Cleaned out my work van and found 500 wire nuts

I was doing a full clean of my van this weekend, the first one in maybe two years. I keep a big coffee can for extra wire nuts, and when I dumped it out to sort, I counted them. Over 500, mostly reds and yellows. It hit me that each one of those is from a job, a connection made, a light turned on. I started thinking back to my first year, when I'd buy a pack of 25 and treat them like gold, making sure I didn't waste a single one. Now I've got a can full of leftovers from just forgetting them in a pocket or grabbing a handful. It's a small thing, but it really shows how the job changes you. You stop sweating the tiny costs and just focus on getting the work done right. Anyone else have a weird stash of something that just sort of built up over time?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannah3201mo ago

That bit about the can being a "monument to being okay with waste" is a pretty harsh way to look at it. Most of us end up with a pile of something extra, and it just shows you're getting the work done instead of stopping for every single piece. It's the trade-off for not sweating the small stuff anymore.

martin.riley1mo ago

Man, that coffee can hits different for me. I see a can of 500 and I just see 500 little failures to plan the job right. Every red one in there is a trip to the supply house I didn't make, or a couple extra bucks the boss ate because I couldn't be bothered to count out what I needed. I started putting all my extras back in the van stock bin. Now my pouch only has what I need for the day. That can is just a monument to being okay with waste.

claire_davis311mo ago

My kitchen junk drawer has three pounds of mismatched screws that tell the same story.