Flashback: Read about my first dig at: Diggin it at Dig This Vegas

Every year my employer hosts a large user conference in Las Vegas.  Thousands of people gather to learn about the latest releases and where the company is going. It’s a fantastic event that I do enjoy each year.  When I train new members of the team, I always tell them, “make time to get off the beaten path to experience each city to which you travel, otherwise, everything looks the same.”

I always find Las Vegas to be an interesting place… the strip is so concentrated and congested and that fervor is what brings so many people to town. However, it’s easy to forget that there is a whole city and environment outside of Las Vegas Boulevard. I wanted to get off the beaten path, especially in Vegas.

Meeting Dig This (again, yay!)

I first met Dig This after they moved operations from Steamboat Springs to Vegas about 10 years ago.  I forget the exact details but, once I saw their ad, the kid inside of me totally wanted to drive the big yellow machines.  I mean, who doesn’t want to dig holes, climb hills, and play basketball with a giant yellow tractor?

Ed Mumm is the founder of Dig This.  I see his company’s mission and vision are prominently displayed across a number of surfaces in the office.  Professionally in my job, I help many different types of teams build and hone their mission and vision statements. This work helps teams focus their journey and clarify success for the team. From each person I met, I could see the connection to Dig This’s mission and vision. Being in the giant tractor helps disconnect from life for a few moments doing something completely orthogonal to and amazing in my life. They consistently rate as one of the top experinces in the city of experiences year over year. In short, Ed and team are not only good peoples, but great peoples.

Having driven the big yellow machines a few times now, I can see how each of the team members from the front desk, to safety, to being in the machine. They are customer centric and are the real deal.

I give Ed and his team kudos.  He has lofty goals in his business… and he’s delivering.    I had a fantastic time on site.

Backhoe?  Yep!

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to operate the excavator, the bulldozer, the skid steer, the mini excavator, but I really wanted to try my hands on a backhoe.  Why the backhoe?  It’s a super capable machine that does so many different jobs.  It shovels like a loader and a bulldozer.  It also digs like an excavator.  It’s two machines in one!

Since I’ve been a customer of Dig This way back in 2014, I’ve seen them add new machines to the fleet as they grow.  This time the backhoe was onsite and available!

After the safety orientation inside the office, all of us in the 2pm hour headed out to the dirt. As my guide and I walked onto the field, I saw the two huge machines and laughed.. Tonka and Woody? Someone at Dig This clearly has a sense of humor!  My guide pointed me towards driving Woody, but I asked if I could be in Tonka.  I’ve always been a Tonka fan :).

He laughed and said, “uhh.. I’ve not been asked that before, but sure.”

Working with a Guide

Every operator works with a guide from Dig This.  The guide gives each operator an overview of the machine, helps the operator learn the controls while in the seat, and has the ability to remote disable the machine if things get out of hand.

Simply put, my guide was awesome. He was surprised I’d driven so many machines on the lot and helped me truly get better at the craft rather than rigidly holding to “the script.”  While I was in the machine we bantered back and forth on corny jokes in a tit for tat fashion.  My guide was clearly a super good salt of the earth type of human. I really enjoyed the time with him.

He learned how to operate much of equpiment in the fleet in the military doing construction work. He made a comment that “us Blue collar workers – we’ve got each other’s back inside and outside of the job.”  I began to think about that comment in my own carrer jouney.  I’ve met some truly great people in my professional career, but my experience didn’t jibe with the intensity that my guide spoke of in his experience in the trades. There’s a community and comraderie in the trades that doesn’t exist the same way across office workers.

As more and more desk/knowledge work goes work from home remote, I do think it changes the richness and fidelity of how people relate in the workplace.  People need to see each other, work with each other while experiencing one another to build strong teams.  Working in the trades… you can’t do your job from home and in some ways, I’m envious. I’m not advocating a M-F 9-5 return to the office, but I do think in person bolsters the intensity of relationships between team members.

Fire it up!

Turning that key and hearing the big machine roar to life always gives me rush.  Always.

The backhoe has significantly more controls than the other machines I’ve driven as it’s two machines in one. The steering wheel pivots up and back so the seat can swivel so the operator can get to the rear controls. This piece of equipment had some 30 different controls for the operator’s use. My guide had me all over the machine during our time togeher.

For the hour we had on the dirt, I had three tasks:

• Dig a deep hole
• Fill in that hole so that it’s level again
• Move a stacked set of tires from one side of the machine to the other

I love digging holes.  I know it’s simple, but you really feel the machine work as the bucket digs into the ground.  It’s amazing how much power these machines have once both the feet lock securely into the ground.  While digging the hole, I had to extend the arm out, extend the bucket out, and swing the arm from left to right. As I was feeling the controls again, smiles started to show when I was able to move multiple controls in different directions to get the backhoe to do a single operation fluidly. Moving controls in different directions at the same time like a mark of skill to me.

I then swung the seat around and started to use the controls on the other side of the backhoe to fill in the hole.  My guide instructed me to use the blade to push the large pile of dirt back into the hole. Check.  Then I had to use the back side of the blade to finnese the dirt smooth again.  Check. I remember really struggling with smoothing out dirt in the bulldozer my first time on the field.  This time I had it licked.  Score!

Moving the stacked tires was considerably harder in the backhoe than the excavator as the backhoe has no “thumb” on the back of the bucket to hold the tire in place.  I started off well but as the exercise went on, it got more complicated to complete.

My guide called time at the top of the hour. Wow that went fast. I could have been in that cab for another 3 hours! It’s that fun!

Dig This is full of good people. I’ve met some great folks over the years there, each with their own little bit of awesome. When some scheduling challenges popped up due to Covid in the spring, Ed the owner took care of me. As I was walking out, I spotted a new machine in the fleet… the LOADER!

Yep. I’ll be back! Thanks Y’all for a fantastic time.