Welcome to a tale about working smarter, not harder. Even in professions of high responsibility, or highly mental work, I'm sure this still exists. This story entails a job that was neither.
At this point in my past, I was living and working in Denver, CO. I'd found employment working construction for a General Contractor. The day this memory lands on was a demolition job.
That being the case, my biggest responsibilities were to not hurt myself and to not burn the house down. Beau, my boss, was in the middle of a remodel he had taken on for some friends of his.
Away With The Marble Flooring
I doubt the flooring was actual marble, but it definitely wasn't tile. Whatever the material was that made the old flooring, it was laid in big sections and hard as rock.
My task that day was to hammer and chip away at it as best I could. A large portion of the entry way from the front door forward was already complete, with piles of rubble heaped about.
I went to work with a hammer and chisel, then switched to a crowbar. A flat bar bent without breaking the solid floor and I realized I'd never have enough leverage if I turned it sideways (strong ways).
Slow Down To Speed Up
Besides the strength of the marble-like flooring, it was fixed with mastik or some type of resin adhesive. Tearing it off had exposed 3/4 inch sheets of plywood underneath. The plan was to lay nice new tile that matched the new colors of the home.
Waldo was my bosses partner and after an hour or so, he went to check on a different job site. By his own words, he expected the job to take at least another week if not two.
Left alone to work, I didn't last long. Making very little progress with maximum effort, I decide to reassess how I was approaching the situation. At this point in my life, I wouldn't have called myself a stellar employee being hung over every day.
I had, however, spent almost 4 years moving heavy machinery and was well aware of the concept of using leverage. And that's just what I did while my bosses were away!
The Right Tool For The Job
Even in demolition; if you're not making any real progress, you're not using the right tool. It's a poor workman that blames his tools, so I went and found one that would get the job done.
And the perfect tool for this particular job just happened to be a two-wheel dolly. You may know of it as a refrigerator dolly. The bottom blade wasn't as short but still had thick metal. An industrial strength two wheeler would do the trick. I could already see it working in my mind.
Using the hammer, I wedged in the small flat bar and created a small gap between the flooring and ply wood. Then I took the dolly and slammed in the blade as hard as I could. It scooted more than half way under the marble- like flooring.
Weight and leverage we're all that was needed to complete the job and I had plenty of both. I leaned back hard and quick on the top of the dolly and the flooring cracked off in a large section. Instead of chipping away at it, I was pulling it off in broken sheets of flooring.
A Two Hour Break Before My Boss Returned
Snapping off the remainder of the flooring with the two-wheel dolly was a breeze. I was done in less than an hour. Maybe two after taking out all the debris. I called my boss to see if there was something else I could do and he didn't believe I had finished.
So I swept and did other menial tasks, but mostly just chilled out until Waldo returned. I wish I could have captured on camera the look on his face when he saw the job complete. He couldn't figure out how I did it.
When he asked I simply replied, "I decided to work smarter, not harder".
And a lightbulb question from my old boss came back to me in that moment, "Why do you keep carrying a 130-pound dolly when it has 6 wheels built into it"?
That was the day I learned to think before I worked.
Happy Hiveing!!
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