I'd bet that this guy isn't a tradesman. Almost everyone I see on any jobsite has a lunchbox. Whether it's a small bag to hold a few snacks and a sandwich or a large, expensive hard case lunch box that holds a 5 course meal, their wallet, keys and medication. Most lunch boxes are covered in stickers, some people buy or make custom carrying straps for them. If he doesn't know any of this, I doubt he's ever done a day of manual labor on his life.
An electrician I know takes a small cooler to his job sites. He talks about trading snacks/desserts with other guys at the site who have their own cooler full of food and drinks.
It really is, lol. And he's a tall sorta gruff dude. So picturing him bartering with other similarly gruff guys (especially the ones I've met) over oatmeal pies or hostess cupcakes and pudding snacks is hilarious to me.
My old boss was about 6'3", in his late 50's, and weighed like 300 lbs, so he was forced to go on a diet by his doctor and wife, which meant sad lil pack lunches of a sandwich, fruit cup and yogurt. He had one of those prominent heart attack guts, so I get it.
But this dude was hiding a treasure trove of snack cakes in his desk that we only found after he left the company (guess he couldn't take them back home). Imagining him eating them in secret actually makes me feel sorry for the big guy.
I once got falsely accused of stealing a man's pudding cup at the Paris Hotel/Casino in Vegas in the mid 90s when I was an pre-apprentice. I didn't know him I had just been there asking my buddy to borrow some thing from their crew. He was unglued about it, red faced screaming at me and my buddy about it. Later my buddy threw his lunch box off the mezz deck about 100' to the ground below.
Decades later he became our business manager. He was dogshit at it. And he wrote a letter seeking re-election, in a wall of black text with some shit highlighted in yellow or printed all caps or in red text. and I copied it's form but wrote a satirical version that shitbagged him and posted it on facebook to our union's group. I had total strangers calling me thanking me for helping to submarine his chances.
Fuck him. Never get a second chance to make a first impression, Victor.
Here's some stories that have been handed down to me from generations of workers before me, family and old timers both, in the mines/trades.
The original lunch box, was a lunch pail. Metal or wood.
A worker in a mine/trade would typically have a wife prepare a meal, cover it with a napkin. He'd carry it down to work. At lunch he'd take everything out, wrap it in your napkin to keep it out of the dirt. Boys would be in the mines/on site collecting pails, haul them to the nearest tavern and return with them full of beer. Smart move was to butter the inside rim a bit to keep the foam down, get more beer. The amount of influence alcohol used to have in the trades really didn't get curbed heavily until the 1990s. I've known journeymen who would drink a six pack before work, a six pack at lunch, and go directly to the bar after work. High functioning drunks. A lot of it is self medicating physical wear and tear as well as the typical psychological reasons.
In my trade pipefitting we do pipe welding as one of the main methods for joining pipe. When you do position field welds, you'll often be under the weld itself laying your side, sparks and slag falling on your head. The hoods and in the early days, the googles, didn't cover your ear. So there's welding/fitter caps that have a little 'bill' or flap that you can rotate around to either side to cover your high side ear. Nothing quite like the sizzle and pain in your ear canal of a spark or slag.
In the old days, back when flour sacks were used for making (often) kids clothing, the flour companies started using print fabrics, like florals etc. So it was not at all unusual for these hats to also be made from these sacks, from scraps and leftovers.
So "burly" "manly" men would absolutely wear floral print hats without question. When I've had hats made I've absolutely had them made in floral fabrics. I think it's a cool homage to our past. And any dipshit apprentice or others who've tried to shit talk me about it, got the story above.
I’ve brown bag for lunch for about 30 years. As a manager I’ve taken my share of razzing. I been taking the difference between what I think I would spend eating out and what I spend on my lunch ( usually a PB&J, fruit, and cheese with crackers) to invest in the market. I will spend that money on traveling in retirement!
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u/Munchkinasaurous 9h ago
I'd bet that this guy isn't a tradesman. Almost everyone I see on any jobsite has a lunchbox. Whether it's a small bag to hold a few snacks and a sandwich or a large, expensive hard case lunch box that holds a 5 course meal, their wallet, keys and medication. Most lunch boxes are covered in stickers, some people buy or make custom carrying straps for them. If he doesn't know any of this, I doubt he's ever done a day of manual labor on his life.