Thoughts on construction workers

Due to a startling lack of things to watch on television this evening, I am blogging yet again. The "just my thoughts" mentality drives me to do so. I do have thoughts, and though this is "just" them, I feel it necessary to bestow them onto the world wide web (www) for you to partake of one more time.

So, I worked today which was long and difficult. When you're not very good at what you do (as in, you've never done this before), and you work with people that are demanding - things can get tense. But, in the midst of the tension, I started thinking about construction workers.

Construction workers are an interesting dichotomy (sp?) of good and bad things. They are stereotyped as being immoral slackers that can't do anything else to be productive in society. #1 - I resent that. #2 - it is in large part true.

Truth is, I don't consider myself a construction worker. At least, I'm not a career construction worker (I've done other stuff outside of construction.) So as I listen to those whom I consider to be "career construction workers", I ponder their lives.

The good things:
-Construction workers love to get the job done right. They do not do anything half assed - at least the guys I work with.
-Construction workers demand excellence in their job performance and admit mistakes when they've made them (and, having been a part of corporate life before - I can tell you that they have more integrity this way than most people at Midland Loan Services - yack)
-Construction workers work well in teams.
-Construction workers are extremely generous with all they have.

The bad things:
-Construction workers gossip like little 8th grade girls. . . .all the time. Every conversation involves gossip about another worker, another job, the boss, the job site, whatever. . . .it's worse than "Mean Girls." "Mean Dirty Old Construction Workers" could be the sequel.
-Construction workers all think that they should be the boss. Everyone - EVERYONE - has their own unique opinion about how things should be done, what needs to happen RIGHT NOW, and how the person in charge just isn't doing it correctly.
-Construction workers all like to brown nose with their boss. BUT if they see another person brown nosing, they rip on him. For example, my boss said to another worker today: "If so and so's boss stopped fast enough, that guy would end up with sh*t on his nose". Hilarity ensues - and all the while I'm thinking, "Everyone who just laughed at this stupid joke just ended up with sh*t on their noses."
-Construction workers are deeply flawed, deeply broken, and each one hurts and is probably clinically depressed - but would never admit it. Divorce, abuse, felonies, drugs, alcohol womanizing, etc. . . .and they are all open books about it.

Anyways - I don't mean to simply rip into them. Just observations from my day today. From their perspective toward me, I know they think "That idiot guy who doesn't know how to do anything out here." How very true they are.

And as broken as they are, as messed up as they are, as much as I do not ever want to dive into friendship with any of them, as much as they essentially repulse me, I read Mt. 5:3 -
"God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them." (New Living)

In the midst of the perpetual circus that is work alongside these men, I find small pockets of the Kingdom of Heaven. In a conversation with Mike, my coworker: smoker, drinker, borderline bi-polar (happy and then extremely angry), he recently said to me:
"I know I smoke and drink - but I know that I trust Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Do you think God will let me into heaven?"

Me: "I do - absolutely."

I fly Saturday to Washington to be at my Grandfather's funeral. And he, a broken man in many ways, now sits with Christ Jesus forever, because he recognized his need for a Savior.

What a great God we serve.