The Finish Line
The rocking chair money has arrived.
While I basically left the Wage Slave Plantation in 2008, I still had to eke out an existence. I did it with no State help, refusing CA Unemployment Benefits even when I was able to collect. Some might question that decision, but I'm living an independent life and not a Ward of the State.
I qualified for those benefits by working a few payroll jobs out of the union hall. When the local boys can't fill the job requests they filter down to likes of me, "the traveler", even though I have lived in the jurisdiction for 8 years. I got several jobs this way and milked them for all I could. These contractors didn't get much work out of me and I can proudly say I ended my electrical payroll career getting fired on a double time Sunday in the middle of the day.
I worked off my truck being helpful to my customers. Older, likable folks I hardly charged for my services, others I charged a lot because of their bad attitude. It was a word of mouth, business card promoted type of work, sometimes it rained jobs but I also enjoyed the droughts. Always paid my taxes like my fellow citizens Amazon, Google and Exxon do. I'm my own worse Boss, but I survived.
As a young man starting in 1979, I joined a group that was full of life. We worked hard, drank hard, played hard. We built buildings, big ones. The apprenticeship wasn't easy. The trades are difficult, the people are difficult, and electricity is dangerous. So are ironworkers dropping their spud wrenches. There were a lot of traditions I was supposed to go along with and I found that difficult, like showing up for work on time. Once the journeyman's card arrived, I felt as if I could go anywhere and do anything electrical to earn a living - and I did. From nuclear power plants to installing data systems, I did it all. Paying off three mortgages, raising 3 children, putting them through college, our family benefited. I carried a cockiness and confidence, down right arrogance sometimes, everywhere I went. We all did, the trades do that to you. You are as good as your last day of work, separation and rejection are an integral part of the business. Being nice wasn't a job requirement, but doing your job was.
I went through the class of the first woman taking an apprenticeship. A nice person, I bet she had a fine career, I'm sure it was tough in a lot of ways. Affirmative Action paralleled my whole working life. I learned to take second shift calls for minority contractors so we could fix the work of the day shift at a better rate of pay. I learned to understand that an address in the city or a lack of penis or a skin color allowed one to step ahead of me in line waiting for a job that's what my white privilege got me. Being 'union' finally meant Hooray For Me. The Federal government made that happen. No disrespect to many women in our local but the joke was, "she knew EEOC law, sexual harassment law, workers compensation law but she didn't know Ohm's Law."
Some of the characters I was in daily interactions with defined my attitudes about work and life. I think of them most fondly, us working and battling shoulder to shoulder for the rank and file in internal local struggles, and enjoy the occasional phone call from a long ago friend. My heart does nosedive when I see one of their names on the 'Less Donkeys, More Hay' memorial list the local puts out monthly.
After 25 years in construction, I thought it time to pick up a maintenance gig and glide out gracefully from the hard work world. Was I ever wrong. I was hired at a major university and thought I had gone to heaven. Change light bulbs and ballasts, push my cart around surrounded by co-eds, an easier experience I couldn't find. Parachuting into a gang of 15-25 year veterans, forever the 'new guy' and getting played on long time feuds and personal hatreds, it was a toxic place to work. I had no experience with office politics short of punching someone in the nose. I also had to deal with a time clock which I never had to before. That piece of of workplace life, so familiar to some, was a psychological hammer used against all of us. I really missed my independence.
I lasted exactly three years and left with my hair on fire. I lost my confidence, my ability to see anything without anger, my love of my fellow workingman. It was a low point in my life. To be fair to those miserables I left behind, my personal life was filled with alcohol and emotional abuse. I am responsible for my words and actions, nothing happens in a vacuum, but they were some rotten sonsofbitches, mostly. Some of the worst people I ever worked with and I worked with some real assholes. So began the Escaped Wage Slave blog.
CAUTION: ADVICE
Do what you love and love what you do. Never put up with jerks, put-downs, or authority insecurities. Learn what you need and practice it for yourself. Don't pretend to 'love your job' when you don't. Work is joy, if it isn't, make it joyful. There are a lot of people out there that need your help. If your job is to make someone else a lot of money, let them do the work. Helping others is your job.
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The Invisible Rainbow*
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Professor Doom
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