TIL my old crew leader hit 40 years on the same job site and nobody knew

We were doing a tear-out on a 1970s bungalow off Whyte Ave last month and the basement suite had this weird half-finished drywall patch. My crew leader, Dave, looked at it and laughed. He said he did that patch in 1985 when he was an apprentice for the same company we're subbing for now. I asked him how long he's been at it and he counted, said 40 years this September. Same trade, same city, mostly the same streets. That hit me weird because I've been doing this 6 years and I've already switched contractors twice. He's seen three generations of homeowners argue over beam placement and watched the permit rules change like six times. I asked him why he stayed and he just shrugged and said the work keeps coming. Has anyone else run into a guy like that, someone who's been on the same crew or site longer than the houses they're working on last? What keeps them from bouncing around like the rest of us?

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gray5442mo ago

My dad was the same way, 35 years framing the same valley, and I used to think it was boring until I watched him walk onto a job and know every stud that was ever moved in that neighborhood. That's when I got that staying put isn't about lack of ambition, it's about becoming part of the ground you stand on.

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