Friday, October 14, 2011

Construction Is NOT For Girls

Girls- have you ever tried to use a drill at an odd angle? Held a pneumatic nailer? Hand nailed something over your head? Maybe some of you have amazon hands and hand-eye coordination that I lack because I have a heck of a time with construction type work. As I said before, I don't know my fractions so I have to add and subtract in my head...slowly. This tends to make the foreman (ie Jarred) REALLY angry. I also lack the skill to use a roofing nailer in my left hand while standing on a ladder holding up a piece of siding. When the foreman says, "Don't be a weenie, just push the thing into the house, it will work." but my hand is shaking and the siding is now crooked, I know that construction is not my calling. But here I am, on a ladder with a roofing gun. Over the summer I realized that most tools are not made for girls. They're heavy and large. Not conducive to girl hands. What does this mean? It means that when a couple takes on their own large house project, the girl is stuck going to to the dump, or caulking the siding for hours at a time, or sweeping, or picking up nails with a magnet..... My least favorite job this summer was caulking. All the seams between the siding must be caulked before we paint. This is a tedious job. The seams are never ending, just when I thought I was done, Jarred would slap up another 18 pieces of siding and I'd start all over again. My second least favorite job was going to the dump when it was hot. It was hot when this photo was taken and I had a truck and trailer full of old siding, roofing materials, tar paper, ect... I had to stand at the stinky dump and unload all of this myself. Why myself? Because tools are made to fit a man's hands.

1 comment:

Noni said...

Sarah...I think you just hit on a good idea and possible money maker...design construction tools that are "woman friendly"....lighter, more manageable yet still capable of getting the job done!