What I do as a carpenter
“We build really big things out of wood, things like roof trusses, wooden houses or facades. Compared to the work of carpenters, carpentry is even larger, more strenuous and produces things up to ten meters high. Our company is rather rural, so we have a lot of space and very large warehouses. This means we can process wood up to 13 meters long. This gives us much more flexibility when building frames or walls. Other companies often don’t have enough space available for this.”
What fascinates me about working with wood
“When I look at a piece of wood, I don’t just see wood, but all the possibilities it offers. In addition, each piece is unique. The grain looks beautiful, it is rough and smells good. As soon as I come into the hall and the smell of wood everywhere, I feel comfortable. But I also like the heavy tools we work with. Where other companies use truck cranes, we work with muscle power. There is no grumbling, but action. Although I realize that this is an outdated image, for me it is somehow part of masculinity. The majority of men work in our industry, although of course that doesn’t have to be the case. We now have a trainee in our company, which I think is cool.”
How I deal with fear of heights
“It was difficult at the beginning. The first time I was asked to climb onto a scaffolding from a window, I shook my head and said goodbye. That was in my first week of training. Even though I actually have a big mouth, I quickly realized during my training that there was no point in contradicting the master. Of course I still had to go up there. I found that fear of heights is a matter of getting used to. Nowadays I no longer think about height when I work. Now I’m dancing Lambada on the roof. If someone can’t handle the height at all, there are also tasks in carpentry that have to be done on the floor. The most important thing is concentration at work: all the accidents that I have witnessed happened because someone was inattentive. Most of the time you just wanted to do something again. Some time ago, a roofer in our area had an accident at work. This is of course tragic. I have only suffered cuts at work so far.”
How I became a carpenter
“My uncle was an architect and once showed me all areas of construction during an internship. I also spent a day with a carpenter. I must have talked about it for a long time at home afterwards. Because when I didn’t know what I wanted to do professionally after graduating from high school, my mother reminded me exactly that. I then chose a company nearby and wrote an application. As I was about to throw it into the mailbox in front of the company, the boss immediately came out: “What are you doing here? You can come in straight away!” A month later I was there to try out work. I immediately realized that carpentry was exactly my thing. Since my training, I have been looking forward to the day every morning. I never had this motivation during school. I was able to shorten the training to two and a half years by completing my Abitur. It would also have been possible to shorten it even further. But in the first year it’s all about the basics of working with wood. I didn’t want to miss that. I’ve been a journeyman for two years now and will soon be doing my master’s degree.”
What my everyday life as a carpenter looks like
“My alarm goes off shortly before six o’clock, and almost an hour later I’m standing at the hall of my company. Our team meeting is there. My boss then decides who I will go where with and what we will do there. Of course, there are colleagues with whom you don’t like working and also unpleasant tasks. For example, insulating is my personal horror because the material is really itchy. I then have two breaks during the working day and finish work in the afternoon. However, in the trades, people rarely finish on time. If we put up a wooden house in the summer, we can only drive again when the place is closed.”
Imagination vs. reality
“Hardly anyone knows what we carpenters actually do. I notice how our profession is being forgotten. When I’m out and about in my black guild clothes, I’m often mistaken for a roofer. I think that’s one of the reasons why very few people have us carpenters on their radar. When you think of construction, you usually imagine roofers or bricklayers. If I’m honest, I didn’t feel any different before. Although the carpentry profession is very old, it has little presence.