Guest Post: Joe Pote, “Carpenter’s Helper”

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series as much as I have, as writers have shared their reflections about lessons learned their very first job. Today, Joe Pote weighs in. The man from Hope, Arkansas writes at Redeemed and is a frequent commenter to this blog. He writes on relationships, divorce and reconciliation and has tremendous insight and application of biblical truth to modern times. Care to join in the project? Drop me a note here.


Jim was a big bear of a man…tall, large, loud, boisterous.  One Sunday he stopped me after church, to ask if I’d like to work for him that summer, building houses.  I jumped at the chance.

The next morning, I met Jim at the designated jobsite.  I climbed out of my car to face a pile of lumber beside an empty concrete slab.  Jim looked up from pulling tools and equipment out of his truck to ask, “Do you have any tools?”

At my negative response, Jim told me I could find a nail pouch and hammer in his toolbox.  After tying the nail pouch around my waste and filling it with nails, I asked Jim what to do next.  

“Grab my saw from the truck.  Get the yellow extension cord.  Plug into the outlet on that pole, and set up saw horses,” Jim responded. 

I spent most of that day nailing 2”x4” studs to follow Jim’s plan layout.  The job didn’t seem to require a lot of thinking or decision-making, just following orders and working hard.

Occasionally, I found myself waiting for Jim to finish a layout or to give me directions.  “What are you waiting for?” Jim would call, “It’s not break time!”

“Just waiting for you to finish that layout,” I’d respond.

I soon learned to anticipate

Jim’s next directive, “Do something, even if it’s wrong!”

It didn’t take me long to realize Jim meant what he said.  

As long as I worked for Jim, I don’t recall him ever acting upset at me for a mistake.  Mistakes were simply treated as part of learning, and correcting mistakes was simply part of the job.

However, Jim expected his employees to pay attention and always find something useful to do, without having to be told.  I learned, while waiting on Jim to finish a layout, to start carrying studs over to stock the next wall, or to start setting up saw horses for cutting bottom plates.

Jim’s pet peeve, seeing an employee standing doing nothing, was always met with, “Do something, even if

it’s wrong!”

With money from my first paycheck, I bought my own tool belt, tape measure, square and hammer.  By the end of the second week, I no longer waited on Jim to tell me what needed to be done.  I stepped out of my car, scanned the jobsite while strapping my tool belt on, and started working on what I could see needed to be done, until Jim instructed otherwise

About a month later, Jim met me at a jobsite, showed me what needed to be done, then left me to hang insulation board while he went to work at another site.

Though I tried not to let Jim know, I was pretty proud to be trusted to finish the job without supervision.

I learned a lot from Jim that summer.  I learned to show up ready to work.  I learned to always look for what needs to be done next.  I learned to take initiative, even at the risk of making a mistake.

Oh, and I also learned that hanging reflective insulation board can lead to sunburn.  I’m still not certain about Jim’s motive in letting me do the job on my own that day…

So how about you? For the next couple of weeks I’ll be highlighting voices from around the world, reflecting on what you learned at your first job. Send me a note here and join in! Click here to subscribe and not miss a single post. The Archive is here.