Summer work as the youngest of five union laborers in a construction crew of over 60 on a 164,000-square-foot tilt-up concrete Fred Meyer shopping center at SE 3rd and Burnside in Gresham, Oregon on a fast-track schedule: three months from bare dirt to finished roof. I didn't know it yet, but the job would teach as much about building as it would about the builders.
Start to Finish
Commercial construction moves in a sequence, and that summer I got to touch nearly all of it from end-to-end. We formed, reinforced, poured, and finished laser-leveled footing pads and floor slabs, then tilted up wall panels that had been cast flat on the ground like pancakes, stacked and ready to stand.
Between those panels, we framed, reinforced, and poured concrete columns to tie the whole shell together. Inside, we placed and bolted steel columns, glulam beams, joists, and purlins into a skeleton for the roof.
And at the very top, we laid plywood decking, foam insulation boards, and protective sheeting, sealing it all under a thick layer of hot tar.
The site itself was kind of a mess with materials everywhere, exposed rebar, and schedules always shifting. It passed all the health and safety rules of the time, but wits mattered.
The People Who Taught Me How to Work
Anyone with patience can learn how to build just by doing. But the way to actually be a laborer — that came from three mentors in particular.
Smitty was the job foreman, with thirty years deep into the trade. He didn't lecture. He showed me how to shovel off my knee instead of my back, leveraging the tool instead of muscling it — a small adjustment that saved me from the kind of injury that ends careers early. That he'd grown into the foreman's role after three decades as a laborer said everything about how he led: he'd done every job he was now asking others to do, and he still remembered what it cost your body if you did it wrong.
Lenny ran the labor crew, and he led by jumping in. When a job got tough, he didn't stand back and direct — he grabbed a tool and worked alongside us until it got easier. That attitude was contagious. His son worked the job too, which said something about the kind of man Lenny was and how he viewed his trade: one you wouldn't mind your own kid working in.
Goose taught me the most, and it took the longest for me to understand why. He was quiet, unassuming, and at first glance I mistook that for being slow. Lenny caught me underestimating him and told me to look closer. So I did. Goose showed me how to pull nails in two clean arm movements, strip concrete formwork with barely any wasted motion, and finish jobs faster than laborers working twice as hard. He wasn't doing more — he was doing less, more precisely. Goose made the hardest parts of the job look effortless, and he casually outworked almost everyone on that site without needing to seek recognition or speak poorly of anyone.
Smarter, Not Stronger
I began this job thinking laborer work was all about strength... who could lift the most, dig the fastest, or outlast everyone else by sheer will. Smitty, Lenny, and Goose taught me something closer to the truth: the best laborers aren't the strongest, they're the smartest. They protect their bodies so they can keep working for thirty years and support their families. They lead by showing up, not by standing over people, and the ones who look unremarkable are often the ones worth watching most closely.
I was there for a summer. They were there for a career. I'm grateful I got to learn, even briefly, from people who'd already figured out what it meant to do this work well.