You Know You Are Old When

[jyoutz]

My experience was in Juarez. I haven't kept up with things there, but I would be surprised if things improved so drastically.

For unskilled laborers, owning a car, or living in an area where they could feasibly keep a car, would have been a be pipe dream. They had a company bus that would pick up the employees in the morning and take them home after work. Some homes didn't even have indoor plumbing.

The overriding theme of society was corruption. Anyone who had a job with any authority would use that power to obtain bribes, which was their polite term for extortion.

There was a handful of US citizens that crossed the border every day to do some of the higher levels jobs at the plant. As part of their commuting experience, they would periodically get pulled over by the Mexican police. The only reason for the stop was that the office wanted a bribe. The protocol was to hand him your drivers license with a folded $10 bill.

I'm confident that the union leaders negotiated money for themselves, rather than the regular workers. There was even concern that, if the worker pay was too much above other employment options, it would be a risk to the employee. They could get killed by someone else that wanted the comparatively lucrative job.

Juarez is a border town and nowhere near as nice as Chihuahua City and many other cities I’ve visited in interior Mexico. But Juarez has also improved over the years.

 

[MossRoad]

I worked in a warehouse that was 4.25 acres under roof. None of it was insulated or heated. It was a brick building that the government built in the late 30's for use as an ordinance plant to supply ammunition for WWII.

By the time I got there, there were ten 3000 lb. propane forklifts working 16 hours a day. The propane forklifts were our only source of heat. We would stand behind it, smoke a cigarette while our gloves and us warmed up.

Then one day the forklifts were all traded in for electric ones. That's when winters got cold.

That reminded me of working at the airport. Towards the end of Notre Dame football season, the last game or two was always cold. To stay warm, we'd stand in the exhausts of the bigger private jet auxiliary power units. Warm you up quick!

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

35 years ago I bought a Clark propane fork lifts, great shape for $600. It had a Continental engine. If it had large wheels I would have kept it.
I was having the garage built and inspector saw the fork lift so he made the contractor reinforce the second story thinking I was going to store car motors up there.