Checking In On Each Other

Take five with me. This one's not about fall protection or lockout — but it'll keep a man alive the same as any of it.

Straight talk: our trade loses more people to suicide every year than to all the jobsite accidents put together — the falls, the struck-bys, all of it. These are good hands. Guys like us. And most of the time nobody saw it coming, because we're built to suck it up, keep our business to ourselves, and never look weak in front of the crew.

I'm asking us to ease up on that — not to go soft, but to look out for each other the same way we'd flag a bad rig or a sketchy trench.

You know your crew. When a guy who's usually squared away starts showing up different — pulling back, drinking more, getting reckless or short-fused, saying things like "they'd be better off without me" or "I won't be around to deal with it" — that's not nothing. That's a bad sound coming off the machine. You check it.

And here's what nobody tells you: if you're worried about a man, you can ask him straight out. "You doing alright? Are you thinking about suicide?" Asking does not put the idea in his head — that's a myth. Most of the time it's the first full breath he's taken in weeks, because somebody finally noticed.

You don't have to fix it. You're not his counselor. If it's bad, don't leave him alone — stay with him and call.

And if the man you're worried about is you — there's no shame in any of this, and you're not alone on this crew. Same goes.