The dig supervisor's trowel rule threw me off at Monte Alban
Went on a volunteer excavation outside Oaxaca last month and the supervisor kept lecturing me about my trowel grip... said I was holding it like a butter knife. I've done 5 digs before this and never had anyone care that much. Turns out he grew up working with his dad's crew and has this whole method for trench walls. I guess it makes sense for the stratigraphy but man, it felt like getting scolded for something I've been doing forever. Has anyone else had a site boss fixate on some tiny habit that seemed pointless at first?
Had the same thing happen at a dig in Arizona where the crew chief would not let up about how I held my screen. He had dug with the same guys for twenty years and had one way of doing it, so anything different drove him nuts. In the end I just copied his grip to keep the peace, and weirdly it did make sifting faster once I got used to it.