Terrazzo Workers and Finishers

Tasks largely resist digitisation. Setting brass or zinc divider strips true to a chalk line over an uneven slab, seeding marble chips by hand until coverage reads uniform, then coming back after cure to rough-grind, grout the pinholes and fine-polish — each step is judged by eye and touch on a surface that never repeats, which is why 19 rather than a mixed 12: even the layout you get handed as a shop drawing still has to be adapted to the actual floor.

Hands-on in uncontrolled environments. You are on knees and elbows on a green slab, hauling 50-lb bags and epoxy pails, running a 200-lb planetary grinder in silica dust and wet slurry, working around other trades' scaffolds and cords in a building with no HVAC yet — there is no screen-only fraction of this job to discount.

Certification preferred, not legally required. No state licenses terrazzo work; you may carry an OSHA 10/30 card, silica-exposure training under 1926.1153 and maybe an NTMA-affiliated apprenticeship certificate, but the bond and the warranty sit with the flooring contractor, and a failed pour is a callback for the company, not a personal license action — hence 5, not 0.

Some relationship component. Repeat work comes from GCs and architects who have seen your seeded-aggregate samples and know your terrazzo won't crack or telegraph the divider strips, and on decorative logo and pattern work the owner often wants the same crew back — but the specification and the low bid still decide most jobs, which keeps this at 12 rather than 16.

Meaningful discretion. You decide whether the slab moisture and crack pattern require a membrane or more control joints, how much resin to catalyze for the shop temperature, and when to stop grinding before you expose too much matrix — irreversible calls on a floor that cannot be lifted, but made inside NTMA and manufacturer specs and with a foreman to back you, so 12 rather than 16.