Talked with an old foreman and it changed how I look at lumber staging

I was chatting with this guy Al who ran crews back in the 90s up in Seattle. He said they used to stage material by hand with paper lists and a two way radio, no iPads or load tracking at all. It hit me different because I've been complaining about our new digital system all week, but he told me about a job where they lost an entire truckload of studs because someone wrote the wrong lot number on a sticky note. Now I'm thinking maybe the tech isn't the enemy, it's just how we train people to use it. Anyone else have a moment where a older worker made you rethink a modern process?

2 comments

2 Comments

graydavis15d ago

And there was a guy I knew who ran a framing crew back in the early 2000s, swore by handwritten cut lists on napkins. He lost a whole custom window order because the napkin got coffee spilled on it and nobody could read the sizes. After that he switched to a whiteboard and never went back.

the_emma15d ago

Wait, a whole truckload of studs just gone because of a sticky note? That's insane. Can't even imagine explaining that to the customer or the boss.