The white hats

Matt works as a project manager on large-scale construction developments.  The first time he told me this, he might as well have said he was a mitochondria security facilitator for all I understood. I’d always thought of “project manager” in a computer-slash-office setting, and I’d always thought of “construction” as outside work that people without college degrees do to support their families.

Oh, Melissa.

Now I know that hundreds of thousands of people choose this field because they are passionate about it and good at it and like it. Husband included.

And now I also know how to ask semi-intelligent questions when we download our day over dinner. Not so long ago, I surprised both of us when I said something like, “Oh, in this situation, you functioned as owner?”

Nailed it.

I’ll be the first to admit, my eyes glaze over when Matt describes the quality of various grades of “fill” (i.e., dirt) or the nature of stress tests (evidently nothing to do with blood pressure or heart rate). But sometimes? Sometimes we talk about something that happened on the site or in the office or on the phone or in a meeting, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

For instance, the white hats.

Some background. Anyone who works on a construction site has to wear a hardhat. So far, so good. At Matt’s site, which he visits every morning for a couple of hours, there are hundreds of laborers, and everyone has a very specific job to do. And everyone wears a specific hardhat.

For varying levels of safety, you might ask? Like if your job is to stand under a crane that lifts heavy things, your hard hat needs to be bigger and stronger than if you are the intern carrying around fat roles of blueprints?

Nope. Everyone’s hardhat has to be equally effective. Where they differ is in color.

Color?

Yes, color.

On Matt’s job sites, the bigwigs, managers, executives, peeps-who-make-the decisions wear brown hardhats. And if you are mega special, your brown hardhat has been hand-painted with your name in a particular gold font reserved only for your hardhat. (Matt’s mega special.)

Everyone else? White hard hats. Unadorned. Plain. Identical to almost everyone else’s hardhat.

When Matt told me this, we happened to be talking about the “multitudes” often mentioned in the Gospels, the masses of people who came to hear Jesus speak, who brought him their physical and emotional aches, who were hungry for both food and truth.

Let’s be clear: the multitudes were at the low end of the socio-economic spectrum. In his book We Make the Road by Walking, Brian McLaren describes them this way: “[The multitudes] provide cheap labor in the system run by the elites. They work with little pay, little security, little prestige, and little notice” (106).

Matt and I were reading the book together (it’s a thing we’re doing in response to the fact we no longer go to the same church—a topic better left for another day) when we came across McLaren’s description of the multitudes. Matt said, “Oh! Got it. The white hats.”

He explained that the people who wear the brown hats, the bigwigs, the bank, the dudes in charge, are in the minority on the site. AND AND AND these guys and gals refer to the rest of the people on the job site as “white hats.” They don’t call anyone “white hat” to their face, exactly. They just refer to them that way.

The majority laborers are not called tradesmen, plumbers, electricians, welders, pipe fitters, or any other job title, that, let’s be clear about this, probably didn’t require a college degree, but is highly skilled and sometimes (but not always) highly paid.

White hats.

And then Matt said that every once in a while, to offer honor or congratulations or gratitude to someone who typically wears a white hat, that someone is awarded a brown hat, their name emblazoned in swirly gold letters and all. Or when a brown hat wearer retires or dies, that person’s hardhat might become a forever part of the foundation of a construction project. Loads of ceremony and a few tears and good feelings ensue.

I asked Matt what would happen if he, one day, opted to wear a white hard hat on the job site. “Happens once in a while,” he replied, when he accidentally leaves his brown hardhat in his truck or office. “Does anyone notice?” I asked. Seems a guy named “Bob,” a brown hat for sure, remonstrates him. Reminds Matt that it’s important for the white hats to know who the boss is, who’s in charge on the site, who’s paying the bills.

(Secretly, I like to think of “Bob” as the Roman Empire or even, bless me, a Pharisee. My own hard hat should be inscribed Self-Righteous Ass, by the way.)

It was an interesting conversation we had, my sweet man and me. We talked about the white hats in our lives, when we know the names of their kids and whose aunt is sick and what the plans are for the holidays—and when we don’t. We confessed to each other that we don’t know these things as often as we should. That we, too, generalize and label rather than clasping hands and locking eyes.

We repented. We promised each other we’d do better.

I’m proud of Matt. He knows many, many people on his site. He values people over projects. He refuses to yell or intimidate in a field where coercion is the norm. And hat colors matter not one iota to him. He’s become uncomfortable wearing his brown hardhat. He wonders what might happen if he never wore it again.

All this leaves me wondering, Who are my white hats? What groups of people do I see as a multitude rather than as neighbors and friends? Where am I generalizing and judging, making assumptions, and clinging too tightly to my own status as separate, other, and, consequently, better?

All over the damn place.

So I confess again now (and ever) to Matt, to you, to my friends, and to God. I repent of my Roman Empire-like behavior, my Pharisee-esque stance. When my instinct is to elevate self, to seek attention, to be better, righter, smarter, and more together, I want to stop for a moment and remember the upside-down ways of the Man I follow, the ways that insist on low and small, quiet and humility.

Call me on it, please. I need you, my people of all hat colors.