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March 10, 2023

👷‍♀️ Celebrating women & the recession is... over?

Haters will say this is photoshopped but Joel being a contractor pre-apocalypse is canon. (source: HBO Max)

If you're on the hunt for a construction-adjacent team building idea that's well-suited for remote work, feel free to steal this:

 The Buildr team recently channeled its inner second-grader and took part in a Play-Doh crafting competition over Zoom. The prompt was "Create a mythological creature with its own origin story," in 20 minutes. 

 Contest winners and designs are on our LinkedIn. One creature was a family-friendlier version of The Last of Us fungi. Another could bite people which turned them into Dallas Cowboy fans (a more menacing version of The Last of Us fungi).

 If you're encountering slower-than-usual customer success response times, it's likely because some clay is still lodged between our keys. We're aware and we're diligently looking into it.

Forrest from Buildr's

Forrest from Buildr's "Christopher" (pictured) won Best-Looking; this should give you fair barometer for the rest of the company's artistic competence

SPECS

👷‍♀️ #WICWeek2023 Round-Up

Happy Women in Construction Week to all the amazing women that are members of this industry we love.

We have the privilege of working with many talented and inspiring women who are making their mark in what has been a traditionally male-dominated industry.

The ever-expanding female workforce percentage is clear to us as there has been a massive upswing in Buildr users (and employees) that are women in the last five years.

To all the women in construction, a huge thank you for your high effort and perseverance that's an implicit and under-appreciated part of your work. The perspective you bring to the table is vital—we can’t wait to see where inclusion in construction goes from here.

Construction Dive: The 31 talented women who stand as shining examples of how intuition, dedication and intelligence are shaping the industry.

The women of Buildr right before breaking the sound barrier on the track behind them.

The women of Buildr right before breaking the sound barrier on the track behind them.

📉 The recession... is receding?

Associated General Contractors of America says the looming recession is not so looming after all. At least one AGC economist says so—Ken Simonson spoke optimistically in an AGC webinar. The full quote: 

“I remain optimistic that we’re not going to have [a recession]. There’s just a lot of spending power on the consumer side and business side. State and local governments at all levels also have a lot of money to spend. Tax revenues have held up in a way that you don’t see during a recessionary period.” 

Ken Simonson, AGC of America

The pesky asterisk, of course, is that Simonson went on to say that there is still quite a risk of a recession due to some volatile commercial categories including warehouse, retail, office and lodging. These categories are symbiotically affected by rents dropping (and the threat of more rents dropping) which won't be able to cover heightened materials, labor, and financing costs.

 We'll have to continue to wait and see. But let's hope Ken's right.

⚡️ Punch List

CONSUMABLES

Spirit Airlines pilots finding out they weren't bought by Jetblue.

Spirit Airlines pilots finding out they weren't bought by Jetblue.

  • En Vogue: This is the most sensual that Spot the robot construction dog news (hopefully) gets—an art piece performed at Paris Fashion Week. (video)

  • ChatRIP: Zuckerberg quietly buries the Metaverse for generative AI.

  • Oscar the Couch Potato: Hunker down for the Academy Awards this weekend—Top Gun has a non-zero percentage chance to win Best Picture. Should-wins and will-wins.

  • Joel Dirt: The Last of Us season finale is this weekend, which features Joel Miller, the most prominent construction protagonist in pop culture since Bob the Builder.

  • Finale: Succession Season 4 trailer. They announced it's the last season :(

  • Spirited Away: Jetblue was sued for attempting to buy Spirit Airlines. Shouldn't Spirit be sued for charging us for carry-ons and water? 

  • SpoTikTube: The Spotify redesign is now a mix of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Fine as long as it doesn't interfere with our OCD-fueled playlist folder setup.

  • Three Drunk Mice: Doctors have developed a shot that sobers up mice very fast, suggesting happy hours at mice bars to skyrocket this weekend.

See you next week,

The Slab

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