Scope of Work is holding a contest around the idea of “umarelling”, the act of pausing to observe construction work in progress.
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I love that there is a word for this.
They took it down several years ago, but ITER, the huge fusion plant project in France, had a livestream of the construction of the main building where the torus will live. I would watch it for hours. Setting forms, pouring concrete, watching the cranes move things around. Endlessly fascinating.
When my son was tiny, intense, and obsessive, we lived and breathed Richard Scarry... so there were times I'd drive him around town until we found a construction site to watch. One afternoon we hit gold: excavators, rollers, bulldozers, dozens of dudes all working like crazy. Plus, there was a bus stop bench on the sidewalk, so we sat and watched for at least an hour.
Finally, one of the construction workers broke away from the group and slowly walked across the lot to us. I was nervous, thinking we'd overstepped and that he'd ask us to move along. Instead, he gently removed his hard hat, looked at me and said, "I just wanted to let you know, I'm so sorry, ma'am. We're gonna have to break for lunch."
I will be entering this contest!
I guess I'll add umarelling to my list of hobbies (and my LanguageTool personal dictionary). It's always fascinating to me. There are currently 3 construction projects happening in viewing distance of my porch, and I've taken several lunches sitting and watching the teams work. It's loud and annoying usually, but when I just pause and watch what they're doing, I'm always interested.
Love Scope of Work! Spencer Wright is a talented dude
Respect to the work, the workers, and Umarelling, but there is a joke in here somewhere about reverse catcalling and I'm not clever enough to discern it.
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