Filed under: Work Slog
How could it be any less pretty? I’m employed.
At the old place. Worked there for 11 years. In the office. That was almost 15 years ago.
I’ve now worked there 1½ days, Fridays being a half-day. Most common question, from the stalwarts who have been there ever since I left?
“Has the place changed much?”, followed closely by “You doin’ okay?”
Well no, it hasn’t changed much. Not in that ethereal thing we call work mojo, not a bit. Physically changed, oh hell yes. They now have CNC machines that do every thing shy of running a hand across a fine bit of woodwork to pronounce it sound. And the place is bigger. Like two new buildings bigger. With the resultant couple dozen of busybees to swarm therein.
Why they ask me if I’m doin’ okay is a sort of balancing act for me. They ask as if inquiring after my mental health. “Sure, ‘course I’m doing okay, thanks got everything I need, yup”. Safe, sane answers.
I’ll get a free week or so to re-learn stuff. To reorient my brain to building woodwork of a commercial nature instead of just installing it, as if it were any other building product. I miss the field work, the freedom, the very outlaw nature of that. But finish carpenters are common, and nobody’s hiring them in any event.
No one at all.
Best to be cheerful, and puckered for the inevitable derrieres that will wander by. Where previously in this place, I had the derriere. I was the one to be feared or respected. Not quite the same, you can imagine.
Stories will abound. This place has never lacked a wellspring of drama, and smarmy woodbutcher goodness. Stay tuned.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Before unveiling any news on employment, we have a new sweet linky to read, we do.
Possibly the most overall talent I have seen on one of these bl*g things, if you count graphics and verbiage-smithing and damn funny combined as talent indicators, and I know you do. Spent most of Saturday reading the whole thing which is immeasurably rare for me. Plus, she has this thing going with weasels and I just know Pam at Sixweasels would shoot me if I didn’t get her in on this. So there ye have it, possibly the only place online with these two weas-writers extraordinaire stacked together.
Go ye. I knows good when I sees it.
Filed under: Uncategorized
No, no real decision yet. Trying to decide whether or not to revert back nearly 30 years and do the sort of thing that got me started down this silly old construction road in the first place? It’s hard, I can tell you.
For one thing, I’m not 21 years old anymore. Tossing sheets of plywood around all day isn’t the effortless thing it used to be, if it ever was. Working indoors in summer heat makes arabian headgear a necessity. In winter it’s thermals and layers. The place has a reputation of being one of the best in the Southeast, and it’s well deserved, but that doesn’t mean paradise for the talent that shovels the wood all day long.
http://sippicancottage.blogspot.com/2009/01/killing-two-um-in-bush-with-umthe-birds.html Sippican has a story that illustrates a conundrum. I remember well breaking into the industry in 1980, when the economy was even worse than it is now (hard to believe, isn’t it?). Nobody buying houses because of prohibitive interest rates, super high unemployment in construction. It was bad. Yet I strolled into a lumberyard two days after getting married and landed a minimum wage job in a cabinet shop. With the recommendation from a good friend who worked there.
Ally and I didn’t have two nickels to rub together. I don’t remember either of us bringing home $100 a week for a very long time. Rent was $250 a month, I had a $165 truck payment and the usual utilities, groceries. We did nothing. I mean nothing for entertainment or dinners out or weekend vacations. There was no cable tv, no internet, no VCR’s. Man it was weak, and you just sweated and pushed and kept going because there was no other choice.
Looks very much like we’ve come full circle, doesn’t it. There is no whining allowed because I accept it. I don’t particularly like it, my freedom’s down the tubes and I value that as much as anything, but there it is. Work to eat. Hope for better days.
Guess I’ve got a call to make.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve got a real gut burner of a decision to make.
Those of you from the old site, who followed the dallying of a business owner (that would be me) and the resulting hilarity as a way talented partner and I cut swaths across the wood strewn plains of carpenter land here in North Backwater (which is to say, the city) might better “get this” than the other 2 or 3 folks, but . . .
I got a maybe job offer.
This having exhausted every conceivable avenue in my talent field, across a lot of state lines and local as well, and leaving the last of all phone calls for the one I didn’t want to make.
The phone call to the legacy job. I think we all have one. The old time job that you giggle about in good times. Saying, while holding a beer in one hand and a fifty dollar bill in the other, “Well shoot if it all goes to hell I can always go back to Smithers Widgets!” and getting a riotous cackle from the adoring masses at the pub who all know you, and have heard this story a dozen times.
“Hey, ‘member that dude at Smithers that used to eat cat food for lunch? Then he got tossed in the pokey for pissing on the side of the building downtown one night? Yeah! Bwahahahaaaa . . . !”
“Oh yeah, I worked at Smithers. Ain’t ever’body? Bwahahahaaaa!”
And so on.
Truth be told, I worked at Smithers when it was only Smith. You see. Worked there for 11 years, started and finished in the office, saw that place built up from starving to way healthy. Like to think I had a hand in that. If I’d stayed there, chances are pretty good I’d be talking early retirement now instead of ‘Will work for food, yass’um’.
Honest, I was the shit. They were crying when I left. For greener pastures and all that.
In subsequent years, the Smithers boss was frequently heard to say “I don’t understand why you ever left. God, I thought you were here for life!”
Point of fact, when I left in ‘94, I wondered aloud to my long sufferin’ wife if it was the right thing to do. “Damn, hope I ain’t farkin’ up here . . .”, was the quote as I recall.
After a couple stints at other places (them thar greener pastures, you see) I started the gig of all gigs. My own gig. Which, after a few years, was running along like a Cuban cigar on a slow burn. Hell, we even had Smithers as a major customer! A good paying customer at that! For a good 10 years and then . . .
Well.
Ever have to make one of those phone calls that you have to steel yourself for? The – “Shit don’t make me do this . . . God I can’t believe . . . Oh just push the buttons and swallow your ever-lovin’ pride “. . . calls?
I made that one today.
Talked to the guy whose only son was born a month after my Middlest One. You could say that he and I are on the same plain, if not in the same income catagory. If I’d never left there, I have no doubt he would be my closest friend.
The guy who hired my son, the last of the three children that Ally and I zapped out. And he didn’t have to do that, and I told him so. Today. Told him that. “I really never thanked you for that bro, but it was a damn fine thing you done, there. And I wished he’d have worked out better for ye, and not screwed up the opportunity that you gave him, ’cause I was all up in his face about not doing exactly what he wound up doing, and . . .”
Yeah.
The only thing Smithers has got is a job I graduated from 30 years ago.
But he does have that. And is half assed eager to pay me to do it. I guess.
Aw shit.
Do I wanna eat or starve, here?
Filed under: Backwater Livin'
Probably one of the first signs, I know. Start writing about the food you’re cooking. I’ve been in this house for waaaay too long, unemployed and staring at two dogs and four walls. And an internet screen, like the Great Eye of Sauron freezing my great hobbit feet in place.
But yes, pinto beans!
Dumped in a pot with some chopped up ham and onion and suchlike. I gotta admit, much as I love the country and have lived that sort of life now and before, I’ve never had ‘em. Never once. Folks go on and on about how good they are and I just had to try them out. They’re part of my larder by recommendation only - which is senseless. Don’t store what ye won’t eat, right?
By gaw they smell wonderful. If I can get Ally to eat some when she gets home I’ll consider today a mild success.
If I wash the dishes and clean up this roost a bit I imagine she’ll consider it a success too. Course, that comes after getting the wood fire going good and walking the dogs and laying in a couple days firewood in the shed outside. Minding the slow, wet backwater drizzle outside, yes I tend to that.
I think I’ve contracted Elmer Fudd Syndrome. Y’all really don’t want me to write everyday, do ye?
Now to give a bit of self-betterment that is directly about-faced from the previous wailing rant (and sorry, it was the end of the year and I had to let it loose, and no I ain’t gonna retract it), let’s look at a Backwater Box.
If you haven’t heard of a Bug Out Bag just go ahead now and Goog it, wade through the half million hits and learn. I’ve ramped it up a bit from Bag to Box, since its application is a bit different. Maybe you live in an off-grid fortified mountain retreat with a fresh water supply and 3 years of food on hand and have no need of such a thing but chances are, ye don’t.
Maybe you live in or near a city, commute to work every day and have a dwelling to come home to. Is that you? Yeah? Time to feel good, you’ve got millions of folks just like yourself. Safety in numbers and all.
Until: You’re on the way home in a snowstorm and get stuck on the interstate for a few hours. You’re facing a hurricane scenario and it’s time to head inland for a couple of days. You’re sitting in your house and the smoke alarms go off and you’ve got ten minutes to haul ass before they find your charred corpse in what’s left of your bed.
Never happened to you? Hell I’ve had all three happen to me. And I don’t count myself all that unlucky. It’s a fact of life. There’s a dozen other inconveniences I could list that might interrupt your little daily suwaree. Power turned off, or water. Just plain running out of funds.
The Backwater Box. Trust me, you really need something like this. And I’m not going to get into all the explaining about why you do, or what each piece of it means. You’re intelligent folks, you’re using a computer, use the web and your own common sense. You know most of this stuff already. I’m just the old buzzard harping at you.
Here’s the start of it all. Take that $100 Christmas gift card from Aunt Mildred, head out to Wally World and get a cooler. There’s only a couple of things that really matter about this – that it has a drain, a latch, wheels and can fit somewhere in your vehicle without too much strain. The trunk of the car, for most of you. This one’s $57 and holds 60 quarts. That’s biggish. Already got one? Use it instead. See, we’re gonna keep this real simple.
While you’re in the World, pick this up for $26. Add two propane canisters for $5 (they’re 16.4 oz). It’s an indoor heater that claims to last 14 hours per canister.
Still at the World? Good thing, ’cause directly behind the heater, same aisle, is this bag. Rated for 0 degrees and $23. Yeah, I’m not sure I believe it either but it has a whole lot of good reviews. Again, got your own already? Or a damn fine set of wool blankets? Use ‘em. Save the dollars.
No picture, but check around for a flashlight as long as you’re in the camping section anyway. Ideally, one of those emergency flashlight/radio combo’s with both battery and wind-up power.
Now go pickup that case of Shiner Bock and get out of Wally World while you can. You’ve spent your $100, of course. Nobody goes to the Wally and gets out for less, so make yourself feel good by doing something everybody else does anyway. Toss all that gear in the trunk. It does fit, right?
Now go home. Open up your kitchen and take a look. Pull out that extra 2 quart cooking pot with the burnt hande you’ve been saving. A hand held can opener. The best knife you can spare that you know how to sharpen. A coffee cup and a fork. Dig that spare Bic lighter out that you never use anyway. See what we’re doing? We’re recycling some basic living utensils. Put the little stuff in a seal-up plastic bag. Put the pot in a garbage bag. Take all that stuff out to the car and put it in the cooler. You now have the start of a Backwater Box.
Take your empty half gallon Gatorade, Diet Pepsi or moonshine jugs and fill with water. I guess you could buy the water, the kind with the preppy name and the art deco bottle, but you ain’t that kind of person now, are ye? Hope not. Stuff as much of it in the cooler as possible, then fill up the rest of the trunk with more. Cannot, cannot have enough water. Screw on lids are important.
Every time you go to the grocery store for the next two months, buy one or two (or fifty, who’s counting?) extra FOOD items for your Box. Semi-nonperishable. Cans are good. Tuna fish in oil. Ritz crackers. Spam (yeah I know, right?). Energy bars, pop tarts, can of peaches. You can obviously avoid lunch meat and mayo and bread. We’re gonna rotate this stuff once in a while, but nobody wants to deal with moving your basic Sliced Danish Ham Sandwich Meat in and out of the cooler every day, right?
Don’t cheat. Every trip to the grocery. Get a little something. Be creative. Buy a cheap paperback novel. Buy spare batteries for the flashlight. Another 16.4 propane canister. Box of kitchen matches. Heavy duty garbage bags. Bottle of hand soap. How about a pack of Sterno fuel? There’s no end of it, and as always if you already have it, stick it in there.
There are, of course, other things. Things that ultimately wouldn’t fit. Tools. An extra jacket. A rain suit (or just take an extra garbage bag and cut out some holes, but you’d look so darn foolish, right? Maybe not.). Cheap rubber boots from Goodwill. Sandbags and a chainsaw. Ugh, there’s really no end to this catagory. I’ve got a really big truck and I don’t have half the stuff in there that I’d like, and I’ve got two coolers and a helluva lot of tools.
So, to what end, this Backwater Box and all this stuff you just packed in and around it?
You’re stuck on the interstate coming home in a snowstorm. Stuck for a couple/three hours, in fact, because you’re out of gas and the plows are running behind. Nab that Box outta the trunk and make yourself a Spam and cracker sammich. Fire up the little propane indoor heater. Maybe you’ll make it, maybe you won’t. Bet you will though, and it sure beats hoofing to the next exit in your open toed mules to find out the 7-11 is closed.
Hurricane coming? Everybody else is going to be looking for a Backwater Box, and everything in it, and running in a panic while you’re halfway to safety 200 miles up the road.
Displaced from the house for a few days? No money? Perhaps you were prophetic enough to stash some money in your . . . yes of course you were. Open up a can of tuna and enjoy yourself in your cheap motel room.
Think. Reason. I can tell you for a fact that standing in the rain watching your house burn down is nothing I’d wish on anyone. But when I realized that my wife was barefoot and wearing only what she had laying next to the bed, I fetched boots and raincoat and a flashlight from the truck I was standing next to. From the Backwater Box. We ate a little food from there, too. We didn’t have to sleep in the car but we could have.
Shit hits the fan in many, many different ways. Do something for yourself. Make yourself forget the Armaggedon nature of what you’re doing and prepare for the inevitable. Because it happens every blessed day we live, my children.
This one small thing you do, it matters. Build the Box. Start right now. Keep yourself close to it. Consider it the spare tire of your daily life.
Because that’s exactly what it is.
