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If You Know, You Know. And You Show

Some of the most powerful lessons I ever learned didn’t come with a title slide or a breakroom whiteboard. They came with a glance, a grunt, a gear shift, and a quiet, unspoken “watch this.” The ol’ timers didn’t hold meetings, they held moments. Subtle, fast, and easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention....

But I was.

I chose to see, to study, and to perfect. To take it all in, not to copy, but to elevate it.

I wasn’t handed a playbook, I built one from muscle memory, late nights, and second chances. What they gave me didn’t come with applause or certificates. It came with wet jeans, and dirty hands, grease-stained boots, and the kind of lessons you earn standing in the dust, watching and doing, not sitting behind a desk.

Now, I return the favor.

But I don’t announce it. I don’t corner someone and say, “Let me teach you something.” That’s not how this works. That’s not how they did it for me.

I do it the way they did, quietly, in the shadows of the work, during the “hold my beer and watch this” moments. When the lift is tight. When the slope needs finesse. When a new operator’s eyes dart for reassurance they won’t ask for. That’s when I step in, not to correct, but to guide. Not to claim credit, but to make sure they get it right.

Because training isn’t about showing what I know. It’s about showing them what they’re capable of.

I don’t train to be the loudest. I train to be the one they remember when they’re finally left alone with the blade and the pressure. When they pull off something they didn’t think they could and look around like, “Did anyone else see that?” And I give the nod.

That’s enough.


There’s a kind of magic in the quiet. Not the kind you find in a redundant conference room style round-table discussion or a training manual. I’m talking about the kind that happens after the last truck leaves and the sun dips behind the cell. That’s when the real work starts, the kind of teaching that doesn’t make it into the agenda, but changes everything.

That’s where I fell in love with leading, with sharing, and with training.

It wasn’t in a corner-office or in some onboarding binder. It was in the hush of dusk, standing next to a compactor with a man who’d been running that beast longer than I’d been in the industry, longer than I've even been alive actually. He didn’t say much, but what he did say stuck. “Feel the rhythm. Don’t fight the machine, move with it.” One of the same legends that while training me to run the D8 in the borrow area, blindfolded me and threw out, "If you can't feel it, you'll never run it." That's not just instruction. That's initiation, and that was it. And it was perfect.

I’ve carried those lessons with me, and now, I get to pass them on.

Teaching and training the frontline is my calling. These are the folks who make or break a landfill. The operators, the laborers, the scale-house staff, they’re the backbone, the heartbeat, the ones who notice a "problem" spot in the lift just by the way the dozer feels pushing across it. And too often, they’re the ones no one invests in. I do. Because I've lived what it feels like to be overlooked, and I know what happens when someone finally sees your worth.

And let’s be real, it’s not always easy.

There’s usually at least one, sometimes two, who make it clear from the jump that they don’t want to hear it. Especially not from a woman. Sometimes it’s subtle, a refusal to look me in the eye, a quiet snicker when I start talking about load balance or safety berms. Other times, its louder, outright dismissal, a challenge, a scoff just to see if I'll flinch.

And then there’s the Leo's of the world.

Leo was the one who got under my skin, but not in the way you’d think. He wasn’t the loudest or the worst. He just didn’t believe. Not in the process, and certainly not in me. He was sharp, skilled, and seasoned, but his arms crossed the second I walked up, and they stayed that way for days. When I offered to ride along with him (he was the lead operator for the ADT (haul-truck) Operators.), he said, “No offense, but I don’t think there’s much you can show me.”

I smiled. “Let’s find out anyway.”

So, I rode. I asked. I listened. And then one afternoon, his rearview caught me standing knee-deep in the muck, a mix of waste from the mornings operations and mud skimmed off the surface of the access road and tipping pad, now pooled near the slope we were working. I was helping the somewhat new operator who was struggling to cut in a clean slope line. He watched. He didn't have to say it out loud, I could tell I'd earned something. And once he shifted, the rest started to follow. Not all at once, and not with fanfare. But one by one, the eyes started to meet mine. The nods came easier, and the jokes weren't as sharp.

Operators who “cut clean” earn quiet respect. They know how to read the land, feel the machine, and keep the blade steady even when the terrain fights back. There's a quiet joy in helping operators find their own rhythm, their own style, their own way of mastering the machine. And there's nothing like that moment when they glance over at me, a grin on their face, because we both just saw it. They nailed it. That cut, that grade, that shift in confidence. It's a look that says, did you see that? And I did. I always do. There's no real way to describe that feeling, its part pride, part connection, and all heart.  

The next morning, Leo walked up with his coffee and said, “Okay, show me how you set up a spotter line on a blind corner.”

We both knew he already knew how. But that wasn’t the point.

The point was that respect isn’t owed, it’s earned. And sometimes, earning it means staying patient through the pushback. It means not flinching when they test you. It means showing up, again and again, even when you know they hope you won’t. Because at the end of the day, the job isn’t to prove I belong. I know I do. The job is to make sure the next generation knows they can, too.

So, when I teach, I do it in their language. I talk the talk, not corporate jargon or textbook terms, but real, lived-in language. The kind you learn one shift at a time. The kind that sounds like home to a team that’s been in the field since before daylight.

I meet them at the machine, not the monitor. Not from behind a desk. Not with a clipboard. I climb into the cab, I walk the slopes, shoot the grade, and pound the stakes. I stand in the dusty, hot, and at times cold and wet with them. Because that’s where credibility lives, in the boots, not the badge.

I don’t run through PowerPoint slides; I run through the job. I show, not tell. I let them feel it in their hands. I slow it down, back it up, walk it again if I have to. Whether we’re setting a blade, dialing in a slope, or perfecting the corner placement and compaction on a lift that's trying to tell its own story. I’m not there to preach, I’m there to partner.

Because in this line of work, trust doesn’t come from titles. It comes from showing up in the mess, in the heat, in the moments when it would be easier to point than participate. I’ve earned more respect in muddy boots than I ever have in clean ones.

And when they see that I’m not just visiting the field, I am the field, that’s when the walls come down. That’s when real learning begins.

I’m not just passing on tricks, I’m transferring trust. 

And those small, dirty moments after hours, when someone turns to me and says, “Hey, I never thought I’d say this, but… thanks for that” those are the moments I never forget.

It’s not just the words, it’s the tone. The way their shoulders drop just a little, like they finally let go of something heavy. It’s in the gravel in their voice. The way they nod once and walk off like it never happened. But you both know it did. That’s the moment trust changes hands.

Not because I proved something, but because I stayed long enough, worked hard enough, and listened deep enough to earn it.

It’s never about recognition. It’s about giving someone a reason to believe in themselves again, or maybe for the first time. It’s about seeing the spark when they realize they can run that machine smoother, smarter, and safer. When they start taking pride in the precision of their work. When they stand a little taller, because someone finally saw what they bring to the table.

That’s where the real legacy lives. In the field. In the daily grind. In the people who almost didn’t believe but did anyway. So, if you know, show.

 
 
 

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