Getting to a Stopping Place

According to author Robert Fulghum, everything he really needed to know he learned in kindergarten. For whatever reason, I was a late bloomer.

Most of the fundamental conventional wisdom of life, particularly in regard to the unwritten rules of the workplace, was passed onto me by co-workers in the steel mill I worked in after graduating from high school in Connecticut and later on at countless construction sites in mid-coast Maine.

It was there that I learned that, in America anyway, people get paid for what they know, not what they do. If we were all paid for what we do, a ditch digger would be a millionaire and stock brokers and other desk jockeys would be on food stamps.

In those blue-collar work places I heard the oft-repeated warning that it is important to “get your time in somewhere,” since retirement comes much quicker than most 20-year-olds will ever realize.

I also found out the hard way what being “called on the carpet” meant after being summoned from the concrete floor of the warehouse to the superintendent’s comfortable office because of some minor rules infraction.

On my first day on a construction crew, 20 years ago, I was told by laughing co-workers that I “hammered like an old woman.” Nowadays, I would probably take that as a compliment.

Back then, during the unenlightened ’70's, it was just another of a constant stream of verbal jabs aimed at testing the “new” guy's tolerance and limits of good humor. My younger brother, too, revelled in my inexperienced grip and offered copious amounts of unwanted advice.

What did it matter, I countered, while taking twice as many hits to drive home a spike, as long as the work got done.

And there, among rafters and the ring of saws I also grew to understand and cherish the wisdom of my carpenter grandfather, who in life, and in work, always measured twice because “you only cut once.”

But, perhaps the most valuable lesson came from my stepdad. A man of great experience in matters of construction, he would never interrupt someone in the middle of a task to have them do something else just because that is when he happened to think of it.

Knowing the importance of flow, he would gently suggest that when someone “got to a stopping place” would they please give priority to this or that.

Finding a stopping place — what a wonderful concept.

How often these days do people take the time to find a place to logically end or temporarily set aside one pursuit before beginning another? Not just in physical tasks but in any endeavor, in our relationships and in our lives.

In that one expression lies a tacit understanding of the basic human abhorrence of loose ends and a need for continuity and completeness. Getting to a stopping place assumes and indeed demands detailed knowledge of the process at hand — its beginning, its middle, and its end.

It carries, too, an unspoken acknowledgement that other tasks and other people are as important as the one immediately at hand and that, given enough time, patience and perseverance, everything will ultimately get done.

While building my own house a few years ago, I was fortunate to have the help of many friends and relatives of various abilities.  On more than one occasion I unfortunately could not resist the temptation to tell them how if they just held their hammer a little differently and used more wrist action it would be a lot easier.

Their reactions were predictable — exactly the same as mine years ago.

I forgot that it was not their carpentry skills but their love and friendship they brought first and foremost to the job.

Despite their blisters and pains, and, indeed, because of them, the house got done.

Still, when I needed someone to give me a hand with some particularly unwieldy task, I did not forget my stepdad’s words and their underlying wisdom.

“I could use a hand over here with this big beam,” I would ask. “No rush. Just let me know when you get to a stopping place.”