"I don't know a single worker on a construction site that won't wear steel toe shoes, jeans, long sleeve shirts, orange vests, and hardhats, even on 100 degree plus days. Those are hardly comfortable but they know from safety stats that they save limbs and sometimes lives."

I've seen plenty of guys show up in tennis shoes, or avoid steel toe boots because they claim they're uncomfortable, but there is probably more compliance here than anywhere besides long trousers. Hardhats and safety glasses come off at the earliest opportunity, regardless of weather - sometimes one worker will act as a lookout just in case a safety officer comes along. No one wears long sleeve shirts in summer - heat injuries can be a bigger threat than anything else. Full length trousers are pretty well enforced on commercial jobs - but you'll see guys in shorts on residential jobs. Vests, when issued and enforced, are probably third to boots and trousers in compliance. If not enforced, no one wears them unless they are exposed to traffic - and frequently not even then.

Don't even get me started on the insane shit Mexicans will do the moment you're not watching them. Great guys and mostly hard workers, but almost suicidal at times.




Baldur