Source: MASONRY CONSTRUCTION MAGAZINE
Publication date: March 1, 2007

By Jamie Holliday

Company loyalty isn't something that can be demanded from workers. Paying a competitive salary, providing a great benefit package, and supplying first-rate equipment certainly helps, but these points alone do not bring loyalty.

Many company employees want and need something very basic from their jobs, and from their employers –recognition. This seemingly simple idea is far too often overlooked in today's busy work schedules.

Look at the positions we offer for employment and ask, “Is this a job I would want?” Pulling up to a jobsite at Oh-Dark Thirty on a drizzly, cold, wind-blown morning isn't what most of us dream about. Shaking the ice that formed overnight from the tarps, unwinding half-frozen cords, climbing scaffolding, and checking for toe boards and cross braces before the other workers show up wasn't even in the menu of the aptitude tests I took in high school.

But then, neither was standing six frames up on someone's cabin, topping out, watching an eagle family teach its young to fish. Or learning the smell of rain, and later snow, when it was coming, and when it was time to roll up early and head home.

There are so many things we love about our residential masonry lives that it's hard to explain to someone outside the industry. The freedom, the artistry, and the way of life are intoxicating.

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