Back in '08, I had to pick between a tower crane gig downtown or a mobile crane job on the highway project. Went with the highway.

4 comments

4 Comments

And you picked right. I drive past the interchange my crew poured back in 2011 every morning. No billionaire is paying you to say you built their skyscraper. That road is yours forever.

drew_hart42mo ago

Funny how @the_fiona brings up the money. Sure, tower cranes pay well, but that highway job gave you something better: a story. You can actually point at a stretch of road and say you built that. Try doing that with the 40th floor of some glass box nobody remembers. The view from up there might be great, but the legacy is pretty thin.

the_fiona2mo ago

That highway project must have been huge. Did you ever look back and wonder how the tower crane career path would have gone? Tbh the money on those big downtown builds can be wild.

mark_ward2mo ago

Honestly, who doesn't think about the money at first? I totally did. But working on that highway changed my mind. You drive past something you helped make every single day, and it actually matters to people. A fancy condo just doesn't give you that same feeling, even if the paycheck was bigger.