Graham's Legendary Briefcase

On one of my commercial projects with an international construction company, my boss told me that they were sending a Superstar Supervisor to run the site. He warned me though, Graham is from Tennessee, an Irish good ole’ boy and we’re not sure if he’s going to work well with a female Project Manager. I expected trouble.

For the next couple of weeks, I heard all about Graham, some of his incredible projects, some of his amazing feats and successes. I also got a detailed description of his legendary briefcase. Apparently, even though Graham was married with two toddlers, he traveled a lot for work and liked to stop in topless bars along the way. To document his travels, he had photos of himself with numerous topless dancers spanning the U.S. He kept these photos locked up, taped to the upper lid of his briefcase, so when he opened it, he could re-live his glory.

A year earlier, someone had stolen his briefcase off the jobsite. Ever since that night, he lived in mortal fear of that briefcase with all it’s photographic evidence, finding it’s way back to Tennessee where his wife was home with the kids while he worked all over the country.

When he arrived on site, he fit his description with one exception. Indeed he was a big strong good ole’ boy from Tennessee who looked as if he’d worked in construction his entire life. The exception, fortunately for me, he did work well with women. We forged a tremendous team.

One day I was on site taking photographs to document our progress. At one angle, Graham was in the photo and he scurried off to the side. Jokingly I said, “Aw come on, don’t you want to be in a photograph for my briefcase?” He came unglued at my comment and started raging around the room asking where I heard about his briefcase and denying it’s existence. You mean to tell me that the Briefcase was just another construction legend?

In the end we built a fantastic project, pleasing our difficult and demanding client and making a hefty profit for the company we worked for. It’s been almost eight years since we worked together and I last saw Graham and I still think of him often.

Construction Terms and Sayings

Shit load is not an actual construction measurement.

Fart fan is completely interchangeable with bathroom exhaust fan.

Board Stretcher - no such thing Newbie, now go get the lefthanded screwdriver.

Pond Dried - lumber that has not been dried. You can tell because wet lumber is very heavy.

The Boneyard is an area behind your Tile Store where they toss scrap tile. A good resource for small tile projects and art projects. Other suppliers call the area with stored leftover material a boneyard even though it doesn't quite fit with windows or doors.

P.O.S. is a "piece of shit" - a vacant houses left unattended for years, sometimes uncared for rental properties fall into this category.

First rule of timeframes - sometimes it can’t happen any faster…
“You can’t get nine women pregnant and have a baby in a month, sometimes it just takes the full nine months.”

My Boss Skip

Many years ago I worked for a large commercial contractor out of San Francisco. Our branch office was in Monterey. The boss was a maniac who despite being in his 50s still called himself Skip.

Our project involved the fastest track for construction I’d even seen in my life. The money was outstanding and the budget for this project was unlimited. We had every resource at our fingertips but the timeframes were nearly impossible. Our client had only one rule… Never say it can’t be done, just make it happen.

The first week I discovered I’d made a huge mistake working for Skip. I decided that if he didn’t fire me within the first month, I’d quit then, after giving it 30 days. Even the thought of being fired sooner was a relief. He was a screamer, a desk banger, a loud obnoxious idiot and control freak.

On a Friday afternoon the first week, I got a call from the client with an outrageous request to get 5 steel beams installed on site, get them bead blasted then painted black and have the site cleaned. All by Monday morning. I started frantically making calls to steel beam suppliers, haulers, welders, bead blasters, painters, and cleaners who could work over the weekend with practically no notice.

Twenty minutes into my calls (it’s getting closer to 5 p.m. and my chance to catch anyone in their shop is diminishing by the minute), the world’s worst boss, Skip storms in and starts hollering while I’m on a call. I frantically make hand signals involving my headset when I really want to say “Shut The Fuck Up” I couldn’t hear what Skip was yelling, what the other person on the phone was saying and I was getting closer to breaking my deal with myself not to quit until I’d given it 30 days.

This was not the first time Skip had completely disrupted an urgent phone call with his screaming. So the next week I walked into his office. He actually had a smaller office than I did, so standing on the other side of his desk I was in very close quarters when I shut the door behind me. I calmly stood there and explained to him that when he screamed while I was on the phone I could not accomplish anything or hear anything. I paused and gathered my courage and told him that the very next time he interrupted my phone calls, I was going to pull a squirt gun out of my desk and spray him.

Then I stood there and waited to get fired and waited and waited. He was silent but started to turn red and started shaking. Apparently he wasn’t going to fire me. I stood there a while longer then said, “ok?” and turned and walked out.

As predicted, the very next day he walked in screaming while I talked on the phone. I never used the squirt gun, I just glared at him and made my finger and thumb into a “gun” shape and pointed at him. He turned and left, whispering “I’ll come back”.


Skip’s reign of terror continued in other ways. I stayed on for almost three years. Yes, the pay was incredible and one of the main reasons I stayed. The other reason was that my office had the most fantastic view of the wharf and Monterey Bay. And they hired an incredible assistant, Sharon to help me. She was one of the main reasons I could get through a day and one of the major reasons for my success with that client. The client and the project carried a lot of prestige and I was grateful to be the Project Manager.

After about a month of the screaming and yelling, amazingly enough, I no longer heard what Skip was yelling about. It didn’t usually matter, so I started seeing his face as a big colorful clown face and circus music would come cranking out of his head. I’d pretend to watch the show. In my imagination, I’d applaud when he was done. Then I’d go on with my work.

I don’t think of myself as vengeful but we did find small ways to get back at Skip. One of our favorite ways involved Jamba Juice, a local juice bar which offers “boosts” to your drink. For instance, they offer vitamin boosts, or boosts for cold and germ fighting. We’d always order the Fem Boost for Skip, hoping for a kinder, gentler Skip. We agreed to quit if he started growing breasts.

I ended up turning in my notice after completing the contract with our client. I’m proud to say that my projects were the most profitable for the company I worked for. The projects turned out beautifully and I still visit them once a year.

Ringtones tell the story

The employees of Cardinal Construction are the secret to my success. I’m fully aware that without their hard work and loyalty I’d be nowhere. Working with people I like (both clients and employees) is a priority to me. Making a lot of money comes in about third place, behind making sure clients are delighted with their project when we finish.

One of my most loyal employees, Dale came to me for a job by way of his friend Raging Roy, who worked with us briefly. (See Gary’s Rule) Dale works long and hard, never complains, he finds creative solutions to problems we encounter, clients adore him and have on occasion tried to “adopt” him.

He never schedules time off and it’s his pattern is to work himself into a state of frustration once or twice a a year, then have a little breakdown involving a few unscheduled days off. As time goes on, I seek the signs of this pattern and try to alleviate his frustrations before the breaking point. Maybe some day he’ll get to the point where he plans a vacation. But for now, I keep my eyes and ears open for the signs.

When calling his cell phone, the message always said, "please enjoy the music while your party is reached", then would play a downloaded song of his choice. I’d gotten used to singing along with the same old song while waiting to go to voicemail when one day it suddenly changed. “Take this job and shove it” sang from the other end of the phone. Apparently things were coming to a boil again. I called him into the office and chatted about his message. He found it funny, I was offended. The next day his message sang “I Saw the Light” and the next week it was back to “Hard Working Man”.

One of our more recent employees Bryan has the most obnoxious head banger music, I cannot even understand the lyrics. His evil plan is working because I call only when absolutely necessary. I’ve even offered to pay him to change his downloaded musical choice. The rate fluctuates; early in the morning I'd pay much more than I would at the end of the day.

The guys also have special ringtones to differentiate who is calling. Today I was on the site and Dale's phone rang with some foot-tapping country song. "Well, we know it's not you calling", he said. I asked him if my special ringtone is Elton John's song "The Bitch is Back"? He just stood there for a minute deciding if it was ok to laugh (it was).

Dire Hires

1. Never hire someone whose spouse or girlfriend calls for them, the spouse or girlfriend is the only one who wants him to work.
2. If they don’t know their rate of pay, it’s probably so low it’s not worth it.
3. Never hire anyone who is currently collecting unemployment, they will do the same with you eventually.
4. Never hire anyone who smells like beer (fresh or stale)
5. Don’t believe the stories if they seem unbelievable.
6. Never hire a guy who has sold all his tools in hard times
7. Listen to every nuance when checking references.
8. Figuratively speaking, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince