Our Work and the Pink Hard Hat

My husband and I own a commercial construction company.  For some time, I've kept one of the company's dark blue hard hats in my office.  That way I have one to wear that isn't too gross when I need to visit a job.  From time to time, a hard hat would disappear from my office.  That's okay.  They are the ones banging sheet metal.  They need 'em.  I'm just a looky-lou.  I'd get another and be fine for a while, then the new one would go missing.  Then another and another.  I've been through a bunch of blue hard hats.

I noticed that in general contractor job shacks there is often a pink hard hat hanging on the wall.  One day, I asked what was up with the pink hard hat.  The general contractor told me, in a very manly way, that a pink hard hat is kept for any employee who comes to work on the job without his own.  As a penalty, they have to wear the pink one for the day.  Serves them right, 'cause they remember their hard hat from then on.  No real man wants to wear a pink hard hat, right?  Construction is a hard life.

So I told our delivery driver to get me one.  I told him to buy one and bring it directly to me.  Isn't she a purdy?  I told everyone I was getting her and would put hello kitty stickers all over her. 

I actually put one of my company's stickers on her.  Companies in the construction trades have stickers made with their business name and phone number on it.  They stick them on everything the touch, kind of like marking their territory.  Workers often collect stickers from different companies all over their hard hats.  

I stop traffic a little bit when I walk jobs.  I've 51 years old, a small woman.  You don't see that often where we work.  People stop and look at me.  Sometimes it's pretty interesting.  That's okay.  I have good self esteem.   

This sticker is from a crane company we sometimes use as a subcontractor.  I don't have the hello kitty stickers yet.  

If you've been here before, you might know we recently cleared out the house my dad built in 1964 and that I grew up in.  I found my dad's hard hat from his work days in a cabinet in the garage.  It immediately went into my car.  The blue sticker is for the company he worked for.  He was a Union Steelworker.  A Brother to our Trade.  The red strip below is from one of those old fashioned labelers.  It says his name.  John Bennett. 

Recently, I've been wearing Dad's hard hat when I visit jobs instead of the pink one.  Dad would have been happy.  Wish I could have shown him our jobs.   Of course, I added one of my company's stickers.

Now people see me and ask me where the pink one is.  I stop and tell them the story of my Dad and his hard hat.  And now I've told you.    

Our Work

This has absolutely nothing to do with what I normally talk about.  In fact, it's a tender subject for me.  This is what pays the bills at the Osbornes.  This is our work. The following pictures are of a new building.  It's retail space.  People will shop here.  I'm not going to say who or where for hopefully obvious reasons.

Husband and I have a company that does commercial HVAC.  There are large heating a cooling units on the roof which we place there with a crane.  We hang this duct work in the space to carry the heated or cooled air to its destination.  This pipe is 20 feet in the air. 

The hard hat on the right belongs to Husband.  The hard hat and yellow arm on the left is one of our foremen.  This is hard work.  These guys are studs and heroes in my book. The recession hurt us.  It was hard to keep going. 

Almost over night, we went from making a good living with a good future to seriously in trouble and afraid.  Entrepreneurs risk everything.  We weren't just looking at no work.  We were looking at potentially loosing everything. 

These two pictures are kitchen hoods in the same space.  We do that too - the welded grease duct and grease fans that serve them and the make up air units that pump air back into the space.  Things are getting better. 

Much better actually.  We are hopeful, optimist.   

It wouldn't be true to say that we are back to normal or that everything was great, but we are still here.  Actually, we may be creating a new normal.  The pre-recession really was awful nice and I will miss it.  In this picture you can see the figure of a man in the upper just left of center above the hood.  He is welding gas pipe to fuel the hood. 

So here is my perspective on what I'm telling you.  First, during hard times, you learn not only what you are made of, but what those around you are made of.  I learned that I am one tough chick and that I married well. 

Second, I learned that life is short.  My hair literally went gray during this last couple of years of struggle.  It wasn't gray before.  And, yes, I have a wonderful lady I see every 6 weeks who is taking care of that for me.  But it had other big affects on me.  It is prompting me to make some changes in my life. 

I'm only now starting to figure out what that means.

I have never had self esteem problems and I'm dreaming big.  What's next?  I don't even know, but something.