Lifting and Piping (NJM4)
I saw this on the news yesterday, and it made me laugh. The driver wasn’t hurt, but he destroyed thousands of dollars worth of liquor. I drove forklifts quite a bit when I was working summer jobs in high school and college – it’s harder than it looks, partly because (at least on the ones I drove) the back wheels turn to do the steering, not the front wheels. Which means you have to think about which way the back of the forklift is going to go when you turn the steering wheel.
Another key rule to forklift driving is that you never lift the load on your forks up high, until you need to. Raising the forks up with something on them and then driving around is really bad, because if you have a heavy load and you put it up high (the forklifts I drove lifted things as high as twenty-five feet), it would start to sway and make the whole thing unstable. I learned this lesson on the first day I tried the forklift, and lifted a 600-pound, 16-inch gate valve (worth a few thousand dollars) up to the top of the lift, and then tried to drive it across the warehouse. A few frantic and highly wobbly moments later, the valve crashed down from on high, making a major dent in the warehouse floor and shattering the flange on the valve. It was not a good day for me, but at least I didn’t get fired – the foreman just told me to put the broken valve at the back of the shelf it was going to, and pray that nobody found it until after I left (it was a summer job).
I worked a few summers for construction companies -and it was a great thing, maybe the greatest motivator there was for me to finish my college degree. It’s something I would recommend to any parent of teenagers, as a surefire way to help motivate your kids in school. Give them a couple months of doing honest labor, and it makes sitting through calculus seem not so bad.
The company I worked for most of the time had the words "pollution control" in the company name – which was the nice way of saying that it was a sewer company. So yes, I can say to my kids, "back when I dug ditches for a living…" – which can earn some great eyerolling when used at the right time.
When the subject of a "hard day’s work" comes up, I always have a good story to pull out – the company I worked for installed new water and sewage piping for the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant during one of the hottest summers on record in Michigan. I actually wasn’t there for the installation, but I was called in afterward for the cleanup. See, when pipefitters and plumbers do installations of that size, they will go through thousands of fittings, cut hundreds of pieces of pipe, use who knows how many bolts, screws, and washers – and as they’re working, anything that is leftover or doesn’t fit or doesn’t work out ends up on the floor.
In the tank plant, most of the piping work was done in what they called the "attic" – a windowless, four-foot high space the size of several football fields in the roof of the plant. The whole area was criss-crossed by pipes of all sizes, and there was zero ventilation – it got to be about two million degrees in there, and my job was to crawl through all the pipes and pick up every stray piece of metal, pipe, and fittings, carry them out in a bucket, and then sort them into work bins to be reused. I did that for ten hours a day, for four weeks straight, before it was all cleaned out.
I know my kids are sick of hearing that story – but I still love to tell it. But the real value of that experience is something that I don’t think they could understand (without having a similar experience themselves) – it proved to me that I could do a job that felt like it would kill me, and see it through to the end. It became a high-water mark for my internal understanding of how far I could push myself. Just as important, it gave me a respect for people who do that kind of work every day, year after year – I like to think that I don’t ever judge people as "better" or "worse" than anyone else because of what they "do".
Not that I’m trying to make myself look good, or blow my own horn, or whatever – my only point is that I think this sort of experience is really valuable.
Today’s aside:
I love the fact that when I went to Google just now, Cookie Monster was there, having gobbled up a large part of the Google logo (and no, don’t you DARE ask me to call him Veggie Monster, or there will be trouble in here). And wow, having typed that, I had to go back and do a quick "Veggie Monster" search, and turns out the whole blue-monster-name-change thing was just a rumor spread by the Interwebs (I love snopes.com, and I really love the Matt Lauer-Cookie Monster interview quoted in this piece).
The DiaryMaster
*chuckles* With some of the reactions you get from people here on OD sometimes, you might still be able to claim “digging ditches” as at least your part-time profession… 🙂 Of course though, I joke…mostly… *laughs* Yay for COOKIE Monster! C is for cookie and that IS good enough for me!! *nods* Take good care!
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VEGGIE Monster??? who the heck calls him THAT? sacrilege!!
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OH MY WOW!!!
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Hes definitely cookie Monster and the main reason I made cookies and posted them as my NoJoMo
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Oh, wow! That logo is way better than the Big-Bird-legs-as-the-L logo that was up earlier today. I sort of wish I had worked in labor, but I worked in a menial minimum-wage job instead. All the same, I agree, a great experience.–
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Very interesting. My husband was a Chrysler pipefitter in Detroit. Not in the tank plant, though. And my son took a summer job in a warehouse where he eventually drove a forklift. Yes, it was good for him. He was good at it and it boosted his confidence.
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Throughout my education, my father ALWAYS cited the “…or you’ll end up digging ditches for a living” parental rule. I actually did end up “digging ditches” for four years (laying storm, water and sewer lines), and I loved that job. Hard physical labor teaches one a lot about oneself to be sure, but what I liked best was the teamwork and camradery. When we lost our temper with one another,we stodd toe-to-toe, called each other names my parents certainly never taught me, and got it out of our system right then and there. Then we got back to work. In an office setting, everyone holds all that frustration in, and it’s hugely destructive; cliques and factions form, backs are stabbed, and everyone mutters to themselves and bitches and complains within their factions. Office drama can live on for years, whereas in hte construction field, incidents are done and over with within a minute.
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Summer jobs are great for kids. All three of mine worked summer jobs and it has made them value the ability to work and earn their way. No slackers in my lot!
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I love the google special logos and I never seem to catch them. we were talking about Jim Henson in class yesterday. This whole generation is forgetting who he is/was
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You had an awsome foreman! Seirously!
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strange, I don’t see the cookie monster on google.com but I do on google.ca…
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Keep up the writing I love learning your a real person.
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Google for “NPR cookie monster interview” if you haven’t seen that one.
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Cookie Mu-Mush was my favorite character. I still cannot call him cookie monster. My parents thought the whole mu-mush thing was too cute and insisted we all call him that.
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Wish my hubby had been tougher on my kid with the jobs thing. There is so much to learn and growth to be had when you have a little bit of difficulty in life. I live in fear of how he will cope when the time comes for him to suffer a little. He’s got a long way to drop.
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My dad has worked for Mechanical Contracting companies since before I was born so he has tons of those stories from when he worked in the field. Now I work in the office with him and seeing some of the foremen come in during the summer makes me really glad I work indoors lol.
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I saw that story, too. I believe the headline here was “Absolut Chaos”. Wow, that was pretty generous of your foreman to sweep your mistake under the rug. Am I a bad person that my initial thought, when hearing your story about your job in “the attic” is that it would be a perfect job for height challenged folks to apply for? Veggie Monster?! That’s new to me (but not surprising).
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I had Big Bird’s legs on Google, not Cookie Monster.
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I wonder how many people burst into tears when the liquor bottles broke? Did volunteers go in to drink off the floor? Poor driver must be absolutely shattered (no pun intended) and is probably having deductions made out of his pay packet to compensate the company. Unless he has already moved to Siberia.
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you’ve had some interesting summer jobs. i really love the google special icons. take care,
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Your green print on green background is really hard to read. Just sayin…..
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yeah it’s the 40th anniversary of sesame street 🙂
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That story about the forklift dropping the booze is alcohol abuse. Just sayin. 😉 Veggie Monster? No way, he will forever be cookie monster!
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This entry is great. I would love to print it out and let my almost 20 year old son read it, if he actually would read it. I worked very hard in high school and paid for my first car, which sat broken down more often that it ran. I think every child should work if their school schedule allows it. My son was in the IB program and band, and my ex-husband would not support me in having him work weekends. It has come back to haunt my ex.
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Great entry.
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I’ve never even heard of Veggie Monster until this entry, so it’s not a very good rumour 🙂
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Great stories. I worked menial things like bindery work or sweeping floors. Every job was a dusty one that made me ill. My mother never understood. My G and I were aghast at the loss of all that booze. Not funny at all for an alcoholic. LOL
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That video is hilarious.
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OM NOM NOM NOM DEE-LI-CIOUS
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I started working at a part time cashiering/grocery store job when I was 16, and worked there until I went to college, and the next summer…the summer after that was an office job, and the summer after that was waitressing, which I kept throughout the schoolyear until I moved away. Now I have two jobs, working in retail and teaching part time at the local community college, while I’m out here atgrad school, and I still feel lazy for not having a third job to fill in all of my non-school time (despite the fact that I need all of that time, and more, to get said schoolwork done). I’ve never done manual labor but I have learned a lot about myself in the process and I certainly know the value of a hard day’s work.
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1987 and 1988 were the really hot and dry years here. One was hotter and one was dryer so they kind of balanced out. The year Springsteen had Glory Days as a hit, the 3rd year alfalfa on the bottoms had roots to china and made hay. Not much else did.
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Snopes is great 🙂 Cookie Monster rocks! 🙂 ~*Samantha*~
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YAY for Cookie Monster!! I did see it but had to do actually Go to google.com lol that was funny to watch but omg I wouldn’t have wanted to be him in the aftermath of that!
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Yeah for Cookie Monster, gimme cookie!!! lol
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Have to agree with you on the construction job thing.. My son worked as a bricklayer (in a tropical climate) until he got a electricians position.. after being a bricklayer for a few months every job he has had since feels like a walk in the park! I too would recommend that every kid spends a few months doing some hard labour job. Having said that.. I am eternally grateful for those who do do these jobs and have pride in their work.. without them life would be less comfortable for all of us.
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c is for cookie, not carrots.
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I’ve done just about every job under the sun, INCLUDING ditch digging for a landscaping company. At one point, my job as a restaurant janitor was the clean out the kitchen sewer traps. That was some SERIOUS disgusting work. However, it wasn’t as bad as an assembly line egg peeler. The stench of rotten eggs was everywhere. I’m surprised that I still like eggs to this day. Eric
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yesterday was big bird on the google logo. google uk had a wicked wallace and gromit one. you should look those up.
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“you never lift the load on your forks up high, until you need to” This is also true of romantic relationships.
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hahaha i saw that on the news, did he get fired i wonder?
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I saw that forklift clip. Wow that was some damage! It sounds like you had a very understanding foreman when it happened to you!
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I am thankful there are people out there who take pride in that kind of work – it is just as worthwhile as ‘college’ work. I’m also grateful there are opportunities there for those of us not quite so strong and coordinated!
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i <3 cookie monster. C is for cookie, thats good enough for me.
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That’s one good thing about being about to have my first baby – kids aren’t sick of my stories yet. The husband, on the other hand…
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