A life lesson from Gene Pritchard

The boss, Gene Pritchard was a big man who leaned forward a little when he walked and when he was behind the wheel of a vehicle. It was as though he was leaning into his next moment, ahead of himself, and if not ahead of himself, at least ahead of those around him. Though he owned the company and had several crews of men working for him, he could generally be found working with one of the crews.
Gene hired me to do siding work right out of high school. After my first two full days of work he stopped by the house I was working on. After a thorough examination of the work I had done he called me to him and said, “Your work looks good but you’re not getting enough done.” He then went on to say, “If I were paying you piece work, you would starve to death, but since I’m paying you by the hour, I might starve to death.”
So there I was the next morning at 6:00 am loading the truck. I would be working with the boss in Dover today. Not doing siding, but hot roofing on apartment buildings. Since I was too slow at aluminum siding he was going to make a “pot man” out of me. After I had loaded the back of the flatbed truck to the limit with cylindrical tubes full of solidified black roofing tar weighing 80 lbs. each, Gene emerged from the office and said, “That should be enough.” As we headed for Dover he explained to me what my duties for the day would be. “Keep the pot full of hot tar all the time so that when we need it on the roof, we won’t be waiting on you. Keep your area cleaned up, and don’t get burned.” It all seemed simple enough.
The evening before, one of the fellows in the yard had advised, “If you’re going to be a ‘pot man’ you should probably take something to read. You are going to get bored.”
When we arrived, the rest of the crew was already there and the pot was hot, but half empty. Gene fired out orders to me. “Get some of that tar unloaded and keep that pot full!” I unloaded around ten tubes and began peeling off the paper wrapping, breaking them up with a hatchet and adding the chunks of tar to the pot. After the pot was full and the tar melted, I began picking up the paper wrappers that I had peeled off the tubes of tar. Periodically someone would come to the edge of the three-story apartment building and yell, “Hot Stuff!” This was my queue to start the gasoline powered pump that pumped the tar up to the roof. Then they would yell, “OK!” which meant ‘shut the pump off, we have all the tar we can use for now.’
This was going to prove to be a great job. The pot was full. My area was cleaned up and they were calling for tar about every fifteen minutes. About twenty feet from the pot, in the shade of the big apartment building, was a skid of plywood. I took out my book, went and sat on the plywood and began to read. Gene came to the edge of the roof and yelled down, “Are you all caught up?”
“Yes sir!”
“Good – Hot Stuff!”
I turned on the pump. In a few minutes he yelled “OK!” He watched me as I replenished the pot with chunks of solidified tar and then started back toward the skid of plywood and my book. As I picked up the book, he yelled down to me, “Unload the truck!” I looked up at him, puzzled by his request. I was sure I had already unloaded enough tar to last for the rest of the day. “Put that tar over here against the building!” The truck was at least thirty feet from the building and the terrain was too rough to get it any closer. So, I unloaded the twenty plus tubes of tar and carried them one at a time to the spot that Gene had indicated while intermittently getting calls for ‘Hot Stuff,’ keeping the pot full and the paper cleaned up. When the last tube of tar had been stacked neatly against the building, dripping with sweat, I sat down on the skid of plywood and opened my book. As I did, Gene appeared at the edge of the roof. “Load the truck!” he yelled down to me.
“What do you want in the truck?” I asked, very puzzled.
“All the unused tubes of tar. We’re done here.”
“But…”
“Get moving. We need to be ready to go in an hour.”
I was loading the last few tubes of tar when the rest of the crew came down off the roof. Gene backed the truck up to the pot, connected the hitch and we were headed back toward Elkton. I was too exhausted and angry to speak so we rode in silence for about a half an hour. Finally I said, “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make me unload and then reload all that tar on the truck.
“I own the company, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“We are just the roofers on this project. If the general contractor sees that I can afford to pay a man to sit and read a book on the job, he is going to think that he is paying me too much for the job.”
“But…”
“While you are working for me, if you are not busy, at least look busy. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir.” I replied. I did understand and from then until now, whenever I’m tempted to take it easy on the job, I think of how much my muscles ached that next morning.
Thank you Gene Pritchard for a life lesson well learned.