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I got my first long-term job through one of those agencies---they may have been outlawed, but the way they worked was, they'd get you a job, and you'd either pay them 2 weeks salary upfront as a fee, or a percentage for the next ten weeks. My dad coughed up the 2 week lump-sum, and I got a job working and Summer Bay paper plate factory.
You'd think it would be an easy enough job: The machine that stamps the plates out of the rolls of paper counts the number per package and kicks them out to be bagged and tied. The bagger sends them on a conveyer belt back to the packer, who boxes them up, so many packs to a brown corrugated cardboard box.
However, if the roll of paper was warped or poorly cured, they'd stick together, get double-stamped, jam the machine---it was a bitch of a job, and the plant was a big cinder-block building with a metal roof, cold in the winter, roasting in the summer.
After a few months of this, I decided to go back to school. Clearly the degree I had was useless, and getting it hadn't been any fun. I ended up in Automotive Machining, learning to rebuild engines. I liked it, but it was agrueling---I was working 2nd shift at Summer Bay, 3-11:30, awake til 3 or so, up for class from 8-2---I was a mess. I was a semester away from getting my certificate when I couldn't take that grind any more. I took some time off, figuring I'd finish in the fall---but the program was cancelled. I tried to get into Auto Mechanics, but discovered they were training people to work at car dealerships, not to fix cars for themselves, which was what I was after. And then---but I'm getting ahead of myself.
This was also around the time I got my hip-length hair cut---too damn hot, between the factory and school I didn't have time for it, so---short cut. I remember that, because the same day I got it cut was the day BC introduced me to S.
This was long before there were schnauzers on the scene. She had a black terrier-mix anmed Grover at the time, lived about a mile from me, and BC was renting a room from her, since his dad had kicked him out of the house for flunking his classes. J was about 12 at the time---god, I feel old! See what I meant when I said Warren Beatty changed my life? And there's more stuff down the road, but you get the idea.
You'd think it would be an easy enough job: The machine that stamps the plates out of the rolls of paper counts the number per package and kicks them out to be bagged and tied. The bagger sends them on a conveyer belt back to the packer, who boxes them up, so many packs to a brown corrugated cardboard box.
However, if the roll of paper was warped or poorly cured, they'd stick together, get double-stamped, jam the machine---it was a bitch of a job, and the plant was a big cinder-block building with a metal roof, cold in the winter, roasting in the summer.
After a few months of this, I decided to go back to school. Clearly the degree I had was useless, and getting it hadn't been any fun. I ended up in Automotive Machining, learning to rebuild engines. I liked it, but it was agrueling---I was working 2nd shift at Summer Bay, 3-11:30, awake til 3 or so, up for class from 8-2---I was a mess. I was a semester away from getting my certificate when I couldn't take that grind any more. I took some time off, figuring I'd finish in the fall---but the program was cancelled. I tried to get into Auto Mechanics, but discovered they were training people to work at car dealerships, not to fix cars for themselves, which was what I was after. And then---but I'm getting ahead of myself.
This was also around the time I got my hip-length hair cut---too damn hot, between the factory and school I didn't have time for it, so---short cut. I remember that, because the same day I got it cut was the day BC introduced me to S.
This was long before there were schnauzers on the scene. She had a black terrier-mix anmed Grover at the time, lived about a mile from me, and BC was renting a room from her, since his dad had kicked him out of the house for flunking his classes. J was about 12 at the time---god, I feel old! See what I meant when I said Warren Beatty changed my life? And there's more stuff down the road, but you get the idea.