Cleaning the Backyard

Cleaning the Backyard (How Organization Became a Career Booster)

Welcome everybody out to this blog. In this blog, I’m going to do something a little bit different today. I’m going to try and get to a hundred blog that not only would people like out there in the industry, but would be applicable to my family. Let’s say I died and they’re like, “I want to hear dad’s voice. Have him tell some stories.” I’m going to tell some stories.

And this one’s about cleaning the backyard. If you’re interested in that, please stay with us.

I hope you’re doing well and staying safe out there. And I hope everyone is about to enjoy the weekend. I was literally thinking the other day, I don’t have any historical records or anything from my ancestors or grandparents, other than the family history files. And it would be super neat to leave something that’s not only cool for the industry, but for the family. I don’t know if they would ever want to hear from me, but it’d be kind of fun. Like, let’s say when I’m gone to check out those blog, we’ll put it into a series. It’ll be called the family series, I think.

Let me kick it off by saying that throughout my career, one of the biggest, most important things that I focused on that I was taught was cleanliness, cleanliness and organization and perfect cleanliness and organization, not just mediocre, not just a little bit. And I’ll give you a little bit of history here.

The Roots of My Obsession with Cleanliness

Recently I went to Japan with Paul Akers and that whole country, there’s not a piece of trash anywhere. And there’s not a trash can anywhere because there was a foreign terrorist, I believe, that put a bomb in one of the trash cans. And so, the government was like, they’re a little bit like that in Japan. They’re like, “Okay, no more trash cans.” So now people carry little baggies with their trash and they take it to their end destination. And they have very little trash.

It costs them a hundred dollars per person per year to incinerate their trash and remove the pollution. I went to the incineration plants. And it was organized, beautiful. Not very many folks had to work there. It was safe. They can rebuild them every 15 years. I mean, it’s just a remarkable situation. And the Japanese people produce such little trash that they’re able to do it for a hundred dollars per person per year. It’s super-efficient, super amazing.

So even with no trash cans around, because the Japanese people are so disciplined and clean and because they don’t produce a lot of trash, they don’t have trash anywhere. They’re super clean. So, like cleanliness and 3S and 5S, you know, sort, set in order, sweep, shine, standardize and sustain. Like this is at the core of stability and standardization. I’m really big on that.

And I look back, there was a project manager. He was the project manager at the time. Now he’s a big time executive. Blake Christensen said on the cancer center, when I was an area superintendent, he was like, “Jason is clean, but it’s not clean enough.” And then watching the 1970s Patton movie made me just absolutely fanatical about cleanliness.

When I went to Germany, to visit Dr. Marco Binninger and Dr. Janus Louie, and then did a hop over to visit with Niklas Modig in Sweden, who I just talked to the other day, when I landed in Bavaria, Southern Germans don’t really like to be called Germany, they like to be called Bavaria because it’s a very specific part of Germany, and it’s beautifully clean. As soon as I got there, I was like, “Yeah, these are my ancestors.”

The reason I know that I’m mostly German is through family history. All of my known ancestors immigrated from Germany. And I felt that. If you remember Prussia, they were the very strict, pointy hat with the spear on the helmet, perfectly clean, crazy Germans. The Prussians were exact and everything. And I was like, “Yeah, these are my ancestors, but I’m a loud American.” And I love that about myself.

When I went to Japan, they were beautiful, clean, meticulous, and very kind. They were overly caring. So they were my kind of people. I keep teasing people. I think I’m really Japanese. But anyway, I just realized the other day, all of this actually had its roots in my childhood.

The Backyard Story (Age 13 and a Half)

And I did get a little bit obsessive compulsive. I used to, at one point when I was a teenager, vacuum my floor in one direction so that the carpet all looked the same. And I didn’t like footprints in the carpet. And I would make my bed to the point that I would pin the corners of the sheets to where they folded properly. And it was always clean, smelled nice. Everything was washed and beautiful.

But let me tell you this. 13, 13 and a half, having some scuffles with my dad. He was doing his best, but kind of coming from the old school way of disciplining. When your kids are tired as teenagers and probably instead of connecting, he accused me of being on drugs and some other things. And I wasn’t. And I was just getting tired of it.

And it was summer break and I remember playing Nintendo. I think it was Nintendo 64. There was a Star Wars game and I kept trying. And I just remember just having had enough one day of my parents teasing me. And I was like, “You know what? Screw it.” So, I just put the video games away.

And my parents had two and a half acres out in the high desert in Apple Valley, California. And the sand would blow all over. And my dad had a tractor and camper shell and railroad ties and all kinds of things that he was saving. My mom is a throw it away, buy it again kind of gal. She’ll just toss it all. That’s kind of how I picked that habit up, which isn’t great. I used to get accused early on of throwing away anchor bolts that we needed.

But I got fed up with it and we had a little tractor that ran. So, I just, on my summer break, I kid you not, no exaggeration, I just started moving all this stuff out of the back and then grading it out, moving the sand out to the front. We had berms out in the front and then restacking it nicely on pallets. And I remember going through the entire yard and it went from kind of like a sloppy, and I’m not making fun of Californians, but if you ever go to the high desert, it’s like a whole bunch of open lots without sidewalks and it looks like they’ve got 10 used cars in every lot. It just looks really trashy. And that’s kind of how the yard looked.

But then after a while, it looked like a pristine, almost Lean-like yard. It was really nice. And I remember getting so much love and praise from my entire family that I immediately got addicted. In fact, when we do Super PM boot camps and people identify their biggest blocks as having to work hard or needing to be perfect, I’m like, “Yeah, all of us had to, at a certain point, earn our parents’ love. And we probably did it through hard work. And now we’ve got to break through that block to leadership.” So, I know what that’s all about.

Anyway, a whole two and a half acres. And it still looks like that today, actually beautifully organized. I did the whole thing and graded the yard. We did everything, got the tree bushes trimmed back, everything organized, all the sand that had piled up over the years out to the front berms, regraded the front berms, graded the roads. And when I was done, then I asked, illegally actually, for a job with Conco construction. They were a tilt-up company and that was my career. And I worked, I’ve worked ever since then because I got addicted to doing a good job and working hard and gaining people’s love and approbation by doing those things.

How Organization Became a Career Booster

And so, I realized that, yes, I talk about Lean, Lean did change my life, but I’ve always been a fanatic for cleanliness and organization for a couple of reasons:

• For mental health: Cleanliness creates stability and standardization. When everything is clean and organized, your mind is clear. When everything is chaotic, your mind is chaotic.
• To earn love and praise and affection and to work hard: That summer when I cleaned the backyard, I got so much love and praise from my entire family that I immediately got addicted. I learned that hard work and organization earn respect.
• Because it became a career booster: At Conco, I would never stand around. If we were waiting for concrete trucks, I would go literally just empty everything out of the back of those trucks. I would take everything out. I would sweep everything. I would clean the shovels, the rakes, the come-alongs, everything. I would clean the bull floats, I would oil them. I would make it nice. And the truck was always nice and tidy. And it proved to be one of those things that would make everything better. I was always that way at Hensel Phelps.

I remember quitting Hensel Phelps the first time around for like three and a half, four years because I needed to get my life in order for my family standpoint. And the first job I picked up was actually installing the foundation for and wiring pivots for irrigation, for agriculture. They trusted me so much that I had a truck with a trencher with a little backhoe attachment to it. And I would go dig, set, place all of the foundations for these pivots. The Mennonites out there in Texas would come set up the actual pivots. And then it was my job to go through and wire it.

I remember that’s when I used to cut the wires so short and neat that it was hard to repair the panels. And that’s where I learned to leave some extra, like to loop some extra cabling in the panel so that if we ever had to repair anything, you had some extra cable from the component connections. I would wire these things. And I remember just stripping down the entire truck. It was a big diesel and I had a welder on it. I had all kinds of cool stuff on it to go do this work. And I 5S and Lean that thing out like you would not believe. Like it was phenomenal what I did. And it was so tricked out and organized.

One day when it was raining, when we couldn’t work, I just worked in the shop and did that all day and got it so dialed in that like that rig was like the envy of the company. It was really quite cool. My point is that kind of organization has been a mainstay for me and a career booster like nobody’s business. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

The Lesson from the Backyard

So, I just figured I would tell this story. Hopefully everybody appreciates it. And every now and then I’ll do other stories like that. The lesson from cleaning the backyard at 13 and a half is this: cleanliness and organization are not just habits. They’re mental health. They’re respect. They’re career boosters. They’re stability and standardization. They’re the core of everything good that happens in construction and in life. As we say at Elevate, cleaning the backyard at 13 taught cleanliness and organization. Earned love through hard work. That discipline became a career booster. That’s the story.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did you clean the backyard at age 13?

Because I was fed up with being accused of things I wasn’t doing. I put down the video games and spent my summer break moving, grading, and organizing two and a half acres. I got so much love and praise from my family that I got addicted.

How did cleanliness become a career booster?

At Conco and Hensel Phelps, I would clean and organize trucks and equipment when waiting. The truck was always nice and tidy. That organization made everything better and earned respect. It became a career booster like nobody’s business.

What did you learn about organization in Japan and Germany?

In Japan, there’s no trash anywhere even with no trash cans. It costs $100 per person per year to incinerate trash. In Bavaria, it’s beautifully clean. That’s when I realized my ancestors were Prussian Germans who were exact and perfectly clean.

Why do you still talk about 5S and cleanliness?

Because cleanliness and 5S (sort, set in order, sweep, shine, standardize, sustain) are at the core of stability and standardization. It’s mental health. It’s respect. It’s a career booster. It’s everything.

What’s the lesson from the backyard story?

Cleanliness and organization are not just habits. They’re mental health. They’re respect. They’re career boosters. They’re stability and standardization. They’re the core of everything good in construction and in life.