Today Cody and I installed some cabinets.
Cody is my neighbor who we met at Church. He’s currently in graduate school (a circumstance I’m somewhat familiar with) and worked as a tradesman previously in finish carpentry. He landed a job with a cabinet installation company and invited me to work with him. He’s a good friend who realizes that I had no income over the summer. And he’s helping me out. He trained me and we’ve been doing this installation thing for a few months now.
I’m still slower than Cody. I think things through too much. Two weeks ago I tried a job by myself. It was a moderately large job and It took my all day. I started at about 8 am and I got home by 7:30 pm. I had to go back the next day to do finishing touches. It seems to always be the little things that take forever. But I’m still learning. And it seems we’ve got a good system when we’re working together. Today’s job was finished in just over four hours. That isn’t bad considering we get paid over $100 each for the job.
I think it would be a fulfilling career to be a tradesman. But very difficult. I’m supposed be a young man (right?) and my body will still ache the next day. In some ways it is nice to start a job in the morning and complete it that very day. You walk away knowing that you’ve made something that will last, probably for many years, if not decades. It feels good.
