Posted on 10/15/2011 7:31:06 AM PDT by JNRoberts
Watching these narcissists on Wall St. who think I should pay for their college loans, etc. I got to thinking, how come I never occupied or blamed anyone else for my lot in life even when I had the worse most humiliating job known to mankind. A door to door salesman for Trane Air Conditioning.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
After reading all entries (79 at the time) I can only kiss my hands that I never had anything NEAR as nasty as some.
My bona fides:
35c an hour in the late ‘40s as a 15-year-old stockboy in a local mom and pop grocery. $10-$15 a day shining shoes in NYC (15c and usually got a dime tip - let the good times roll!)
1951-54. USN submarine service for 3 years 8 months and 24 days (roughly). Think I got $50 a month hazardous duty pay and $360 bonus if I re-upped for another six years of b/s. I didn’t.
Stockboy at R.H. Macys while going to Linotype school - $35 a week to start, $54 a week after two years (HR guy pounds table to emphasize the wealth I’d be raking in. Thought then that if I was still at Macy’s in two years, I DESERVED to be making only $54). First introduction to a union (Garment Workers under Dave Dubinski- what a joke).
Linotype operator 1955-67. Started out at 95c an hour under a Colorado apprentice program that would pay me $2.00 an hour after six years. Once I came up to speed, I became a tramp printer and hit that figure in two years (1957) and thought I was rolling in dough. (I remember seeing a new 1958 Pontiac station wagon selling for $2,800 - a small fortune.) Loved the work but had to quit when I saw photo offset coming in.
Switched gears in 1967. Work the graveyard shift at a union print shop (only way to get a job in San Diego was to join the ITU - another joke) while going to a school to learn to be a computer programmer (whatever that was). On graduation I went from $4.50 an hour to $2.65 at the Camp Pendleton PX as a civilian employee. When I left them in 1980 I was knocking down $35,000 a year and again rolling in dough. (My 1600 sq ft house cost $30,500 - in California!)
Really hit my stride later on as a contractor and when I retired in 1990 was making 90K a year with only about half being taxable due to tax free per diem and a maxed out 401K. Loved that work too, so consider myself truly blessed all along the way.
I really feel for those who wrote - man was I lucky! (kisses hands again after posting)
I worked AC installation and repair in College I feel your pain. There is no place hotter than a Texas attic in June except maybe Hell!
You might appreciate this....
http://gizmodo.com/5832367/this-insane-machine-sucks-up-living-chickens
“Harvesting chickens by hand is back-breaking work—often called the worst job in the poultry industry.”
Thanks for validating my 44 year old memories. On reflection I recall that it was early spring, not early summer. The heat was from the bodies of thousands of chickens in a confined space, not from the outside temperature. Every couple of hours we took a brief break outside. Breathing the cool, clean northern Wisconsin air seemed a touch of heaven.
I realize not everyone can do this, like my liberal brother, he had nothing saved for his only child to go to school.....but he did have money for a boat, truck, new cars and Disney trips.....
It was hard but it was worth it....
I think in reading (and posting my own experience) on here, it seems that everyone one here (at least those that post) are united in one aspect of life: work was not an option. I was very blessed to be raised by two hard-working parents, within the family of five, we have 7 graduate degrees, not to say that assures success, it’s just that work wasn’t an option, whether it was baling hay, working as a janitor, con ass at the park, it was expected as that’s what normal, responsible people do...
I have been very blessed, too, that now I have and have had for my entire career, very good opportunities, but if they were to go away, I’d work three jobs to simply make ends meet because that’s what we are supposed to do...
The incredible sense of entitlement those OWS people exhibit is what is going to backfire on them - most of us DON’T feel we’re entitled, we work for what we earn...and damn proud of it...
My oldest son just graduated college, and while he does have student loans, he has a fraction of what he would at that school as he earn athletic and academic scholarships...now, he’s applying to all the police academies he can...in the final round for a state trooper slot! I really hope he gets it as he is earning it...
“Mess crank for 5 months onboard a Fast Attack submarine - slept on a 4x8 sheet of plywood on top of Mk48 torpedoes”
Had a high school buddy who went into the Navy after dropping out of college (1981), became a navigator on a fast attack boat, loved it, spent 22 years in, last 6 years at Groton as an instructor, earned a BS and MS in the Navy, now working for a to-be-unnamed defense contractor earning six figures plus, it’s what you make of it that counts...
In the final analysis I think Bill Whittle says it better than just about anyone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAOrT0OcHh0
Wow. good stuff. Thanks.
I heard that Kirby sales job is one of the worst jobs, a scam.
Pimp.
Paper boy was a great job. Except for stuffing the Sunday paper at 4 am in Minnesota in the winter. My fingers get pretty cold and numb at the slightest anymore. Agree with the other posters on hating the sales thing though. I kept getting yelled at every meeting by the drop manager for not “selling”. After about the third time I told the guy above him to tell him to knock it off or I would quit. For some reason my route was a bad route and they had a hard time filling it. So I never got bothered about it again.
Hmmm - I got laid off from my last job for not “selling enough” - I was more concerned with the technical aspects of the work. (Funny - “not selling” enough - so I became an independent consultant!! That was 16 years ago, and I still don’t do any “selling”.)
I had the paper route from 10 years old to 17 years old! Well, 16 & 17 I subbed out most of it to a younger kid on the block as I was busy with sports, etc. Most of the houses I still had to go around and get my collections. It would take me three evenings usually. Mainly because of the older folks inviting me in for drinks and cookies and chatting!
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was probably the best learning part of it - learning how to talk and act like an adult. That and performing a job on time and with care.
Can’t say it was too bad, but it sounds bad - “work staff” at the summer camp where one of the jobs was cleaning the out-houses every morning. Except me and the other guy would have a race to see who could get done with theirs the fasest - and make it to the ball field first to play softball. We probably each had about 10 or so scattered around the camp. Winner bought the other a soda at the canteen behind the ball field after the game.
Sorry for the long post, but thanks for letting me indulge in some memories!
LOL. That was one job I regretted having to do, but it paid OK for being in school.
It is. It's very VERY hard to get any commission when trying to sell a $2,000 vacuum cleaner in 1987.
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