Trowel Spin – May 2026

“Don’t worry about your neighbor’s grass. Focus on making yours greener.”

 Have you ever heard, “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”?

Ok sorry, that was a rhetorical question. I hate it when people ask rhetorical questions. Anyway, here is the story.

Yesterday I helped pour a small concrete project at our shop. I made a few quick (mostly mental) calculations on how much concrete I needed. I ordered 6 meters and the ready-mix truck arrived on time at 9:45. It was a beautiful day to pour a bit of concrete.

Just across the fence two guys were slaving away building a fence. They had a small electric concrete mixer and bagged concrete mix.

We had a ready-mix truck. So far, our grass is greener. Much greener.

An hour later, it turns out that my hasty concrete calculations were in fact, too hasty. We ran short ¼ meter. Now, ¼ meter isn’t much concrete, but when you are looking into the top of formed wall, and the chute of the concrete truck has been scraped clean, short ¼ meter of concrete feels like an infinite quantity.

I knew the concrete plant isn’t going to appreciate bringing a balance with their tight schedule. And I wasn’t excited about telling them I needed a balance on a partial load to begin with. Not that I was too proud of course, just maintaining my dignity.

So, we did the inevitable. We slipped out to the building store and bought bagged concrete mix. The only problem being, we didn’t have a mixer. We mixed it with a shovel in the bucket of the telehandler. It really sucked. The guys across the fence at least had a little mixer. Suddenly their grass was greener. Like a lot greener.

But the essence of the matter isn’t whose grass seems greener. That is a perspective that changes by the day, if not by the minute.

It doesn’t matter so much who you are or what the scale of your operation. What matters is that you don’t make stupid decisions corelative to who you are and what you do. The fencing guys across the fence happily did their thing with their silly little mixer. I ordered ready-mix which was right for me. But I made a stupid decision that just made my job three times as hard as it needed to be. All I needed to do was spend 10 minutes and figure out carefully what I needed. But I didn’t.

I have often said that concrete work is lots hard enough without making it harder by being stupid. But it seems to be a problem that especially plagues concrete guys. I think this problem is born out of the initial need to hustle. Most of us when starting our concrete venture needed to run hard. And rightfully so. It was a race against the sun or the rain or the concrete arrival time. We were always short-handed. And the money was always used up.

But when we do something long enough, we take for granted that it is normal, even when it’s becoming stupid.

I remember a small driveway job we did many years ago. We were under pressure. We didn’t take the time to protect the brick from potential concrete splash, thinking rather to be careful when we poured.  I think we risked rain as well. It didn’t turn out well. Some of what happened was honest hard luck, and some of it was stupidity. But we were working for a customer who didn’t appreciate the difference. To make a long story short, he wasn’t happy, and we weren’t paid.

Take the time to be ready. To have the site accessible. To eat lunch, and your tools ready. Take the time to prep well and protect what you need to. Take the time to make good decisions. You will do a job or three less but end up making more money, doing better work and having happier customers.

Don’t worry about your neighbor’s grass. Focus on making yours greener.