Tell me about your most blue collar job.

[Freiwillige]

Summer jobs - Mowed lawns

Maintenance at nursing home (mainly digging ditches, picking up garbage, and moving furniture). My first day was digging a ditch from the building to a fountain. The old people were sitting in their wheelchairs waiting to see whether I would quit or die of heat stroke.

College jobs - McDonalds (graduated from cleaning the lobby and bathrooms to working at the front counter). I also did french fries, filet of fish, milk shakes and worked the grill. We were open after the bars closed on Friday nights and Saturday nights. We had many interesting guests. The other bad part was carrying the grease traps out to the garbage barrel at 1:30 a.m. when the parking lot was iced up.

Post-retirement jobs - JC Penney. I sold "fine jewelry and watches." Selling credit card applications and jewelry care plans were the worst parts of the job. It was so bad that I went to ...

Wal-Mart (sporting goods). We sold ammunition but not firearms. Customers kept checking to see whether we had .22 caliber ammunition which we almost never had. We also sold fishing licenses and hunting licenses, along with baseballs, basketballs, footballs, etc.

 

[n_huffhines]

When reading the threads here in the PF, one thing that often comes up is people's jobs.

We have plenty of professionals here: attorneys, educators, entrepreneurs, etc. Those positions are sometimes referenced in policy discussion as providing a unique or specialized outlook that informs a particular poster's positions on issues. I certainly think our work history influences our current decisions, and there is much discussion as to which candidate "relates to" or "cares for" average Americans more. To that end, I am curious what everyone's "blue collar" work experience.

So, what is your most blue collar working experience, when did you do it, why, and for how long? How has that experience influenced your political decision making process, if at all?

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

Landscaping grunt, although sometimes I got to operate the skid steer. Good times.

I was about 24. I had dropped out of school to work in RE, but the market crashed and I did it for 18 months until I went back to college and finished up.

I doubt it has anything to do with my politics.

My first hourly job was cleaning up the Lifter's Club in Oak Ridge, TN. I was 11 years old and Rex Lowe (one time Mr. Knoxville) didn't give a **** about labor laws, and neither did I. RIP.

I also washed dishes.

 

[n_huffhines]

In order from youngest to oldest

News Sentinnel carrier (12 - 14)
Dishwasher (14-16)
Food server/cashier (16-17)
Carwasher (17-18)
Dishwasher (18)
Mover (19)
Kroger Deli (union shop) (21-22)
Magazine Delivery (26)

All taught me if I want $ to pay bills or buy things I need to get off my butt and earn it. No job is beneath me.

You had them fatty papers. I delivered the Oak Ridger from ages 9 to 13. Light work.

 

[McDad]

Mowing yards from 12-17. Of course it was with a push mower. Started at $5 per yard. By the time I was in high school I was getting $8 per yard

In college, worked at a golf course, mainly hand raking all bunkers, mowing tee boxes and manually cooling greens

I would be delighted to pay you $8 a yard to mow my properties

 

[McDad]

A sow almost killed me once, dad got rid of the pigs after that.

The girl that you took home when the bar was closing is not the kind of sow we're discussing here

 

[hog88]

Landscaping grunt, although sometimes I got to operate the skid steer. Good times.

I was about 24. I had dropped out of school to work in RE, but the market crashed and I did it for 18 months until I went back to college and finished up.

I doubt it has anything to do with my politics.

My first hourly job was cleaning up the Lifter's Club in Oak Ridge, TN. I was 11 years old and Rex Lowe (one time Mr. Knoxville) didn't give a **** about labor laws, and neither did I. RIP.

I also washed dishes.

RE?

 

[hog88]

The girl that you took home when the bar was closing is not the kind of sow we're discussing here

They looked about the same so sometimes I get 'em mixed up.

 

[DinkinFlicka]

What's your bar? I think you have said it is in Knoxville....I'll have to stop by sometime when I am in for a game.

It's a karaoke joint downtown.

 

[n_huffhines]

RE?

real estate (buying/selling)

 

[Jxn Vol]

I worked on the drilling crew for a water well contractor in high school during the summers. Changing drill stems covered in mud from head to toe is a motivating thing for a young man.

 

[Ritzwatch]

It's a karaoke joint downtown.

Near regal?

 

[hog88]

I worked on the drilling crew for a water well contractor in high school during the summers. Changing drill stems covered in mud from head to toe is a motivating thing for a young man.

That's hard work, tool pushers aren't known for their patience

 

[DinkinFlicka]

Near regal?

That's the one.

 

[NurseGoodVol]

Started at 12 with babysitting
Groom
Deli worker
Chop saw operator
CNA
Bar manager
Assistant F&B manager
District sales
Trim Carpenter
Nurse

 

[Orangeburst]

Started at 12 with babysitting
Groom
Deli worker
Chop saw operator
CNA
Bar manager
Assistant F&B manager
District sales
Trim Carpenter
Nurse

Deli worker huh? Reb ever ask you to make him a sammich?

 

[hog88]

Started at 12 with babysitting
Groom
Deli worker
Chop saw operator
CNA
Bar manager
Assistant F&B manager
District sales
Trim Carpenter
Nurse

That's an interesting and varied work history.

 

[Ritzwatch]

Deli worker huh? Reb ever ask you to make him a sammich?

Of course he did, that is why “deli worker” is followed immediately by “chop saw operator.”

 

[me_grag53]

When reading the threads here in the PF, one thing that often comes up is people's jobs.

We have plenty of professionals here: attorneys, educators, entrepreneurs, etc. Those positions are sometimes referenced in policy discussion as providing a unique or specialized outlook that informs a particular poster's positions on issues. I certainly think our work history influences our current decisions, and there is much discussion as to which candidate "relates to" or "cares for" average Americans more. To that end, I am curious what everyone's "blue collar" work experience.

So, what is your most blue collar working experience, when did you do it, why, and for how long? How has that experience influenced your political decision making process, if at all?

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

All blue collar for me. Vocational school for carpentry and masonry. Did construction for years until I moved back to tn. and finally ended up retiring from a Perdue chicken plant. Cut chicken on a line until I got a forklift job. Worked in the freezer helping the QA lab pull and check product and finally got on the dock loading trucks for about 8 years before retiring. One of the most interesting construction jobs was working on a service bay for tour busses. It was a sunken bay with 4 foot overhang on both sides for tool boxes etc. We got the foundation done and my brother in law left me to build the 4 foot high outer walls with 16 inch block over rebar sticking up out of the footer. (I stand about 5'6".) We also did the concrete for silos for foam pellets for a plant that made styrofoam fast food containers. 4 foot thick pad with bolt patterns for 3 silos with bolts every 6 inches or so. Yep ,I got to stay and finish by it by hand . It was really surprising when the silo builders told me they set their first sections down and had to make no leveling adjustments. I was shocked , and a bit proud. On one job , and ex steel plant worker actually picked up 2 eight inch blocks end to end in each hand and held them straight out from his chest. Loved construction but would have had to travel to make any money, and had 2 boys growing up, so I went to the Perdue plant.

 

[MHS Rebel]

When reading the threads here in the PF, one thing that often comes up is people's jobs.



So, what is your most blue collar working experience, when did you do it, why, and for how long? How has that experience influenced your political decision making process, if at all?

Hardees, hauling hay, stripping tobacco., a now defunct fast food place called "Burger Queen," greens keeping.

Oh, and painting the football stands at Tenn Tech on my knees crawling down the seat-rows in August.

 

[RavinDave]

Let’s see

@ 9 I made a few quarters shoveling snow
10-13 paperboy for Knoxville News Sentinel
10-13 got a friend to deliver papers on UT game days so I could sell “Cold DRINKS!” in Neyland Stadium
14-15 drive-in waiter at a greasy spoon
16 McDonalds on Chapman Hwy (counter, not fries)
16-17 Cas Walkers, bag boy on Chapman Hwy and Vestal locations
( some hoodlum put sugar in the gas tank of my Suzuki at the Vestal store)
17-18 stockboy, bag boy. And produce maven at Reeds Fine Foods in Sequoyah Hills during first year at UT (old man Reed was on my paper route)
18-19 at Reeds for Spring and Fall quarters , engineering co-op at BFGoodrich in Ohio Summer and Winter
20-21 part time lab tech in Cedar Hills during school terms, co-op at BFG latex plant in Louisville my junior/senior year.

Dirtiest jobs were actually at a couple of small chemical plants in my late 20s early thirties.

 

[DinkinFlicka]

What's your bar? I think you have said it is in Knoxville....I'll have to stop by sometime when I am in for a game.

You should coordinate with @marcusluvsvols and @GroverCleveland to come ambush me at work (though be warned, Marcus is afraid to face me like a man... he's bailed twice!)

@LouderVol only stopped in when I wasn't there.

 

[MHS Rebel]

My dirtiest, but not hard, was at a rubber mill. You'd be surprised where you find carbon black. Black snot. No masks back then.

As an intern at TVA in Muscle Shoals, packaging and burying disposed-of chemicals. Chemical incompatibility you say. We didn't care.

 

[volfanhill]

I was a line cook for a few years. The nastiest thing I've ever done for money, not counting things I've done for @McDad, was clean out the nacho cheese machine at the pool snack bar when I was like 11. Had to use a damn hose

 

[volbound1700]

Retail
Manufacturing
Construction
Substitute Teaching
Data Entry
Waiter

Out of all of them, Waiter was probably the least fun. I worked for Logans as a 2nd job and they would keep us late if we did closing shift trying to do a bunch of cleanup jobs. That sucked because you didn't make much money for that and it was always a pain trying to track down the shift manager to sign off to let you go home.

 

[hog88]

I was a line cook for a few years. The nastiest thing I've ever done for money, not counting things I've done for @McDad, was clean out the nacho cheese machine at the pool snack bar when I was like 11. Had to use a damn hose

He really does ride his “employees” hard.