Sometimes it takes blood, sweat and tears

Have you ever helped a band set up and tear down at an event? It’s quite an undertaking. It’s a wonder how bands without a team of roadies can deliver great shows.

One of our employees is in a band. A few of us helped him and his bandmates get ready to play and pack up after an event a bunch of us attended. At the end of the night we told him we had no idea what it took to perform — not to mention the time bandmembers practice on their own and as a group. That got us thinking …

A lot goes into everything of quality. Most of it is invisible to those enjoying the result of whatever the quality item is. Although it’s admittedly dramatic to call it blood, sweat and tears, the behind-the-scenes work can look and feel like that.

No, you might not ever cry during the process of creating something amazing, but if you let the frustration you sometimes feel bubble to the surface, it might want to come out your tear ducts.

You might not bleed about it, but papercuts count, don’t they? If you work with machinery, bleeding falls under GOD FORBID.

The sweat in this scenario may not be literal; looming deadlines can make you sweat on the inside. Even if popping out of your chair a dozen times in an hour doesn’t make you break a sweat, that level of activity can feel like sweating. If you sweat at work in the very literal sense, we feel you. We appreciate what it takes to meet the high bar of quality.  

We’re not just a mill. We’re always setting our bar higher. We have a new planer we’ve been tweaking for more than a year; it’s not ready to make a product that will meet our standards (let alone the standards of our customers).

It takes high caliber, educated people working as a team and striving to be better than the day before to create anything of excellence.

Our wood products aren’t cheap. Our prices are competitive, but our products are not cheap. We dry better. It takes longer. It takes more fuel. We do it because our products will last longer. They’re more stable on a wall. We don’t “cock-a-doodle-doo” very much; we take what we do for granted (and really shouldn’t).

We enjoy making genuine connections with our customers. We’re human, just like they are. We love our customers because they’re people and we’re people.

It’s worth all the blood, sweat and tears.