Be Careful What You Don’t Wish For – You Might Just Get It
I was curious this year about the kinds of Christmas gifts those in the world of construction might expect to receive. Many times people pick gifts for you based upon your work. Since people in construction are pretty unique and have a lot of different talents I thought there’d be an amazing array of really cool gifts out there that people would be considering for us.
Starting out at Gifts.com I selected “men” and then “home improvements” (they didn’t have a category named construction) and the top five items went like this: a shop vacuum that hangs on the wall; a work jacket; the Looj; a sci-fi faucet and nite lite (this is a light you screw onto the faucet that lights the water blue every time you turn it on); a log carrier that looks kind of like a wheelchair; and a laser tape measure.
If you are a woman who is a construction person then Gifts.com doesn’t really have a category that very closely matches your work. So I chose the closest thing and that was “home decorator.” In that category the top five were: pet beds that fold up when not in use; rectangular vases; French soap shaped like animals; a wine rack that looked a little like ribbon candy; and a personalized music box (the one ordering can have it engraved).
If you are thinking there’s just no way anyone would give you one of the above you should be aware that I was looking at the “most viewed” sort option.
In November of last year Judith Blakley wrote a highly rated article for Associated Content listing the top 10 gifts for construction workers. That list started with clothing and footwear as the first three items. Next came “offbeat tools,” and she listed those things as locking pliers, clamps and chalk reels to name a few. Duct tape came in at number five. She listed coolers for lunch and snacks as number six and believe it or not flashlights came in as number seven. She wrote that “construction workers love flashlights.” Locks came in as number eight I guess because we have all those off-beat tools to protect. Number nine was a sturdy briefcase and number 10 was a waterproof duffle bag.
I don’t know about you but I’m thinking I will let people know that if they want to give me something to just make it a gift card. If I want duct tape I want to make sure it’s the original brand and not one of those knockoffs that doesn’t stick to anything.
