Do you enjoy your job?

[MossRoad]

One of my early jobs, in the early '60's was as a grease monkey at a Chrysler dealership in my home town. The place was owned by an older lady, late 60's early 70's. One day she caught me talking to one of my friends out on the sidewalk. She walked up to me and said "Son if you can't find anything else to do there is always a broom in the corner."

One of my first jobs was at a Dairy Queen (where I met my future wife, as she worked there too). The owner was a short little woman who managed the store during the day, and her husband was a tall man that worked full time at Miles Labs (One-A-Day Vitamins, Bactine and Alka-Seltzer) and would come to the store after work, eat dinner, then manage the store and shut down for the night. That man was up at 6:00am every morning and didn't go to bed until midnight 6 days a week for 30 years. Super nice guy. Joe and Darlene.

Anyhow, one of Darlene's famous sayings at the store was "When there's time to lean, there's time to clean." :laughing: My wife and I still say that to this day. :laughing:

That couple ended up closing that store as it was in a very bad neighborhood and opened a new DQ over near Notre Dame. We'd stop in about a couple times a month just to say hello, and, of course, get some chicken strips, Texas toast and gravy, and some DQ (it's not ice cream, it's DQ!). Did that for many years. A few years ago, she passed away, and Joe got Alzheimer's. Their son runs the store now. Life moves along.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Let me see how short I can make this scenario.

The doors to prison isolation cells (Death Row) are all electrically controlled.
When a button is depressed in the Control Room, the current that holds the magnetic door ceases to hold the door in place.
These doors have pins {4X1" rods, top & bottom protrude into a steel plate & poured concrete} such that when the current ceases the pins default to open.
During any lightning event the back up gensets kick on and power is "Restored".
For that brief second each and every door opens and must be physically closed by a member of Staff.
Then the Main Control Room Officer can report that the Prison is once again secured.
{You can't imagine how many Incident Reports have to be written.}

Which of you has the cahonnes to be the first one down the wing?
It's a trick question with a snapshot into the human mind.

That brought back some memories! My first job after college in the early 60's was in a research laboratory; we had a night watchman who was getting up in years at the time, and he and I worked up a friendship. He was a former coal miner from McAlester, and later worked as a prison guard at Big Mac...the state prison in the early 30's I think. He had lots of stories about the prison and the inmates; a couple in particular that I remember well. The first was the doctor at the prison; he said he was not an M.D.; in fact, I think he said he had little or no formal education, but had worked in the prison hospital for many years. And when the doctor there retired (or was released), he just took over...he did surgery, the whole shebang...even took care of the Warden's family.

The second was the horrible death of an inmate...seems the guy was locked in his cell, another inmate walked by, dumped a bucket of lacquer thinner in the cell, and set fire to it. He hinted that this was no ordinary murder...that's about all he said, but I surmised there were outside influences involved.

 

[shaeff]

I started working off the books around age 10-11 doing yard work for an older neighbor down the street. Anything from running his lawn mower around (an old hydrostatic Case that would run away from you on hills!!!), cutting vines in his forest property, pulling weeds, moving firewood around, etc... Around age 15 I started working for the local grocery store as a stock clerk. That was my first on the books job. Hated it, hated the management. Ended up getting fired (only time in my life) and it was BS. Don't feel like telling the story, but I was working smart, not hard, and out producing several other stock clerks. I'll never forget the feeling when my father went in and reamed out the owner that fired me. My father knows my work ethic, he vowed never to step foot in that store again and held true to it! They went out of business a few years later when Hannaford moved into town.

After that stock clerk job, I started working for the local movie theater at 16yrs old. I was horrible at math, so I started on the door post ripping tickets. Then moved into the cafe selling hot dogs, personal pizzas, Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, soda, popcorn, bulk candy, etc... As I moved back and forth between door post and cafe (which had a register) I learned all the prices by heart and started to figure out combos of items. Everything was priced in the .25, .50, .75, or whole dollar. There was no tax to be figured out. (it was the .75s that screwed me up haha!) But eventually I nailed it, asked to work the concession stand and became one of the fastest concessions workers. Got a .50c raise. Then one day the projectionist called in sick, nobody was there to thread the 35mm projectors. I'd seen it done before so I gave it a whirl. Then they started scheduling me for the projection booth (which was my favorite job of all time!)

Eventually the senior projectionist left and I secured that spot. I never had to work with customers again until I started working as assistant manager on Wednesday nights, sometimes on Mondays as well. I used to build and break down all the movies. I'd splice all the reels together onto the platter system so it would run straight through. We had six screens, I could thread all six projectors in less than six minutes. During my time there I rebuilt every projector head, every platter system's "brain" where the film is fed out from. We had no catastrophic failures anymore due to equipment. I did all my homework up there in high school and college. I still miss that job, but mostly the free popcorn. :drool:

Then moved on to a liquor warehouse in 2005, worked nights throwing cases of liquor on the conveyor belt, loading trucks, etc..., double the pay of the movie theater. Merged with another company, unionized (not me, I stayed non-union) and I got moved to work days doing inventory control. I saw what night work and the physical work was doing to all the guys there 5+yrs and they all hobbled around like they were broken. Inventory control actually paid more, my boss was great (except the one when I finally left, he sucked but that's another story). I did the inventory control until 2018. Me and my wife decided to go on a big cross-country road trip, I had the vacation time to do it. I was granted that time, then it was rescinded. I tried everything to be able to go on my trip, they were steadfast. I only needed three weeks off (one week was a company shut-down anyway) but they refused. I resigned after 13 years. (see aforementioned sucky boss... they're STILL hurting from when I left)

[40 day, 12,500 mile roadtrip of epicness]

Returned from road trip with no job and no prospects (got a denial call from my current job from an application I'd submitted before we left). Hustled from 9/2018-3/2019 when the Maintenance Manager from my old job and offered me a crap paying job as facilities janitor, with the promise to teach me everything he could about industrial maintenance and be the best reference I could get when the opportunity for a better paying job arose. It was a union job, crap pay, awesome benefits. I took it, for a monster pay cut from where I left off in 8/2018. Talk about swallowing my pride. I did that for 7 months, didn't mind the work, hated the pay and the BS politics of that union. I learned a lot about industrial maintenance.

9/2019 I submitted an application for my current position, Field Operations Technician for a natural gas pipeline. Landed the job 10/2019, it's probably the best job ever. I learn something new every day, the pay is exceptional, the company CARES ABOUT US, it's just awesome. I get to work on an 18,500hp natural gas compressor, the pipeline, etc. It's awesome and I wish I'd started here right out of high school.

 

[two_bit_score]

In my prior line of work, equipment operation , maintenance,military or farming/ranching experience opened doors for employment. A BA degree meant not so much.

What degree do you have?

 

[groundcover]

Sounds like an a UPS would be in order to keep doors locked between line failure and generator supply !

Let me see how short I can make this scenario.

The doors to prison isolation cells (Death Row) are all electrically controlled.
When a button is depressed in the Control Room, the current that holds the magnetic door ceases to hold the door in place.
These doors have pins {4X1" rods, top & bottom protrude into a steel plate & poured concrete} such that when the current ceases the pins default to open.
During any lightning event the back up gensets kick on and power is "Restored".
For that brief second each and every door opens and must be physically closed by a member of Staff.
Then the Main Control Room Officer can report that the Prison is once again secured.
{You can't imagine how many Incident Reports have to be written.}

Which of you has the cahonnes to be the first one down the wing?
It's a trick question with a snapshot into the human mind.

 

[Maxify55]

Answer:

Each and every man incarcerated is innocent. Just ask him. He'll tell you.
That being said. He also is absolutely convinced that the inmate in the cell right next to him is a natural born killer.
Because they all talk smack to one another from cell to cell morning till night 24/7.
So, when those door just all of a sudden pop open during a storm those natural born killers put their butts against the back wall of their cells afraid to come close to that door.
The human mind is a very tricky place.

All I ever did was open the door to the housing wing, they all knew my voice, & told them to close those doors.
We'd sit up in the Control Room & watch the door signal light go from red to green to signify a secure door.
Of course, the wing cameras would show a clear corridor.
I learned so much of human nature that I never would've known doing the 9-5 schtick.

 

[grsthegreat]

that reminds me of the time my partner shorted out the transformer that supplied power to lock the doors at a mental ward at the local hospital. all the doors released. while he put out the smoldering mess in the crawl space, i quietly told the charge nurse and she rounded up all the staff and quietly had them man the doors. also alerted the police dept. we ended up getting the transformer replaced with an onhand spare unit and back online before there was a mass escape. was quite nerve racking to say the least. my partner was the same num nuts that followed a couple of doctors into the ward (the doctors should have stopped him) and when he tried to leave, they wouldnt let him. they ended up calling cops. who called my boss...who called me. i was at lunch, and when i finished i went up there and had to admit i knew the guy. i really should have left him there. he would have fit right in.

 

[dougtrr2]

I think time blurs our memories. How many jobs that you look back and remember fondly did you cuss at when you were doing them? Now I look back at my days of working on Minuteman missiles with fond memories. But I also recall complaining about the hours, the alerts, the all weather operations, the bosses, the trucks, and the list goes on. Funny how time changes your perspective.

Doug in SW IA

 

[ArlyA]

Doug, I was able to tour through a Minuteman missile training silo located at Ellsworth in the 80's during an air show. I worked and lived among the silos for a few years. You are correct, our memories are very, very malleable. Thanks for your service to our nation.

I think time blurs our memories. How many jobs that you look back and remember fondly did you cuss at when you were doing them? Now I look back at my days of working on Minuteman missiles with fond memories. But I also recall complaining about the hours, the alerts, the all weather operations, the bosses, the trucks, and the list goes on. Funny how time changes your perspective. Doug in SW IA

 

[joeyd]

I was a firefighter for 30 years. I held different positions in my career, FF, engineer, Capt., Training Officer, Arson Investigator, USAR Team member and paramedic. I thoroughly LOVED my career, but there was a six week period as a paramedic when I had a partner who thought the shift revolved around his workout, meals and rest periods. The worst 6 weeks of my career!

So I guess 29 years 10 months and 2 weeks of pure happiness out of 30 years is nothing to complain about. :cool2: