Typical Day
Glenn Glasmann wakes up at 6:00AM, immediately showers, and is out the door by 6:30AM. Glenn's uncle Joel had owned a glass company for eighteen years and agreed to give Glenn a glazier apprenticeship. He gets to work just before 7:00AM and sure enough, Joel and another assistant, Phillip, are there already. Glenn parks, grabs his things, and walks over.
"Morning Glenn," Joel says a bit loudly. Years of working on construction sites had damaged his hearing, forcing him to project more than he realized. His lungs were just fine. "Time to load up and get across town to the work site." Joel's business, Glasmann Glassworks, had a contract to do all the glass for a mixed-use retail development. Glenn was sure to learn a lot about glazier work during this job.
The crew pulls into the graveled lot and up to one of the taller structures, unloads, and walks in. Glenn looks around overhead, trying to figure out why there's almost no second floor.
"Look at these blueprints, son," Joel said loudly, making Glenn jump a bit. "Can you tell what this is going to be?"
"Um," Glenn stumbles, "oh, a dance studio. No wonder there's such a large order. Mirrors will be everywhere."
"That's okay. It'll save them on paint. Here's the thing though. Each of those mirrors cost a mint and they're very heavy. You'll see what it takes to get these up on the wall where they'll stay."
Nodding, Glenn joins Phillip in helping to finish unloading the truck. "Sorry. Joel was showing me the blueprints."
"I heard," Phillip said, grinning. "It's a good thing Joel didn't go into the ski lodge business. He'd get ten avalanches a winter."
The crew starts by measuring the back wall, installs a French cleat molding, then hangs the first large mirror in the center. The mirror is then shimmed by sticking small pieces of wood behind it until it's plumb. The crew steps back to admire their work.
Joel motions to the corners of the room and says, "You always want to start in the center of a room on the most visible wall. That's what people first see when they walk in. Smaller sections can go in the corners because that's the easiest place to hide your mistakes."
"That's where he found me, standing in the corner all those years ago," Phillip joked.
Joel snorted. "That's the truth. In the corner, right where you belong."
Glenn laughed. He's grateful to be working in a group that gets along well and works hard. If he could develop his artistic side enough and learn to be as good as Uncle Joel, one of these days, he could be running the family business.
Around 10:30AM, after putting up two more of the big mirrors on each side of the center, they would have to cut two sections to go into the corners. Glenn grabs some cutters and checks the measurements he'd written just on the underside of his wrist.
"What are you doing?"
"You said we had to cut two mirrors out for each end, so I'm getting ready and re-checking the measurements."
Joel shakes his head. "I should've said this earlier. You do all the centers first, then the corners. That way, if you happen to damage a mirror, you can cut that part off, and stick the rest in the corner."
"Because it's been bad," Phillip deadpans.
Glenn nods at Phillip. "You'd know, man. And, good point Uncle J. I see exactly what you're talking about."
At noon, Phillip takes lunch orders and goes to pick up food while Joel and Glenn go over more of the blueprint.
"What's the curved thing here? Looks like we're putting glass on it," Glenn asks,
"A mirror, actually. That's going to be a hot job. We've got to heat a flat sheet of glass so we can bow it around a template, coat the back to make it reflective, and then assemble it on site."
"Bent glass? That sounds cool."
Joel looked puzzled. "There's absolutely nothing cool about heating glass until it bends." Joel waits a beat, studying Glenn's slightly stunned expression. He grins wide and slaps Glenn's shoulder. "But, it does look amazing when it's done."
After lunch on site, the guys finish hanging all the mirrors except the corners. Tomorrow would be a lot of cutting and polishing to get the corner pieces right.
"What's next if we're going to wait until tomorrow to do the big corners?" Glenn asks, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Why don't you tell us, huh? Let's see what you've learned so far," Phillip says.
Glenn looks around. Small finished mirrors were still in the stand of the truck bed. "Oh. Bathrooms. We need to hang those smaller mirrors in there."
Joel stands up, clapping Glenn's shoulder once more. "We're going to let you do those, Glenn. Take charge."
"As my first act of being in charge, I select Phillip to be my lackey."
"Uh, your uncle is supposed to be teaching you."
"Yes, but bathrooms are small. With two us of in there Phillip, you'll be in the corner the whole time. Right at home." The three laugh as Glenn and Phillip gather their tools to start work in the bathroom.
Using a stud finder and a laser level, Glenn marks the right spots, drills two holes and then screws in the clips that will grab a mounting strip along the back of each mirror.
Joel admires the job as Glenn finishes shimming it to an exact perfect plumb.
"Nice job, son. But, you don't have to do quite as much detail with one single mirror as you do with a whole wall. This one doesn't have to match a next door neighbor, so to speak."
Glenn nods. "Oh yeah. I see what you mean."
Packing up for the day at 6:00PM, Phillip tells Glenn when he first started glazier training he had dropped a tool and it ricocheted just enough to crack the edge of a large piece of glass.
"But, Joel was cool about it. He reworked a few things and we were able to use the damaged piece for cut downs."
"So you didn't get in trouble at all?"
"Had to use my scoring tool to write sentences on a scrap piece of glass about never dropping my tools again."
Glenn gets home at 7:00PM, sore and stiff from the day's work, makes himself some dinner, and packs his tools for the next day. As he brushes his teeth, he notices his bathroom mirror is ever-so-slightly crooked and smiles to himself.