Watching other people work

I do enjoy watching other people work.  Don’t you?  It’s quite fascinating and I learn all sorts of things.

Take roofing work for instance.  I’ve helped a friend or two over the years with a couple of very small roofing projects and found out right away that roof work wasn’t for me.  But I don’t mind watching other people do it. 🙂

As mentioned in a recent post, all of the buildings where I live are getting re-shingled and they’re getting any other needed roof repair work done at the same time.  This is a 55+ community, so most of us are retired.  I’ve met more of my neighbors in the past couple of days … every one of us is out watching these guys work.

In the photo below, the fellow on the right in the bright yellow/green shirt is handling the remote control for the boom on the truck.  He could park those packages of shingles on a dime.  He was really good.  And he was very careful.

It was over 80 degrees in the shade, so it was likely 90 to 95 up there on the roof.  That’s hot and heavy work.

The roofing company usually had seven or eight trucks there at any given time.  The photo above was taken early enough in the morning that all of the trucks hadn’t arrived yet.  Those were big trucks, about the same size as my truck, more or less.

Right off the bat, some of the roofing guys and I started talking about our big white trucks.  Half of the roofers had GMCs, the other half had Fords.  Once all of us established a rapport, I let them know it was too bad they didn’t have a REAL truck like my equally-as-large-as-theirs big white Dodge RAM 5.7 liter Hemi engine 4X4.  Oh, they hooted and hollered about that.

They were hard working men.  And it was a hot day.  Most of them wore long pants and long-sleeved shirts for protection.  They all wore heavy steel-toed boots, and gloves, and a hat.  Added to that was the warmth and weight of the safety harness and then all of their gear and tools.  What a job.  With working temps on the roof at least in the 90’s by noon, they usually stopped working around 2pm.

I was told by the property manager that the roofers would be done with my roof by Friday afternoon this past week.  Well, on Friday morning it was obvious they weren’t going to be done.  I needed to bring the trailer back here because the ETI owner was going to be here on Saturday with my new tires.  But I wondered if the roofers might be working Saturday and maybe they’d be upset if my trailer was here.  I found the boss of the roofers and asked him … he said “Bring your trailer!  We’ll just work on the 4-plex next in line on Saturday.  No problem.”  How nice was that?

So late Friday afternoon I went to the storage unit and got the trailer, then parked the truck and trailer on the street right outside the gate to the community where I live.

Before driving in, I walked the route inside the gate to my place … all the workers and their big white trucks had gone home.  So I towed the trailer in and backed the trailer lickity split into my parking spot right in front of my kitchen window again.

On Saturday, as promised, the owner of ETI arrived with two brand new tires, each of them already mounted and balanced on these same aluminum wheels.  We wasted not a moment swapping them out.  I could have done that myself but it was sure nice that he helped … and he said the same, most owners just watch him do any sort of work and don’t help.  He was very grateful for my help.  It took no time at all for us two smart cookies to do that work.  I’ve changed out so many truck tires in my life that I could do that in my sleep.

New tires installed!  Air pressure checked (ok!), lug nuts torqued (ok!), trailer lowered back to the ground.  I now have 5 tires that match (4 on the axles and 1 spare tire) and I’m good to go!

I figured the ETI owner would then be quick to leave, but he stayed for over an hour, answering a few questions of mine, showing me a few things about the trailer, and just chatting about the travel trailer industry and his wife’s love of horses and the 1940 wood boat I used to own, etc.  He could easily have simply shipped those two tires to me, and not driven down here.  It was extraordinary personal service for him to drive them down and install them himself and I thanked him a great deal.

And now I can go camping!!  Yay!  I’m so happy. 🙂

Even the birds on my back patio at the bird feeder seemed extra gregarious and enthusiastic that afternoon.

Oh my word, little fella, just how many seeds can you get in your beak all at once?