drywall mudding, day3

This was an absolutely amazing day! DST took the opportunity to celebrate a client appreciation day by taking their clients to Habiat. That is, as far as I can tell, one of the best ways to appreciate your clients; give them a feeling that they are giving back to the world, and can be given a feeling that nothing else in the world can provide.

My crew today was drywall taping up in the trusses. This meant that about half my crew was in harness wondering up in the rafters. You know how much I would have LOVED to have participated in that event? I have never even been in harness, so I was grateful that the two Andrews on my team knew how to harness up.

But I had to stay at ground level and supervise my crew. I had between 10-12 people strong. There was a Mother-Daughter-Son team within this group; one of the A’s being the son who works in construction, currently working on the plumbing on a new wing for SunnyBrook hospital. The other Andrew I dubbed “Little John” at the beginning of the day and the name stuck so strongly that I just called him John for the whole day, and he was fine with it. I think he was flattered by the joviality, I enjoyed the lightheartedness as well; that was a GREAT crew! They were all amazing.

There was also one gentleman on my crew who I showed how to make a drywall taping rig, and after he knew how to do it, he went off and made four! His initiative was very impressive, and I appreciated it very much.

We were required to tape every seam in the front five units where the firewall touched firewall, and where firewall touched wood. The team used scrap sheets of OSB along the bottom of the trusses to create a platform to walk across, putting in a couple of nails for stability.

Andrew and Spiro seemed to work very well together, and Andrew had a nickname for Spiro; Sparrow. Such a day for nicknames! So I just started calling him by that name. That’s the kind of camaraderie I live for onsite; being able to witness, and be part of a team, in all its forms and levels. It’s refreshing and inspires confidence.

The heat that day was brutal, and Andrew and Sparrow were absolutely drenched in sweat by the afternoon, as they weren’t using an OSB platform, but just hooking up to any perpendicular beams and climbing through the trusses like a jungle gym. They were by far my superstar team that day, which is not something I make a big deal out of; to me a superstar team means that you teach them well, and leave them to do the work on their own for the rest of the day, confident that they can do the job put to them while you ensure the rest of the process runs smoothly, and those who need more help, get it. Andrew’s Mom and Sister were unwilling to go up into the rafters, so they were the tape ladies for that day, and by then I had the drywall tape mudding process down to an art, so their job was very smooth. We ended up going through 3 boxes of CGC that day; it was a VERY productive day.

Speaking of someone who needed a bit more help at the beginning, there was a woman there by the name of Maria, who switched out of her initial crew to learn how to drywall up in the rafters. She is a very good student and learns very quickly, so she only needed about 10-15 minutes of help and she was also fine. If need be she would ask me questions, but she also came up with solutions. She has since worked on my crew, and continued to uphold her high standards. She would learn as she needed to know things, and use her creativity to fill in the missing holes.

Little John, Andrew, and someone else became sub-crew leaders that day, so that they were the only ones talking to me. This was good seeing as I had so many people on my crew. At one point Little John had a question for me, and in my answer I included the fact that what we were doing was in fact just a re-do, based on very bad taping done previously. *sigh, such is Habitat.

This was also the last day for Ross, Mo, and the rest of Mike’s kids. They did a little photo, and Steph was there to congratulate them officially and see them off. It didn’t hit me until that day that I wish I could have gotten to know those kids better; a lot of them were very amazing kids, and I think I wouldn’t mind working with them again in the future. I will (and have) missed their presence around the site. I also miss Sean; I hope he comes back maybe in the fall to keep working on the next block of houses. I worked with him several times, and I enjoyed his energy and sense of humour.