The second in a brief series of posts detailing the vagaries and inanities of my meteoric rise from fast food fry guy to construction middle management.
Wherein is grasped the importance of networking and the gross injustice of getting fired.
Today's episode:
Petroleum Transfer Engineer
Scum-sucking Dredge
Petroleum Transfer Engineer
Which is a bit of a misnomer because I only ever pumped gas at the station once, and that when it wasn't busy and the guy behind the wheel came in and asked for help since he had a broken arm.
I served, for the better part of a year, as a cashier at a local chain of gas stations. I had an 'in' with my stepmother and had already learned at this point in my fledgling career the axiom that would hold me in good stead through to the present day:
"It's not what you know, it's who you know."
Another full time cashier with whom I shared regular shifts would often abuse me with tales of his side business: that of owning and operating a veritable fleet of vending machines. He was awash in fizzy drinks, junk food and pocket change and had no qualms about lording it about. David struck me as a pale, skinny, over-metabolised man who had changed little in the intervening decade since finishing high school and whose scraggly brown beard was grown to cover his acne scars. I was an introverted science geek who read mounds of fantasy novels and liked to play Dungeons & Dragons. We got along quite well.
Even though this establishment had a fancy electronic cash register, a far cry more advanced than the movie theatre's push-button money tray, my burgeoning cunning and slowly honed math skills were enough to ensure that it, as if the gas station were an entity of some sort, was not immune to a little homeopathic bleeding.
I have very fond memories of a post-high school camping trip with a good friend where I supplied the fire works for our penultimate evening out in the bush.
They were free.
And I have never since played with fireworks while pissed out of my gourd.
Scum-sucking Dredge
This was the first of two consecutive jobs that I found, and for which I was hired, completely without aid of the mantra mentioned above. And for which I paid the ultimate price.
I spent an embarrassingly brief time working for a 'dewatering' company whose sole function was to float a vacuum dredge (spinny, chomping, metal teeth at the business end of a VERY powerful vacuum hose) in contaminated ponds or other bodies of water, suck up the dirty stuff that settled to the bottom and put the clean water back.
I was stunned at the realisation, barely 20 years old, that I was going to be making 180 bucks a day PLUS a food allowance. My hotel room, while working five hours away from home, was also covered. The 12-hour shifts kind of sucked, but at least I lucked out with the day shift and didn't get stuck on nights.
I spent each shift at the dirty pond at the pulp mill inhaling the rotten eggs of sulphur fumes and sweating like an Enron executive at tax time. Over top of my regular clothes I had to wear heavy rain gear and steel-toed rubber boots. My body wanted to breathe, but all there was to breathe was sulphur-laden air; so I sweated.
There were two of us new grunts under the auspices of the supervisor, who'd been with the company for a number of years. He sat at the remote controls, directing the speed and power of the dredging operation while my cohort and I systematically staggered the steel cable that guided the pump back and forth in its Mega-Maid like sucking endeavours. We also took regular samples of the waste product, dried it out and wrote down relevant numbers on paper.
There was little else to do.
Supervisor frequently regaled us with tales of his favourite past jobs. The one most often told that week - for I was only there a sum total of a week - was a two-month stint out in peach country one summer in British Columbia. They had to dredge a massive swimming pool and spent their days monitoring the equipment and playing cribbage in their underwear.
I was loathe to picture Supervisor's corpulent form in nothing but a pair of tighty-whities. Plus, I imagined I could have kicked his ass in cribbage.
Suffice to say that I was less than inspired to take much initiative in my work other than to move cable at appropriate times and take samples of dirt on occasion to measure both the wet and dry weights.
This general apathy was what led, at the end of my sixth shift, to my being told that a replacement was scheduled to come up for me on Monday and I was free to go. My cheque would be mailed to me.
It is a hard blow to be fired by someone whom you have pictured in their underwear and against whom, in any other setting, your own work ethic measures preeminently.
Scum-sucking dredge, indeed.
Si, one of the many reasons I derive so much pleasure reading your (hate to call it a blog, it's so much more than that)um, writing, is that your skills often challenge my brain. However, in this instance, paragraph 5 under P.T.E. went directly and swiftly over my head. Please simplify... And why were you pissed setting off fireworks? Did I miss something?
Posted by: Linda | Thursday, 04 May 2006 at 04:54 AM
In paragraph 5 I am trying to say, without being obvious about it, that I may have been a little light-fingered at my place of employ. And I was pissed because I was at the end of a camping trip with a high school friend. There's nothing quite like two 18 year olds out in the mountains, getting drunk and lighting off fire works.
Posted by: Simon | Thursday, 04 May 2006 at 06:17 AM
Over-metabolized. That's a good one. Your tale right now is especially poignant for me because our son is 18 and these are exactly the types of jobs that are available to him. Luckily he has a pretty good one at the moment, mopping up fish guts.
Posted by: marian | Thursday, 04 May 2006 at 08:18 AM
First jobs. As a friend's Scottish mother used to say, "if it isn't bugs, it's reek."
Perhaps the only thing quite like two 18-year olds up in the mountains getting drunk and lighting off fireworks are two 18-year olds anchored out on a sloop with beer and an antiquated 12 guage flare gun and a pile of equally superannuated flares....
It's a kind of luxury to come back from a road trip to find a raft of Simian tales an ell long to read.
Posted by: rick | Thursday, 04 May 2006 at 09:23 AM
I went from being a "student helper" at a medical symposium company (where I spent most days either packing bags or binding syllabi) to being a cashier at a burrito place to being a receptionist at a law firm. At the law firm I actually worked my way up to "legal secretary" (I did not have any actual education in law) over a two year period. Then I got pregnant and discovered the price of child care. I've been home ever since Nick was born.
I think the worst part of my first job (with the medical symposium company) was that my boss would decide to smoke in her office which would throw me into an asthma attack. Reading your stories makes my resume seem so bland. *sigh*
Posted by: Kristen | Thursday, 04 May 2006 at 10:22 AM
I am so looking forward to your chapter on the summer/fall at GESL. How many holes was that?
Regardless, this is a valuable diary of the work ethic of the Fraser clan, for future generations. Two of whom currently reside at your address.
Posted by: Grampa | Friday, 05 May 2006 at 01:25 AM