Jim Olsztynski

That old “penny saved” saying may be ancient and corny but it’s never outdated. Save enough pennies and they add up to dimes, dimes to dollars, and dollars eventually can add up to enough money to boost your company’s profitability and your personal lifestyle.

I wrote this a few days after the scary incident in early April when a 5-foot long gash ripped open atop the fuselage of a Southwest Airlines jet while the aircraft was cruising more than six miles up in the air.

Movie reviews are not my specialty but this is an exception worth shouting from the rooftops. “The Tradesmen: Making an Art of Work” is an 88-minute social documentary that portrays the real life work, idiosyncrasies and personal convictions of a variety of working professionals including two plumbers, two painters, a stone/brick mason, several carpenters, two auto mechanics and numerous other craftsmen (and one woman).

Two things inspired this article. One was reading a take on it by my good friend Al Levi, who writes for Plumbing & Mechanical magazine (a sister publication to Walls & Ceilings). Levi discusses his father’s absolute prohibition against his sons dating the hired help in their family business.

Subcontractors everywhere are scrambling for work, and what work they’re managing to land isn’t very profitable, but there’s at least one little silver lining amid all the clouds.

Some things are so counterintuitive it’s a struggle to explain them. For instance, we’re now three years into the Great Recession, in which an estimated 8 million people have lost their jobs and countless millions more are working part-time or underemployed.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart is immortalized by his famous statement that while he couldn’t define pornography, “I know it when I see it.” He pretty much spoke for all of us in that regard.

Certain people make it a point to arrive “fashionably late” for social events. It stems from a psychological quirk to make them feel important, as if the party doesn’t begin until they arrive and everyone is awaiting their grand entrance. (Professional psychologists tend to view this as a counter-reaction to low self-esteem.) I know people like this and I suspect most of you do, too.

Last year was one of the bleakest in history for most of us economically. Yet Cincinnati’s Thompson Plumbing, Heating & Cooling grew more than 50 percent in 2009.

Many of you reading this went into business for yourself because some heavy-handed boss was always telling you what to do and how to do it. You got sick and tired of “my way or the highway” orders when you knew just as much or more about doing your job as your old supervisor did.