Spring is in the Air: To Work or Play?

by Patrick Bresnahan

(2.5 min. read)

Spring has officially arrived and with it comes my favorite time of the year. NCAA basketball March Madness has tipped off, Major League Baseball spring training is in full swing and the PGA tour’s Masters Championship is right around the dogleg. You will have to excuse those horrible double entendres but just thinking about those three events produces an irrational giddiness inside me.  It also produces millions of simultaneous eye rolls from wives and girlfriends around the country who know their husbands and boyfriends will be reduced to full on couch potatoes in the middle of spring-cleaning. More important than even those three things however, is the fact that in North Dakota, we are one step closer to getting the 3 reasons we choose to live here, June, July, and August.

It is clear to everyone that knows me that I love watching sports but even more so than that, I love participating in sports and enjoying the outdoors. While I’m not afraid of venturing into the outdoors during the harsher months of the year, nothing beats teeing it up on the golf course, catching a fly ball in softball, or simply cruising around on the pontoon when it’s 80 degrees and sunny. However, with this annual revival of habitable conditions comes perhaps the most difficult aspect of working at Grain Designs, the management of fun and work.

Perhaps the best part of working at Grain Designs is the fact that for the most part we can be flexible with our work schedule, or at least that’s what I tell myself when I show up at 11am on a Monday. Honestly though, our business is less about working specific hours and more about making sure we meet a customer’s deadline. While making our own hours is a great perk, this time of the year presents arguably the most challenging aspect of our job.

If you visit the shop on a nice day, you may be just as likely to see Phil and I playing catch with the football or batting a few softballs around as you are to see us planing a piece of wood or gluing up a table.  Once the average temperature hits 70 degrees, Grant is usually itching to get to the lake, I’m looking to get to the golf course, and Phil is usually ready to do both.  Blain somehow manages to maintain a deeper level of discipline and heeds the responsibility to keep us on task and away from the golf course.  I’m convinced it is simply because he’s tired of playing double bogey golf and losing bets but even Blain’s self-control isn’t strong enough to keep us off the golf course on the first 65-degree day in early spring.

Although spring is in the air and golf is on the horizon; the warming weather also welcomes our busy season.  As projects from clients and home builders steadily hit the shop floor, our schedules often fluctuate to juggle softball, late nights, and big deadlines.  Although spring weather challenges our ability to work, quality products and client satisfaction remain our focus.

Unfortunately today high winds and a relentless drizzle has confined us to our working quarters but we eagerly await the nice weather and the highly anticipated consensus, “Lets hit the links!”