Welcome To The Job Site Reality

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome back to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm Yusuf, and tonight we are going somewhere most podcast would into the lunch break trailers, the truck cabs, the early morning drive to the job site, where some of the heaviest mental weight is in the country's being carried in silence. My guest is Kim Pierce, and a work centers on the pressures construction workers face on the job. The stigma that keeps them from speaking up and what it actually takes to change a culture that has trained people to push everything down. By the end of this episode, you'll see this industry differently. And if you or someone you love works in it, you might just feel a little less alone. Kim, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Perfect. So

Kim Pierce On Living The Pressure

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Kim, before we go into the harder territory, I want to start somewhere more personal. The work we end up doing in the world is almost always rooted in something we had to live, see or lose first. Nobody walks into the mental health recovery advocation in construction by accident. So before any of the starts or strategies, take me back, but pull you into the work of in this work in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Well, I was a uh iron worker construction worker uh back in my early 20s through my 30s, and I felt the pressures of mental health in during my work. When I became a safety professional, I tend to be able to monitor it better with the crews because I was through it myself. Um, the pressure of, you know, getting the job done, uh, the long hours, the travel to from job sites, you know, working sun up to sundown, and then trying to maintain a home life too. Uh it it builds up and becomes a lot. Uh being laid off from a job, you know, created a lot of uh depression for me and anxiety. And it was back in 2007 that I actually started seeing um a psychiatrist to help with it because I just couldn't take the stress anymore. And so it's something that is still very near and dear to my heart because I still see a psychiatrist today just to help with my stress from the jobs and the traveling and everything. So it's uh something I watch out for on the construction sites that I'm on.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that. Um you know, there's a kind of work that only gets done because somebody loved someone enough to refuse the silent friend. And I think tonight is going to be one of those conversations where that refusal really matters.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I agree.

The Misconception That Costs Lives

SPEAKER_01 3:47

And Kim, there's a misconception sitting underneath how most people see construction. The image of the tough guy, the hard hat, the man who can handle anything, strong arms, stronger silence. And inside that image, an entire generation of workers has been trained to believe that needing help is a weakness and talking about what is heavy is a risk to their job, their reputation. So, what is the misconception about mental health in construction that is costing the most lives?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

I think the biggest misconception is the fact that nobody can help when there are other people probably on the same crew, if not the same job site, that are suffering from the exact same thing you know, you are the anxiety, the pressure from home, the pressure from the job. Uh, the places that I see it the worst is with the leaders on the crews, the the foreman and the superintendents that are physically working with the crews because they're trying to make the um client happy, they're trying to make their superintendent happy, and yet they have to manage all these men and women on their crew that maybe are suffering their own mental health illnesses. Um you see a lot of um alcoholism, um, a lot of absenteeism uh on crews when they're very top. And so trying to maneuver crews around to make sure that you have enough people, that creates a lot of stress on the managers, on leaders that have to manage that crew. So what a lot of crew workers don't understand is that there are options within their insurance where they can get help. It's anonymous. They can just call up and you know, tell them, hey, I've you know, I'm having this issue, you know, where can I get help or what can I do? Um, the advent of um telemedicine, um, telehealth uh visits has helped tremendously in making that more available for people so they don't have to take time off jobs, time off their work to be able to go physically into a doctor's office. You can have a 30-minute session in your vehicle at lunchtime, you know, you don't have to leave the job site anymore. So the problem is solvable if there is a solution.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah, but why is nobody talking about the solution?

Stigma Why Men Stay Quiet

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Because yeah, please, please.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

The as you stated earlier, um especially among men, the older generation, which is now my generation, though those older uh men on the cruise, you just never talked about it. They were they were brought up where you keep your feelings inside. If you're having an issue, you talk about it with your wife, or you talk about it, you know, at home, not on the job site, not to a doctor, because they don't want to be seen as weak with more prevalence of mental health issues, especially among men. And the, I mean, they have the one of the highest suicide rates in construction is men, that there is help and they need to talk about it. I have gotten to the point on my job sides when I know somebody's having a slight issue, I'll go up and just, you know, gently tell them, hey, if you're having a problem, just come and talk to me. I can help you and get them in the right path and let them know my story. Having been there and dealt with it on a job site. I mean, my when I was going through it, my crew members were like, what is wrong with you? You know, I would snap. I would be fine one minute, and the next minute I would be biting somebody's head off just because of stress and anxiety and depression and just keeping it all in. And when that happens and somebody starts saying something about it, you know you need to get help somehow, somehow. I just happened to have a friend that worked in the um psych industry, and she's like, hey, we can do this, and you can get help. And so I was comfortable talking to her about it, and it um made a big difference, took a long time, but it made a huge difference. So I'm I'm trying to be more open on the job sites for people. I just had a recent um experience with that with a guy. He was dealing with stuff at home. Um, his mother is very sick with cancer. He's her her care provider, but couldn't afford to have somebody come in during the day to stay with her. So, you know, he's fielding phone calls and making sure in the morning that he's got everything set up for her and everything. And so he's constantly got that on the back of his mind. And, you know, I told him there is something you can do. Let your supervisor know this is going on. So if you're distracted, he understands, or if you need to step away to take care of things, they will understand. It's not just that you're distracted and being lazy on the job, or you're absent because of you know, you just not showing up for work or had a late night, you know. So there are there are conversations that need to be had. Um they need to be more open, people need to be more open about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

And

Travel Money And Seasonal Stress

SPEAKER_01 10:36

you know the picture on a construction site is not only physical. There's the financial pressure of seasonal work, the chronic pain that gets numbed with whatever is available, the long hours away from family, the boss culture, the injuries, the overnight. You know, it's a start of pressure. Walk me through what these workers are really carrying, that rest of us, the ones in the offices, in the zoom calls, don't see and don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

So one of the biggest things I see um in construction, and I am still on the road. I st I I live in in Florida, but I travel all over the US, even as far as Alaska and Puerto Rico. So the travel. Um, a lot of uh workers are transient, and some of them don't take their families with them. A lot of them do nowadays, but the financial strain of finding being on a project, number one, that's working overtime, and number two, that you are having to supply two households, basically. You have your family at home in another state, and then you have to have your living expenses out of a hotel or a camper or whatever it may be. So there's that that strain there because if it rains, you don't work. If you don't work, you don't get paid. Um, and that's from a crew standpoint. Um the workers that are part of the company, so your project managers, your sometimes superintendents, they get per diem, or they're with the company, and there's other jobs they can be working on even when it rains, even though the job site they're on is rained out, they've got other things they can do to keep that those hours going and get your full paycheck for a week. So yeah, the financial um strain and just the travel on on the family and everything can be a real, real hardship uh for some to get used to or to handle. Um so it's uh it's it's one of those things that's real big on uh causing a huge stressor for the family. You know, seasonal unemployment is another one. You know, if you work in the northern states, if you're not uh willing to travel to work, you're just laid off in the wintertime. Well, then you're getting unemployment, which is usually a third or a half of what you normally make a week. So that financial strain can can uh cause a big problem too, especially if your wife doesn't work, you know, um, or your husband doesn't work and you're the sole provider. So it's uh the finance portion of it is is a huge thing, not to mention, you know, to go along with the pressure of the job itself.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah.

What Breaking Silence Looks Like

SPEAKER_01 14:00

But Kim, I feel the change here is not going to come from a corporate poster in a break room. I think it happens in the small ordinary moments, you know, four men who notices a guy is quieter than usual, in a friend who asks one more question instead of letting it go. Maybe in a wife who sees something shifting and finds the courage to name it. So what does the everyday version of breaking this silence actually look like?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Um the corporate side of things, I think the job sites and the people running the job sites need to be vocal about the fact that they understand that there are pressures. There are time pressures, there are long hours, irregular hours, um just the different stressors that are work-related on the job sites. And I think they need to let the workers know that they understand that they get um get it when people are, you know, really feeling the pressure and and to internalizing it and taking it in, but they have no release for it. One of my recent projects I was on, they actually had a medic, a um mental health person, and a physical therapist on the job site. So if somebody was feeling anything, they um were available to stop in and say, hey, I'm dealing with this. What can you help me with? Or is there something we can do? Um, so they made that available on the job sites. And it was it was really nice. Um, you know, they they were observing, you know, mental health months for the month of March. And it makes um a big deal that some guys don't think that, hey, that is a problem, or hmm, it's here, maybe I can stop in at lunch and see what I can find out and maybe get some resources where he can he or she can move on to help themselves and do it more privately than um you know voicing it out there. I'm one of the few people that tell people, yeah, I have problems. I see a psychiatrist regularly. Um and it works for me.

Resources Book And 988 Lifeline

SPEAKER_01 16:47

So Kim for people who want to connect with you or want to support your cause, where can they do that?

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Uh my book, um, The Hands That Built This. And I talk about the mental health crisis and some of the things that go on on the job sites in uh chapter seven of my book. And there are um a few different resources that I've have listed uh for veterans, um, for construction workers in general. Um and one of the things that I have is the the it's called 988lifeline.org, that it's free and it's open to anyone. Uh it's a great resource for anybody that's looking to get some mental health help uh and just can't get home to deal with it. Um my book can be found on my website, which is pierceauthor.com. Uh I have a few other books on there also, but um it's also available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Perfect. And to everyone listening, all these links are in the show notes, so just go and check those out. Kim, any last message that you want to leave us with?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

If you need help, get it. Talk to somebody.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Thank you so much, Kim Bang. This has been a very real, really grounding, and you know I used to see that particular kind of industry. Thank you so much for that.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Not a problem. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Absolutely. If you're listening to this and you work in construction, or you love someone who does, I want you to take one thing with you tonight. The silence you have been keeping or the silence you have been watching from outside does not have to last another week. One conversation, one honest question, one moment of refusing to let it slide can change a life. Maybe yours, maybe someone who have been worried about for a while. You don't have to fix it tonight. You just have to stop pretending you did not say it. That is enough for now. This was Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I am yourself. Thank you, Kim, for the work you are doing and you listening. Take care of yourself, take care of each other. We'll see you in the next one.