Glaziers' coughing woke Simmy from a night of light slumber.
Walking in the footsteps of his Dad, young Glazier made himself two peanut butter sandwiches and sat down on the stairs, at the back door, to lace up his work boots.
"Ach, I need new laces. These boots have just about had it but I'm trying to get them to last until it's cold enough to wear my winter ones."
Simmy listened.
"I've gone through about 10 pair of laces in the last couple of months."
"Why would that be?" Simmy took a closer look at the work boots. "There has to be something we can strengthen them with"... she envisioned tying metal with fabric."
"They already make that," he said, as if he was reading her mind. "The boots, originally, came with Kevlar laces."
"Where did you buy the boots?" Simmy asked.
Young Glazier told her and then opened the door to go to work. "Oh," he stopped, "it's raining!" He heaved a 'bane of construction workers' sigh and said dejectedly, "Have a nice day."
Construction is not for the weak, she thought.
'It's my Dads' birthday today,' Simmy thought.
She opened 'Good To Great' to see how that might correlate with her life experience. Page 51...
'In determining "the right people," the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience. Not that specific knowledge or skills are unimportant, but they viewed these traits as more 'teachable/ learnable,' whereas they believed dimensions like character, work ethic, basic intelligence, dedication to fulfilling commitments, and values are more ingrained.'
Immediately, Simmy recalled the day when her Dad had been overseeing the pouring of the concrete for the foundation footing of this house she and Sam were still living in. She'd watched him shouting instructions to the Crew, 'this man of experience but no formal education.' His frenzied instructions and emotions and finally,... grabbing the chute the concrete was pouring out of and directing it to where it was needed, had given Simmy a feeling of reassurance that her Daddy was taking good care of his daughter, as she sat in the car with a huge pregnant belly.
That same day, after the concrete footing was curing, she'd joined her Dad for coffee break. Simmy had asked all the right questions that day... and heard lots of right answers that corroborated what Collins was saying in this book, 24 years later.
With the wisdom of 'Patriarch of the family,' her Dad had explained that he'd watched the footing of the house two doors down, being poured. He'd paused, shaking his head. "They watered down the concrete," he said with the righteous anger borne from a righteous place of having done the work without the privilege of formal education, himself.
"Why would they do that?" Simmy had asked, a naive young woman who 'did what was right.'
"Lazy, trying to save money, end of the day... didn't want to wait for another cement truck..." he had offered reasons with a voice of disgust.
Then he'd looked Simmy square in the face and spoke a world-wide truth which he still stood by today and even Sam had heard it a number of times, "You always pay twice- once for the learning!"
Dimensions of Character
You taught us how to get up early
You taught us how... to work late
You taught us how to do things right
No matter how long the wait
You taught us how to be on the level
And not to take the lazy gait
You told us that a good wo-man is worth her/his wages
and just to charge a fair-day rate
You showed us how a wo-man of intention
Can make her/his way from trait to trait
Measure twice, cut only once
To make a name of 'no berate'
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