Working carefully

Our governor has allowed certain construction jobs to resume. From the few examples I can see, it’s going well.

After weeks of a stay-at-home order idling pretty much every construction project in Pennsylvania, the governor revised his guidelines recently, allowing some construction workers and contractors to go back to work. We have two construction projects going on where I live, both handled by the same company – one has resumed; the other hasn’t.

One involves expanding an existing structure, and most of the work is being done outdoors. Walking the neighborhood yesterday, we could see that maybe seven or eight workers were involved in that job. Each was doing his own thing, well isolated from the others. All were wearing masks. They were working quickly and efficiently, clearly happy to be back to work.

The other project is an apartment building, but the worksite is still quiet. The last time I saw them working it was clear that most of the work at that point was being done indoors in, I’m assuming, close quarters.

Clearly, the company in charge took a careful look at what needed to be done and deemed it OK to resume work at the one site and still comply with state guidelines for businesses during the pandemic. The other jobsite, apparently, would not comply and they wisely decided to wait a bit longer to resume the work there.

I’m glad to see that at least some local carpenters and tradesmen in my corner of the world are able to resume their livelihoods. I’m also glad to see that the business owner is smart enough to know which of his current jobs have the higher risk, and has wisely decided to forgo those efforts a bit longer.