Thought it would be intersting to hear some stories on how everyone got into pumping. I go firstMy father has been pumping concrete for about 25 years and after high school I decided I was not going to college so pops got me a job being a yard helper at the company he was working for. well 10 years and countless yards later I decided to start my own pumping company. Lets hear your stories!Jeffwhen in doubt wash out.

I used to be the hose man.I was working on at big job at Intel and we where using a pump every night.I would talk to the operator when ever i could asking him the same questions that i ( and iam sure most operators)get asked,how much does it pay, how did you learn, etc. The operator told me that the company was hiring. Well after bugging them for about a month they hired me. The first pump i trained on was a 28 m with a gate valve. It couldnt have happened at a better time for me. After comming home after my first day of traning my wife told me she was pregnet. I had just taken a $3 dollar pay cut to train on pumps.Luckly i was able to do that before i had a kid, cause alot of people cant take those kind of pay cutswith a family to raise.My son is going to be 8 tomorrow. He wants to be a pumper when he grows up. I would be very proud if he did.Goes in the big end, comes out the little....sometimes

well I know I'm about 4 years late on this thread but I was a mixer driver for 10 years and just got burned out with all the damned early morning pours. we were doing a lot of commercial work and it put us at the plant anywhere from 11pm to say 5am at the latest when a good friend I had worked with at two different concrete companies asked if I wanted to hold one of them little yellow boxes and I replied with 'does a shark shit in salt water?' the pump company he was with did mostly house slabs and around here we have the 7-7 rule...nothing before 7am and nothing after 7pm. so there I was running my head to all my friends at the plant my last day as a driver when we started at 5 that morning and what time did I start with the pump company Monday morning? 3 damned am...and where was the job? no shit! right next to my old plant! no one there at 3, 4, or 5am...batch man shows up at 5:30, looks over the fence and laughs his butt off asking how that 7am stuff was working for me. that was January of '06 and since then I bet I've had less than 10 early starts (ie before 5am) and less than 10 Saturdays. I work a LOT less hours and bring home more money now and life is good...I still do mostly house slabs (did 2 today & got me 3 in the morning) while the other two operators get all the commercial stuff & that works great for me. small mom & pop operation and that suites me fine. couldn't pry my ass outta there with a 4' pry bar! Ima happy boy :)

 and pumper, welcome home bro, welcome.

I was a 19E/19K way back in the day....