An Introduction to Contractors

Contractors fascinate me. They always have. They are fundamentally different from other people. They have their own language of sorts and their own curious customs and mannerisms, like Klingons, or French people. They have cool belts and cool stuff (multitools, wee little anodized flashlights, and other things that would be handy to have) fastened to their cool belts. They look different, and they smell different. They smell like work getting done.¹ In this perhaps, contractors are not so much like French people.

Contractors think in numbers: in feet and inches. They are problem solvers. If you could have visual access to the chalkboards of their minds you’d see complex diagrams and critical path schedules projecting far into the future.² They know stuff I want to know, like what a molly bolt is. I catch myself trying to impress them: Within minutes on a job site, I’m squinting and spitting and walking through mud puddles with a purposeful swagger, saying things like “At’ll do ’er.”³

Contractors are good with tools. They know how to store a power cord without getting it all Jackson Pollocky. They know how to use winches.⁴ And when they use their power cords and their tools and their winches, they wear fancy hats with stickers on them.

Contractors aren’t afraid of pain. They are thoroughly unimpressed with the finger-smashing potential of powder-actuated fasteners and nail guns and 16-pound sledgehammers wielded by guys named Kenny. In this, they are like Klingons. And also like Robert Duvall, strolling on the beach in Apocalypse Now. They are a tough people—–the progeny of simi- larly tough people who built things for a living, who in turn were the offspring of other toughies far into the past, back to the days of guilds and beyond, when we all had Sonny Bono hair.

You should consider becoming fascinated by contractors. Houses and buildings and bridges don’t just magi- cally appear. They are painstakingly crafted from chunks of formerly lifeless material by this clan of work-smelling problem solvers who can read floor plans and who can build what they read. Without them, we wouldn’t have places, and that would suck.
 

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  Why Is Jane Smiling?

  So you’ve brought home an ebullient new contractor to turn your wreck into the Ritz. How to do it? Read on.

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  Why Is Joe Frowning?

  So you’ve brought home a bumbling new contractor who’ll turn your Ritz into a wreck. How to avoid it? Read on.

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  In the Nick of Time

  Though contractors are unusually deft with tools, accidents do happen. SawStop puts an end to that.

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  Building Tomorrow

  What will the future hold for contractors and builders? We asked three industry leaders for their prognostications.

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  Words You Should Know

  Bid: How much the contractor will charge to build the house. Different than “estimate.” (“Bid” is to “estimate” as “getting wife flowers” is to…