July 1, 2025 • 13 mins
Cody travels around as a carpenter for large stage productions. Recent events offered him an opportunity to step into a new, more senior role - leaving him in a quandary that is becoming more common these days.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to On the Job. On this episode, we're
hitting the road with Cody, a carpenter who travels from
city to city building massive sets for a touring theater show.
It's a demanding job with lots of responsibilities, and as
we'll hear today, they were responsibilities that he didn't necessarily
sign up for, so stick around. When you think of
(00:29):
a carpenter, you probably picture someone with a hammer and
a saw, but for our guest Cody, that image couldn't
be further from the truth.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Often when I tell people that I'm a carpenter, the
first response is how can I help them in their
home remodeling? But I think the easiest way to let
them know is that I almost don't handle a single
piece of wood the entire tour, and that tour can
last up to thirty straight weeks.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Now. Typically we like to use full names here to
give people their due credit, but preferred we keep it
informal because while he loves his job, it didn't come
without some struggles and he wants to make sure that
doesn't ruffle any of his higher ups feathers. So Cody
it is. And for the last three years now, Cody's
been living a life on the road, one arena after another,
(01:18):
one city blending into the next.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I just celebrated City one hundred in Columbia, South Carolina.
At the completion of this contract or tour, I will
have completed one hundred and four cities in thirty months.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
It's a life of constant movement. They load in, build
their structures, then the bright lights come on and people
enjoy the show. Then almost immediately after it's breakdown time.
Then load out and off to the next place to
do it all over again.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Life on the road is extremely fast forward. My production
travels as one massive unit of roughly ninety people. We
eat together, we share the same hotel rooms, and we
work in the same arena each week in a different city.
So every week that we unpack our lives, at the
(02:10):
end of the week, we know we have to pack
our lives.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
For Cody, life on the road is a balancing act
between the excitement of a new city and the exhaustion
of living out of a suitcase.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And I think living life and fast forward isn't for everybody,
But I have a great mental fortitude and willingness to
engage in as many experiences as I can in a
short amount of time.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Though for all that mental fortitude, he does on occasion
lose track of where he is.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Most recently in Columbus, Ohio, I woke up and I
needed to get coffee, because caffeine is the golden liquid
when you live this type of life. Well, upon return
from getting coffee, I went back in the hotel and
I went up to my hotel room. My key didn't work,
which is the ultimate kick in the shorts when you're
so tired. So I went back down to the front
(03:01):
desk and I said, Hey, my key isn't working in
my room. The guy said, that makes sense, You're in
the wrong hotel. And I had walked into the wrong
hotel out of delirious overnight travel. So yes, I often
forget where I am.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Before signing up for this rambling existence, Cody was living
a very different kind of life, rooted in community.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Prior to this, I was an athletic and program coordinator
for Clear Creek County and the High Rockies in Colorado,
west of Denver.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Cody loved being part of a small community and that's
part of the reason he went above and beyond at
his coordinator job to keep things running smoothly.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
The next thing you know, the volleyball team is missing
a player. Okay, let's get in the company truck and
go pick timmy up. Oh and guess what, it's game time?
Where's the referees? Oh? Wait, Cody, throw on the pinstripes
because you're doing that too. Well, wait a second, who's
going to pick up the chairs? After all the fans leave?
The dad set them up, but they're not going to
(04:03):
stay after their kids finished, and things start to stack,
and they start to stack, and you're always going to
put that community first when you have my personality and
my character traits. And slowly, that forty hour work week
during the sports season would grow to fifty to sixty
to seventy hours.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
But despite all his efforts and the extra time he
put into the job, being a small town athletics coordinator
wasn't the road to riches. In fact, it barely kept
Cody fed.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It got to the point where I had the local
market texting me when the meats were being put in
the freezer and would be sold at half price. Because
I'm also a competitive strength athlete as well, so that
takes a part of my finances each and every week
as I try to achieve something bigger in that world.
So my life looked like the gym work and outreach
(04:53):
with the community, and I do very much so enjoy that.
But I also know that you take a financial loss
when you choose to help your community, and that's a
very sad fact.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
That ceaseless struggle just to get by started to wear
Cody down. As much as he enjoyed being such an
integral member of a small community, it was coming at
his own expense.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
For the first time in my life, I think I
honestly told myself that you need to take the leap
for your financial future, and you need to sacrifice what
you love, which is a sense of community and meaning,
and you need to put that to the side for
an extended period of time to have a better future.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So when his girlfriend, who was a traveling performer, said
she could get him a job on the next tour
with her, Cody realized the time for that sacrifice had come.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The quick, skinny, and the easiest way to say it
is a nice old dose of nepotism, if we're being honest,
she pulled some strings. My interview lasted five minutes and
thirty four seconds and I was expected to report to
the student in Florida almost immediately upon being hired.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That began Cody's new life on the road, going from
city to city helping the lead carpenter build these massive structures.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
My particular production is held up by chain hoist motors
which have one ton and two ton capacity, and essentially
all my production or my set pieces are steel and
has multiple curtains hanging from it. So picture of the
big curtains that you'd see on a stage show or
a Broadway or if you've ever been to a local
production that curtains. Just times it by about twelve and
(06:34):
that would be what you're looking at.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And that's how it went for a while, learning on
the job, occasionally asking the lead carpenter for help when
he encountered a problem, but incrementally gaining confidence in his
ability to do the job. But that said, he would
by no means call himself a master of his trade.
To reach that level, he knew took years of understudy
(06:58):
or an unexpected tragedy.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
In my case, I watched my boss fall from about
four feet off the ground and his leg snapped and
it looked like gumby, and I knew immediately it was
most likely a broken leg.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Coming up after the break, Cody rises to the challenge,
whether he wants to or not.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Looking for a job is lonely, endless searching, phone calls
that go nowhere, applications that vanish into thin air. What
if you could link with dozens of local companies who
are hiring right now with just one connection. That's Express
Employment Professionals. Find us at expresspros dot com. One connection,
(07:42):
endless opportunities and no fees ever for job seekers Express
Employment Professionals expresspros dot com.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
We're back with Cody, who was working as an assistant
carpenter for a nationally touring theater company until the guy
had him. The lead carpenter broke his leg on the
job and was sidelined for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Twenty minutes later, the expectation was that I brought the
show to Fruition and take over his responsibility with only
six months experience under my belt.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Miraculously, Cody managed to get everything done in time for
the show to start, and when the bright lights flashed
on and the show began, only then could he breathe
a sigh of relief. But his relief was short lived,
because soon after he was called into the office.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I went in, They sat me down, They said, you're
now the head carpenter. This is your pay increase and
moving forward, do the best you can, but we don't
have anybody to assist you for the near future.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
When Cody recalls that meeting, he says, it wasn't much
of a conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I don't know how much asking was involved in that meeting. However,
I do very much so respect and like the two
people in charge that called me in for that meeting,
But I certainly don't think no could have been the answer.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
In those early days, Cody was overwhelmed by the responsibilities
that had been thrust upon him, and rightly so.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I'm responsible for hanging upwards of eleven thousand pounds over
audience members as well as sixty of our performers heads,
and no one prepared me. I am self taught almost
to the core.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
On nights before a show, Cody often found himself staring
at his hotel ceiling, worrying about the work that awaited
him in the morning.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
As I just get nervous about the safety and I
care about what we're putting up for a production, and
when all of that encircles in my head. At night,
you can loose some.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Sleep, and unlike a typical job where you can close
your laptop and drive home to decompress, being on the
road meant Cody could never really escape that stress. It
was an endless cycle, with no pause to catch his breath,
no physical distance to let the weight of the job
slip off his shoulders. And on top of all that,
(10:01):
he was barely making any more money than he was before.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
If we're talking financial gain from taking on, it is
so minimal. I'm not going to say out loud how
much it is, but if I did, it's laughable.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Cody says. That's why some people in his line of
work are perfectly happy to stay in a supporting role
instead of stepping up to the lead. The negligible increase
in pay is not worth the leap and responsibility, and
it turns out that reluctance to rise to a higher
position is a growing trend throughout the country. Business Insider
recently reported that nearly half of all Americans would decline
(10:40):
a promotion if offered. For many workers, the promise of
a bigger paycheck doesn't always outweigh the cost to their
mental health and work life balance. Remember all the talk
of the great resignation during the pandemic, maybe this is
something like the national Nah, I'm good. And even though
Cody did go down that route, he totally gets those
(11:02):
that do.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I think that if you can put your personal life
above your work to a certain extent, that's not a
bad move, and I don't think that makes you any
less of a good employee.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
But for Cody, even though he didn't feel like he
had much of an option to decline taking that position,
he acknowledges that he probably would have said yes anyway,
for better or worse. He's a type of person that
goes all in.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I would say yes again with parameters of seeking some
higher knowledge and having more support, because when it starts
to roll, that snowball is going downhill. There's no plateau
and there's no up. It's only down until it's over.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
To his credit, though, Cody has managed to keep that
snowball rolling about as smoothly as anyone with only six
months of experience could. And when that initial run, Cody
signed himself up for the next tour around the country
as its head carpenter.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
I'm coming up on my one thousandth show, and I
have seen our production. Once you just wear black and
you stay in the shadows, and to not be seen
is to be seen.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But just because he's not sitting in the audience doesn't
mean Cody isn't taking pride in the fruits of his labor.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I feel a great joy for the performer that has
put forth up multiple decades of their life to train
and to possibly play a character that they've always dreamed of.
And when they get a loud applause and they hear
that all their hard work has come to fruition and
the crowd has enjoyed their performance, that brings me great joy.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Cody knows that this road life can't go on forever,
and he looks forward to the day he can set
down roots somewhere and once again be a part of
a community, maybe back in that small Colorado town. But
for now, as the saying goes, in Cody's line of work,
the show must go on. For on the job, I'm
(13:13):
Avery Thompson.
Welcome back to On the Job. On this episode, we're
hitting the road with Cody, a carpenter who travels from
city to city building massive sets for a touring theater show.
It's a demanding job with lots of responsibilities, and as
we'll hear today, they were responsibilities that he didn't necessarily
sign up for, so stick around. When you think of
(00:29):
a carpenter, you probably picture someone with a hammer and
a saw, but for our guest Cody, that image couldn't
be further from the truth.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Often when I tell people that I'm a carpenter, the
first response is how can I help them in their
home remodeling? But I think the easiest way to let
them know is that I almost don't handle a single
piece of wood the entire tour, and that tour can
last up to thirty straight weeks.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Now. Typically we like to use full names here to
give people their due credit, but preferred we keep it
informal because while he loves his job, it didn't come
without some struggles and he wants to make sure that
doesn't ruffle any of his higher ups feathers. So Cody
it is. And for the last three years now, Cody's
been living a life on the road, one arena after another,
(01:18):
one city blending into the next.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I just celebrated City one hundred in Columbia, South Carolina.
At the completion of this contract or tour, I will
have completed one hundred and four cities in thirty months.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
It's a life of constant movement. They load in, build
their structures, then the bright lights come on and people
enjoy the show. Then almost immediately after it's breakdown time.
Then load out and off to the next place to
do it all over again.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Life on the road is extremely fast forward. My production
travels as one massive unit of roughly ninety people. We
eat together, we share the same hotel rooms, and we
work in the same arena each week in a different city.
So every week that we unpack our lives, at the
(02:10):
end of the week, we know we have to pack
our lives.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
For Cody, life on the road is a balancing act
between the excitement of a new city and the exhaustion
of living out of a suitcase.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And I think living life and fast forward isn't for everybody,
But I have a great mental fortitude and willingness to
engage in as many experiences as I can in a
short amount of time.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Though for all that mental fortitude, he does on occasion
lose track of where he is.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Most recently in Columbus, Ohio, I woke up and I
needed to get coffee, because caffeine is the golden liquid
when you live this type of life. Well, upon return
from getting coffee, I went back in the hotel and
I went up to my hotel room. My key didn't work,
which is the ultimate kick in the shorts when you're
so tired. So I went back down to the front
(03:01):
desk and I said, Hey, my key isn't working in
my room. The guy said, that makes sense, You're in
the wrong hotel. And I had walked into the wrong
hotel out of delirious overnight travel. So yes, I often
forget where I am.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Before signing up for this rambling existence, Cody was living
a very different kind of life, rooted in community.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Prior to this, I was an athletic and program coordinator
for Clear Creek County and the High Rockies in Colorado,
west of Denver.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Cody loved being part of a small community and that's
part of the reason he went above and beyond at
his coordinator job to keep things running smoothly.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
The next thing you know, the volleyball team is missing
a player. Okay, let's get in the company truck and
go pick timmy up. Oh and guess what, it's game time?
Where's the referees? Oh? Wait, Cody, throw on the pinstripes
because you're doing that too. Well, wait a second, who's
going to pick up the chairs? After all the fans leave?
The dad set them up, but they're not going to
(04:03):
stay after their kids finished, and things start to stack,
and they start to stack, and you're always going to
put that community first when you have my personality and
my character traits. And slowly, that forty hour work week
during the sports season would grow to fifty to sixty
to seventy hours.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
But despite all his efforts and the extra time he
put into the job, being a small town athletics coordinator
wasn't the road to riches. In fact, it barely kept
Cody fed.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It got to the point where I had the local
market texting me when the meats were being put in
the freezer and would be sold at half price. Because
I'm also a competitive strength athlete as well, so that
takes a part of my finances each and every week
as I try to achieve something bigger in that world.
So my life looked like the gym work and outreach
(04:53):
with the community, and I do very much so enjoy that.
But I also know that you take a financial loss
when you choose to help your community, and that's a
very sad fact.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
That ceaseless struggle just to get by started to wear
Cody down. As much as he enjoyed being such an
integral member of a small community, it was coming at
his own expense.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
For the first time in my life, I think I
honestly told myself that you need to take the leap
for your financial future, and you need to sacrifice what
you love, which is a sense of community and meaning,
and you need to put that to the side for
an extended period of time to have a better future.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So when his girlfriend, who was a traveling performer, said
she could get him a job on the next tour
with her, Cody realized the time for that sacrifice had come.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The quick, skinny, and the easiest way to say it
is a nice old dose of nepotism, if we're being honest,
she pulled some strings. My interview lasted five minutes and
thirty four seconds and I was expected to report to
the student in Florida almost immediately upon being hired.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That began Cody's new life on the road, going from
city to city helping the lead carpenter build these massive structures.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
My particular production is held up by chain hoist motors
which have one ton and two ton capacity, and essentially
all my production or my set pieces are steel and
has multiple curtains hanging from it. So picture of the
big curtains that you'd see on a stage show or
a Broadway or if you've ever been to a local
production that curtains. Just times it by about twelve and
(06:34):
that would be what you're looking at.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And that's how it went for a while, learning on
the job, occasionally asking the lead carpenter for help when
he encountered a problem, but incrementally gaining confidence in his
ability to do the job. But that said, he would
by no means call himself a master of his trade.
To reach that level, he knew took years of understudy
(06:58):
or an unexpected tragedy.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
In my case, I watched my boss fall from about
four feet off the ground and his leg snapped and
it looked like gumby, and I knew immediately it was
most likely a broken leg.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Coming up after the break, Cody rises to the challenge,
whether he wants to or not.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Looking for a job is lonely, endless searching, phone calls
that go nowhere, applications that vanish into thin air. What
if you could link with dozens of local companies who
are hiring right now with just one connection. That's Express
Employment Professionals. Find us at expresspros dot com. One connection,
(07:42):
endless opportunities and no fees ever for job seekers Express
Employment Professionals expresspros dot com.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
We're back with Cody, who was working as an assistant
carpenter for a nationally touring theater company until the guy
had him. The lead carpenter broke his leg on the
job and was sidelined for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Twenty minutes later, the expectation was that I brought the
show to Fruition and take over his responsibility with only
six months experience under my belt.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Miraculously, Cody managed to get everything done in time for
the show to start, and when the bright lights flashed
on and the show began, only then could he breathe
a sigh of relief. But his relief was short lived,
because soon after he was called into the office.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I went in, They sat me down, They said, you're
now the head carpenter. This is your pay increase and
moving forward, do the best you can, but we don't
have anybody to assist you for the near future.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
When Cody recalls that meeting, he says, it wasn't much
of a conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I don't know how much asking was involved in that meeting. However,
I do very much so respect and like the two
people in charge that called me in for that meeting,
But I certainly don't think no could have been the answer.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
In those early days, Cody was overwhelmed by the responsibilities
that had been thrust upon him, and rightly so.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I'm responsible for hanging upwards of eleven thousand pounds over
audience members as well as sixty of our performers heads,
and no one prepared me. I am self taught almost
to the core.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
On nights before a show, Cody often found himself staring
at his hotel ceiling, worrying about the work that awaited
him in the morning.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
As I just get nervous about the safety and I
care about what we're putting up for a production, and
when all of that encircles in my head. At night,
you can loose some.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Sleep, and unlike a typical job where you can close
your laptop and drive home to decompress, being on the
road meant Cody could never really escape that stress. It
was an endless cycle, with no pause to catch his breath,
no physical distance to let the weight of the job
slip off his shoulders. And on top of all that,
(10:01):
he was barely making any more money than he was before.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
If we're talking financial gain from taking on, it is
so minimal. I'm not going to say out loud how
much it is, but if I did, it's laughable.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Cody says. That's why some people in his line of
work are perfectly happy to stay in a supporting role
instead of stepping up to the lead. The negligible increase
in pay is not worth the leap and responsibility, and
it turns out that reluctance to rise to a higher
position is a growing trend throughout the country. Business Insider
recently reported that nearly half of all Americans would decline
(10:40):
a promotion if offered. For many workers, the promise of
a bigger paycheck doesn't always outweigh the cost to their
mental health and work life balance. Remember all the talk
of the great resignation during the pandemic, maybe this is
something like the national Nah, I'm good. And even though
Cody did go down that route, he totally gets those
(11:02):
that do.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I think that if you can put your personal life
above your work to a certain extent, that's not a
bad move, and I don't think that makes you any
less of a good employee.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
But for Cody, even though he didn't feel like he
had much of an option to decline taking that position,
he acknowledges that he probably would have said yes anyway,
for better or worse. He's a type of person that
goes all in.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I would say yes again with parameters of seeking some
higher knowledge and having more support, because when it starts
to roll, that snowball is going downhill. There's no plateau
and there's no up. It's only down until it's over.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
To his credit, though, Cody has managed to keep that
snowball rolling about as smoothly as anyone with only six
months of experience could. And when that initial run, Cody
signed himself up for the next tour around the country
as its head carpenter.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
I'm coming up on my one thousandth show, and I
have seen our production. Once you just wear black and
you stay in the shadows, and to not be seen
is to be seen.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But just because he's not sitting in the audience doesn't
mean Cody isn't taking pride in the fruits of his labor.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I feel a great joy for the performer that has
put forth up multiple decades of their life to train
and to possibly play a character that they've always dreamed of.
And when they get a loud applause and they hear
that all their hard work has come to fruition and
the crowd has enjoyed their performance, that brings me great joy.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Cody knows that this road life can't go on forever,
and he looks forward to the day he can set
down roots somewhere and once again be a part of
a community, maybe back in that small Colorado town. But
for now, as the saying goes, in Cody's line of work,
the show must go on. For on the job, I'm
(13:13):
Avery Thompson.
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