For most of the school year Zingerman’s has been expanding their size.
Ron Alburtus, Jeff Maegele, and Wayde Mosher have been laying the foundations required to build the Zingerman’s expansion.
Every day they wake up and commute to their job sites which usually are in Ann Arbor. Alburtus and Mosher both live near Flint, Michigan. They drive a long hour and a half commute to Ann Arbor, to and from, every day. Maegele however lives in Cass City.“It takes me about 2 hours and 20 minutes to get here,” Maegle said.Maegele gets up every morning at 3:30 am. He makes his own coffee and lunch and heads off to Flint, where he meets up with his co-workers and carpools to Ann Arbor to save gas.
Maegele contrasted the positives and negatives of his job, “I love my Job, but I hate the drive.”
Although they do not enjoy the long drives, moving to Ann Arbor isn’t a possibility. All three mentioned that it would disrupt their family unit if they were to move from where they live now.
The construction company they work for is based in Flint but most of their projects take place in Ann Arbor.
Hard working circumstances seem irrelevant to these men, as they have a job to get done and a paycheck to collect. They wish there were more benefits, but they don’t spend time making their job sound bad. There is a genuine sense that they enjoy their work.
They clearly enjoy the camaraderie that comes with working with men similar to them. The construction workers all have a good sense of humor, feeding the process for an enjoyable day at work.
Maegele, Mosher and Alburtus have worked on many buildings in Ann Arbor such as Ashley Terrace, City Hall, the new Mott hospital, Pfizer, Ross School of Buildings, Museum of Arts, and buildings in the Quad.
With many years of experience, the three men have an intriguing connection with the buildings they have helped construct, “It’s nice to see them when they are all done but the thing is we never get invited back. [We] spend all our time working on them and we never get to see them when they are finished. I spent 4 years at Mott hospital and everyone told me how nice it was. It would be nice of them to invite us back,” said Alburtus.
Without demanding any elaborate necessities, the job gets done. These workers’ number one goal is to earn a paycheck to provide for their family.
Often we forget to thank these men that keep our nation running. Instead we complain about the traffic that comes from construction and the noises it makes, but where would we be without these men? They deserve to be invited back to the buildings that couldn’t have been created without their work, sweat, and most importantly their time away from family.
