08-22-2016, 01:27 PM
(08-22-2016, 11:52 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: I ran a precision machining and assembly business from my parents' garage when I was 16 years old. I worked on the line in machining, sheet metal and assembly to help work my way through college. Beyond that I did the typical restaurant and retail stuff.
(expletives deleted - I'm trying to turn a new leaf vis anger management)
Hmm. My first job was 'House Services Department'... err... the janitorial staff for New England Telephone. (They later became Nynex, then Verison.) Is cleaning toilets a shit job? My second was night shift, removing still cooling plastic parts from injection moulding machines. Old style mindless manufacturing. Remove part from mold, then package it before the next part was ready.
The third was assembling prototype fly by wire systems for the Navy's Vietnam era F8 fighter. This was something of a let down for others on my team at Draper Labs. The prior project had been the inertial guidance system for Project Apollo. For the rest of my career I was doing high tech for the military-industrial complex.
While the first job wasn't a prize, it also reflected how things used to be. My father worked for New England Telephone. It was presumed in his time that if you pulled your weight, if you got into the Bell System, you had a job for life. Not only that, but if your son needs a summer job, he's in too. Things were very different then. Another aspect was that when my father offered stinky job in the family business, I was expected to take it and did. You were expected to pay your dues, but if you did pay your dues you expected doors to open.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.