By JIM McKEEVER
This summer’s projects around the house have renewed my respect for those who do manual labor — the kind that some people refer to as “unskilled.”
Whether the term is used as an insult or as a lazy, clueless adjective doesn’t matter. It’s just plain wrong.
These thoughts came to mind, appropriately enough, on Labor Day, which arrived hot and humid as usual in Central New York.
That morning I watched about 10 roofers attack the house next door, tearing off the old roof and laying down a new one, all in just a few hours — a good thing because it was already 80 degrees and muggy well before noon. I could see the sweat-stained shirts from afar.
Unskilled?
You try wielding a roofing shovel and a nail gun in the blazing sun, laying down tar paper and shingles 20 or 30 feet off the ground on a steep pitch.
I watched the transformation of my neighbors’ roof from my new patio, installed this summer by three men who dug it — by hand — and laid out an intricate pattern of decorative pavers (on top of layers of crushed stone) at a 2-percent slope so the rain doesn’t settle on the surface.
Unskilled? No way.
These were not big, muscular guys doing what my father used to call “bull work.” The owner of the company recently turned 50, but has the stamina of the younger men who work for him.
A couple of weeks later, after I had painted my upstairs “office” (a grown son’s old bedroom), four professional painters arrived to paint the living room, kitchen and hallways.
Painting is tedious work, and when I painted my office I cut corners, didn’t prepare the walls properly and missed some hard-to-reach spots. I rationalized that no one but me would ever notice things like the stray streak of blue on the white ceiling (which I later fixed because it was driving me nuts).
I’m glad the four pros who painted the downstairs didn’t check out my work. They spent more than a day patching holes with mesh screen, sanding and taping the walls and putting on just some of the first coat of paint.
Unskilled? Not a chance.
The next day — a Saturday — they stayed late, chatting and laughing as they worked, putting on two coats of paint, three in some areas. Like the patio guys, the painters were respectful of us and our home. I insisted they take their lunch break on the new patio. They clearly enjoyed working together and I enjoyed listening to them speak Spanish.
I have loads of respect for workers like these who grind it out day after day doing “bull work.” Any time I tackle a physically demanding project I’m usually creaky and cranky after Day One.
These folks just go on to the next roof, the next yard, the next house. One day just bleeds into the next.
The same goes with plenty of other occupations that require physical strength and endurance, as well as persistence, mental toughness and intelligence — farm workers, landscapers, housekeepers, construction workers, men and women on the factory floor and assembly line, etc. The list goes on.
Unskilled, no.
Under-appreciated, yes.
Jim McKeever is a co-founder of Sense of Decency.
Sense of Decency 
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I have long held respect for manual laborers. So many do jobs most of us would not or could not do, yet they are the least appreciated. If it weren’t for the ill-paid farm workers, we’d have no food delivered to the stores. If not for the poorly paid and badly treated CNAs patients would lay on filthy linens in dirty diapers. If not for the poorly paid and equally poorly treated nurses patients would die by the dozens. You might survive a bad surgeon. But you won’t if you don’t have a good nurse. The rich run the world and they like to belittle all those who serve. As they have since the beginning of time.
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