on tv there for a little bit.

Speaker 1 1:18:57

Tv camera deal still, man, you guys were, you were the big deals. Back then we thought we were, we thought we were. Let's just say that man, y'all killed a bunch of deer, but I from then I got introed into shooting a greenhead and man, I lost every bit of interest. Now I actually can say I've been in a deer stand more this year. I haven't probably eight or nine years but you got a little boy. It's 120 yards in the front yard.

Speaker 2 1:19:21

You haven't even been in my place yet, have you?

Speaker 1 1:19:23

No, I haven't, Bro you're all the way on that side of the county I am.

Speaker 2 1:19:27

It's like crossing the pond, but anyway.

Speaker 1 1:19:30

But literally, man, the last thing I got for you. I ask everybody what's a takeaway for the blue collar worker who's sick and tired of being stuck in the mud and I know for us that can mean quite literal, since we came from the ditches and the muddy holes but I'm talking about a little bit, about that mental game that we talked about. Maybe emotionally, he's off kilter at home and works, suffering because of a scary, might lose his job. Let's talk about those guys that are 18 to 22 years old. They're stuck in their head mentally. They've been somewhere for a year or two. Tell them from your experience, other than the few things that you've already mentioned how do we, how do they propel through their 20s and get set up for their 30s like we are? Don't?

Career Advancement in Trades

Speaker 2 1:20:20

be set in your ways. Very good one man. I've talked to young guys and they want to start as a foreman, they want to start as a superintendent. They don't want to go in the ditch. But, like we've said, you go in the ditch, you work hard, you're professional, you show some enthusiasm, you show some progress, you learn the job.

Speaker 1 1:20:43

Retain information.

Speaker 2 1:20:44

You retain it, you're going to climb pretty quick. There's a lot of open holes in this industry 100% buddy from a contractor. You know or how many times I've had contractors call me and want to know guys to hire? Do you know anybody to hire?

Speaker 1 1:21:07

I've done it.

Speaker 2 1:21:07

Do you know anybody to hire? Do you know anybody to hire? I need truck drivers. You know anybody over there? Yeah, you know anybody. But don't be moldable. If you hate being in the ditch, you hate lighting pipe, okay, go do something else. Go get out of the pipe, go talk to the framer who's on the job.

Speaker 2 1:21:24

He'll give you a job tomorrow, I guarantee it 100 buddy it might be picking up trash yep, pick up trash but it wasn't what you were doing in in four years. When I quit college, I went five years with mike and I, within two to three years, I was making more money than my mother was as a 30-year teacher with a master's degree that's so sad and it's great fantastic for you.

Speaker 2 1:21:57

Terrible for mama bear there because, well, teachers, teachers are severely underpaid anyway, and that's a whole nother conversation. It's great, fantastic for you, terrible for Mama Bear there, because the teachers, teachers are severely underpaid anyway, a hundred percent, and that's a whole other conversation.

Speaker 1 1:22:04

Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 1:22:05

But you know our whole family's teachers, right.

Speaker 1 1:22:10

But there's opportunity there. Point proven, brother. A hundred percent, point proven.

Speaker 2 1:22:15

And it could happen in two years. It could happen in three years.

Speaker 1 1:22:18

You can speed up a four-year degree, a four-year educational degree. You can hop in a ditch or go to work as a plumber's apprentice. Or I know Bobby Brewer pours beautiful mantles and storm boxes and he's always begging for that.

Speaker 2 1:22:37

One guy that retains just a little bit of information about how to put a mantel together and a box together If you're 19, if you're 20, if you're 21, and you work hard and you can be professional and you can learn it, by the time you're 25, he's probably going to give you a truck to drive, 100%. He's probably going to give you all the tools you want. He's going to give you all the work time you want, the tools you want. He's going to give you all the work time you want and he's probably he's going to pay you good because he doesn't want you to go somewhere else. That's right, because as soon as that guy starts doing good work and somebody else sees it, it's on dude. They're going to be like, hey, what are you making? Yep, and you get this Yep, and then that guy's going to want to keep you Yep.

Speaker 1 1:23:20

And and you get this, and then that guy is going to want to keep you. Yep, and if you can show, it's not just the money side of it, it's from this side of the table, bro, it's like I've invested in this guy time-wise for a freaking year to get him to the knowledge where I can pick up the phone and we can talk about a corp stop.

Speaker 2 1:23:34

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 1:23:40

And it's. It's that investment, that retraining in a company. Oh my well, you know, as an, as an inspector, you're retraining. You know, as you get new guys it's a lot more involved with. We do the same thing but kind of more, a little bit more repetitive. We're not looking for as much as you guys are, but man it's, it's so different, but I think that's a great takeaway, dude, Seriously, yeah, I mean you've got a lot of life to live.

Speaker 2 1:24:02

You're going to be working for 30 or 40 years. You're going to work until you're 50, 60, 70 years old Yep, by the time you're 25, if you can get to a foreman, superintendent role, you're going to have less time in the ditch. There's going to be crappy days. Somebody's going to call and say you're going to have to run a track, go, you bet, enjoy it.

Speaker 1 1:24:20

Enjoy running a track, go Prioritize that moment, because it's fun, it is, it's a big, giant video game. Dude. Some of the equipment that we have I've never even sat in and that beautiful iMachine dozer.

Speaker 2 1:24:36

You just write that monthly check.

Speaker 1 1:24:38

Huh it's bad bro, but the days that I get to go sit in a machine, bro Turn podcast on Turn music on.

Speaker 2 1:24:48

I just sit there Load trucks.

Speaker 1 1:24:50

I'll load trucks and get me on a dozer and just give me some area, I'll finish. I'll do whatever, just give me three or four hours. But it's funny Anytime I get in a low boy or I get away and run a machine for three or four hours or doing something, everybody's calling me to try and get me out, because normally by the time three or four hours has transpired and I haven't had nobody. I've got some thoughts and we're going to change this and we're going to do that D up front.

Speaker 1 1:25:17

She'll give me crap about hey, don't be in that truck all day, we don't need to be changing everything around here.

Speaker 2 1:25:23

It's just crazy that entrepreneur mindset that's the best thing and I know guys within that I've worked for with other companies who have. They've started doing layout. They did layout on curb, you know, and they got tossed into a crappy job and they said man, we need help, You're new, let's rock and roll. And you take it by the reins, Yep, and you have at it and your boss is going to see it Every time and I've seen guys, good friends of mine, and they'll climb the ladder in four or five years. He's got a truck to drive.

Speaker 1 1:25:54

Yep.

Speaker 2 1:25:55

He doesn't get dirty anymore. Doesn't get dirty anymore.

Speaker 1 1:25:56

Making 50, 60, 70k a year, or more, or more, with benefits. With benefits.

Speaker 2 1:26:01

Yeah, you know, and you can pick and choose. You're helping pick and choose what jobs you're working on yeah. You're helping the bidding process. You're visiting sites before you bid them yeah, and then you've got the guys underneath you that you're training. You're taking the lunch. You're keeping the camaraderie up. Morale, yeah, and the morale and the hoop, hoop, hoorah.

Speaker 2 1:26:20

You know, and it's just like it can be done. If you're 19 and you start in a trade, if you run a tractor on Grandpa's farm, you bet Throwing square bales. You know they don't got many farm kids anymore, bud. I know, I know, but there's still some around. We keep putting subdivisions in their way. I know, I know, but there's still some around. We keep putting subdivisions in their way. I know those guys. There's guys that don't want to go to school no, and I've talked. I went to Gentry at the. They had like a trade program, yep, and mom got me in on it. That's awesome. And talked to some high school kids. Like I know some of you guys don't want to go to school. No, and it's like I know some of you guys don't want to go to school and the farm's not going to pay for it because farms barely pay for themselves 100%. But if you've run a backhoe before on the farm, go talk to somebody.

Speaker 1 1:27:08

I'm so excited, man, november 12th it is. If you guys don't know, it's November 6th.

Speaker 1 1:27:14

Me and Ben are sitting here hoop-hooping, hurrah-ing after yesterday, for sure Not to go too far there in the weeds, but we're rather happy in the construction industry and interest rates are definitely going to come down. But I'm really excited to go spend some time with this workforce program in Springdale, arkansas, here, this high school program that is coming up in the next couple of weeks. If you guys haven't seen that or any of our YouTube stuff, you can see everything I'm talking about, everything me and Ben have talked about. You can go check out at our YouTube page at Cyclone Excavation and Utilities. But if you have enjoyed this hour hour and a half longer, episode today we're getting close.

Speaker 1 1:27:54

Yeah, a little longer episode If you've enjoyed it. There is plenty more at the bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom. If you know of somebody that you may think would be a good fit for me to sit and talk in the show. It could be remote, could be here in the studio. You can go again. Bluecollarbusinesspodcastcom contact. There's a contact form that you'll reach the team of podcastvideoscom here at the studio and we can maybe get you vetted and get you on the show. So, number one Ben. Thank you so much, dude. Seriously, there's a lot of folks that think this podcast is a little silly, but you have been a number one supporter and I really appreciate you.

Personal Connections in Blue Collar Work

Speaker 2 1:28:35

I'm intrigued. I like it. It's crazy and I was going to tell you before we wrapped up. I'm in town. You need a whole field. You want to talk about hunting and fishing one day? Bah, Just send it to me, buddy.

Speaker 1 1:28:48

Okay, just send it to me, we'll figure it out. Miss Sam here at podcastvideoscom will definitely love that and, honestly, I think the audience is going to see me in a different light because you've watched enough of the shows. But just having that experience, personal with somebody outside of work and then bringing them in here and talking about work and we've had such a good working relationship I felt a lot more comfortable sitting here talking with you and I think they're going to see that so.

Speaker 1 1:29:18

I have a feeling you'll be back. So, man, I really appreciate you and, guys, thanks for listening again and we'll catch you guys on the next one. Be safe, be kind, be humble. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like. Share it with the fellers. Check out our website to send us any questions and comments about your experience in the blue collar business. Who do you want to hear from? Send them our way and we'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Till next time, guys.