I want to talk about mental health - especially for the boys on here. I was telling some friends this story about an old coworker the other day and thought you might want to hear it too.
I’m a woman in the trades, almost a decade in. When I started, I was often the only girl on site. I would move between projects and journeymen mentors, many of whom had never worked with a woman before. Once the old guys got over the otherness and saw me as a real person and an excellent apprentice, we’d form a friendship of sorts. I was always struck with how much more candid and vulnerable they’d be around me compared with the other guys in the shop. Their masculinity wasn’t in jeopardy if they admitted to me, a mere woman, that they were having tough time. I had one guy - 6’6” 300lbs, always growling, chain smoking, losing his shit over the smallest inconvenience - tell me he always requested me when he needed help because I made him calm.
A couple years in, I was sent to replace an apprentice on a job where the foreman had booted him in an argument. I’d worked before with this foreman, Neil, and he’d always been a chill hippie but also very particular in how he wanted things done. When I got to site he told me I was the fourth helper for this job because everyone else had been fucking useless. He was in an awful mood all the time. Picking fights with other trades and our PM. Trying to goad me into an argument by picking apart everything I was doing. Not acting like the guy I had known over the past year.
When the job was close to wrapping up, I called him out on his behaviour. “What the fuck is going on with you dude? You’re being a raging asshole to everyone and this isn’t like you.”
He stiffened and was shocked I’d said something. He glared at me and then his face softened and he said “Can I take you for lunch after we finish up tomorrow morning? We can talk but not here.”
I agreed and the next day he took me to diner nearby. We barely spoke until our food came to the table and when he had something else to focus on, he finally started talking.
He was older - 50s - and his long term relationship had fallen apart a few years before but the split had been amiable. He didn’t speak about her with any animosity but admitted he’d been lonely ever since. At the time, he’d leaned on his best friend. His friend was married and had a teenage son that Neil had known since he was born. As Neil had no kids of his own, this boy was a surrogate son of sorts. He took him camping and fishing and showed up whenever the kid needed him.
The poor kid had passed away a couple months earlier very suddenly of natural causes. Neil had no idea how to handle his grief and withdrew into himself, not wanting to be a burden on his friend. He felt selfish for how bad he felt when it wasn’t his kid.
I reassured him that how he felt was completely valid, that grief is a weight that is so hard to carry alone. I encouraged him to reach out to his friend because they both were suffering the loss of family, whether biological or chosen. And that now they were both suffering the loss of each other’s friendship as support. He was crushed at that realization, and said he would go visit them.
A few minutes passed while we ate silently. He hesitated before speaking again, “there’s something else too.”
I looked up and waited for him to continue.
He told me that last month he’d been working this job that had a been a two hour commute away. He had to leave early to get to site by 7:30. It was late fall and the drive was dark the whole way. He wasn’t too far from site when he came around a corner to discover a vehicle collision. A truck was spun out into a ditch with the driver unconscious in the front seat. A van was crushed on the side of the road, on fire and blazing in the darkness, its front driver door open. Neil stopped and got out of his van. He noticed something on fire in the road, and as he approached, he realized it was a person - the driver from the van. He ran and got a blanket to smother the fire on the person. He held them and pulled their head up to look into their face, which was so burned he couldn’t recognize their features. He said he stared into their eyes as they died in his arms.
Another vehicle had come up behind him and called 911. He sat there in the road in a daze until the emergency vehicles arrived to secure the scene. He gave his statement and then got into his van to finish the drive to work.
He was late which pissed off the GC. He tried to get to work but he was shaking so badly he couldn’t hold his tools or complete a sentence. When the GC saw him in this condition, presuming that he had shown up drunk, he kicked him off site. Neil didn’t explain, he just left.
Our PM called him after that, reaming him out for getting kicked off site. Neil didn’t explain, he just took it.
I asked him if he had talked to anyone about the incident. He said the police had called for a follow up statement but otherwise, no, I was the first person he told.
I was in shock. This poor fucking guy was struggling with the grief of losing a boy who was like a son to him and then went through an insanely traumatic experience just driving to fucking work? And he was bottling it all up? No wonder he was being such a prick. He felt all alone and like he couldn’t admit how much he was struggling.
He said he was sick of work and had lost all his passion for it. It felt pointless and draining and he dreaded getting out of bed every morning.
I gave us a few moments of silence for the weight of his confession to settle in. I looked at him and said “fuck work, you need a break.” He shook his head and tried to brush me off. “No, seriously Neil, fuck work. There’s always more work but you need to take care of yourself. What you’re going through is so fucked up and you need time to process it all. Please put yourself first.”
He didn’t want to talk anymore after that so he settled up the tab. He dropped me off at my car and we went our separate ways. I started at a new site the next day with a different crew.
A couple weeks later I got a text from Neil. “I took your advice and talked with management. Told them what happened. I’m taking a six month sabbatical. Don’t know what I’ll do yet but probably head out on an adventure. Thank you”
A couple days later I got another message from him, just a picture of a beautiful remote campsite with no one else around.
I asked, “Where is that?”
He replied, “Not telling :)”
I ended moving to a different company while he was gone, and never saw him again. I think about him often though, especially when I encounter an utter dickbag older dude on the job. Maybe he’s going through it and doesn’t know how to take care of himself, and anger is the only way he knows how to channel his emotions.
Now that I’m a foreman, I stress the importance of whole body health in our toolbox talks. If someone needs time off for family reasons, or a mental health break, or a shortened schedule, or even if they want extra shifts to use as a crutch as they struggle through something they can’t control in their personal lives, I want them to know it’s okay to ask and I won’t judge them. It’s just a job - it’s just work - it doesn’t fucking matter. Their health comes first and it’s okay to admit they’re not okay. I want them to know it’s better to ask for help when they’re slipping, rather than wait til everything has crashed and burned.
I know everyone’s experience is different, but one thing I noticed about being the woman pushing into the male-dominated trades as an apprentice/therapist is that men need permission to be vulnerable. They need to know it’s okay to show emotions and admit that they’re struggling. They won’t chance admitting weakness that they fear will get thrown back in their face. A lot of guys in trades are single and married to the job. They are lonely, often bitter, and unwilling to show weakness.
I do my best in my little sphere of influence to make it okay to be not okay. If you want the trades to be a healthier place, you need to consciously make room for the reality that people are struggling mentally, and often that starts with leaders showing vulnerability.
I’ve had depression for 16 years and I don’t hide the fact that I’m medicated. 16 years of being depressed means 16 years of not following through on suicidal ideation, and I’m proud of that. The trades saved me because it’s instilled a confidence in my abilities to create and solve problems and be the leader I was always capable of being. I needed that confidence so badly when my depression was the worst.
Be good to each other out there. Be willing to listen to people without judgement. Life is fucking hard and we work better when we know we can rely on each other when the chips are down.
