Funny, in job sites where I live if you show up with cleaned new looking tools or gear the other guys won’t want to work with you. It is considered unprofessional to show up on the worksite with a pair of clean steeltoes and if you do the other guys will deliberately step on them to get them dirty.
Been in the trades myself well over 40 years. I have never heard that having new tools or clothes was a sign of someone being unprofessional. Young, inexperienced or nervous on the job, yes. Unprofessional? Not heard that before. BTW, I was so broke as a young man and proud of myself for being able to buy a pair new boots, if someone tried to damage or vandalize them on purpose I would have beat them to a bloody pulp. Kind of an anger management issue I carried for about 20 years. With all my decades in the trades, making fun of someone is the way of the job site and you have to take your share, but mean spirited bullying and purposely vandalizing your fellow worker's property has never been tolerated.
Your experience in the trades is obviously different that it is here in South Texas. I may be 61, but even now if someone decided to purposely damage my boots, clothes or any other property just because of their ideas on how I dress or the tools I have should be, they would certain answer to me in a most unkind way. You learn how to handle yourself after bit, and no bullying or criminal behavior is tolerated. Not this way so much now, but back when I started out even a the proverbial 98 pound weakling had his breaking point; they settled up with accounts in other ways than straight up fist fights.
I know guys who will muddy up their new boots on purpose, put a few scuffs and scratches on them despite them working at a job site where everyone else there knows they have been experienced there.
Young guys wanting to keep their tools clean? That is so bizzare.
Don't know anyone that insecure on the site. Dirty clothes don't make a better worker or impart knowledge. Worse, those guys are so insecure that they dirty and damage their clothes in some attempt to continue to fit in with the people that know and work with them? Talk about bizarre...
I understand the the new guys and their tools and pride of ownership. If worker's parents buy them tools so they can get a "good start" (kind of like buying your way in) then those guys
don't have much pride of ownership as Mom and Dad will buy them more. And the guys on the job are happy to use those tools instead of their own to lighten wear on their tools. The guys almost always use someone else's tools (think of your knife when lent to someone) harder, so those guys that get their tools used (and get a little wear on them) hold credence with the guys you know.
On the other hand, I can still put myself in the place of the guys that paid as they went, paid out of their own pocket, even though it was decades ago. I remember buying my first professional saw that cost me more than two full weeks of take home pay. I bought it out on time as with rent, truck payment, groceries, etc., it was a big decision and a big purchase. I tried to protect it the best I could, but finally it was no use. Between me and my coworkers, it took a bit of time but it eventually showed the marks of well used tool, one that was reliable, one that made me a living.
I think of things like that saw when I saw the "one tough SOB" knife pictures and I think that is what makes me appreciate it.
Robert
