New Experience

Last weekend, I was given the great opportunity of working on a guy's roof. I know him from work and he asked a few other guys that I work with to help him. I knew that I needed the money (after all, I just got the key to my house yesterday which cost me first month's rent of $250). Anyway, he offered a pretty penny for the work - almost twice what I get paid at my regular job - so there was no way that I was going to turn it down.

Friday, I realized after the weekend was out, ended up being the hardest day. The sun was high and hot; the humidity kicking my butt. The work that I did that day was the most physically demanding as well. I helped tear off two layers of shingles. The first layer came off with relative ease, and we had removed it all within a few hours. The second layer, however, was a completely different story. It took us the remainder of the day, plus another 3 hours the following day to remove the second layer from the roof. I'm not going to complain because the hours that I ended up working paid off big time, but if the guys that had laid the second layer of shingles had actually done their job by taking off the first layer before laying the new layer, we may have completely finished the roof during the weekend.

After our second day of work, the guy asked the four of us if we wanted to come back on Sunday. He said there was a lot of work yet to do and he could really use our help, but he understood if we wanted a day off before going back to work on Monday. I was all over it. The other three were more hesitant. I showed up to his house alone Sunday morning and, as it turned out, the other three guys missed the wrong day. A morning storm kept the rest of the day relatively cool; the work was a lot less physically demanding as we basically just nailed down boards of plywood all day; and breaks were numerous. In addition to all of that, he fed me lunch and dinner. Score for the college kid who's paying for his own groceries!

While the money I made from this opportunity was more than I could have asked for, the new experience that I gained was priceless. I learned things this past weekend that I will carry on to when I own my own home (God-willing). I am no expert roofer by any means, but at least now I have some basic knowledge of the steps that need to be taken in order to fix a roof if ever the necessity arises (God forbid).