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A typical day

On site before seven. Walk around the machine, check fluids, grease the pins, look for cracks and leaks. The foreman tells you what is moving today and to what grade. Then you run: load trucks, cut a trench, push material, blade a pad flat enough that a laser says it is flat. You work around laborers and pipe crews who are a few feet from a swinging bucket, so most of your attention is on where people are. Rain stops some jobs and not others. In a good season you go home filthy and paid.