Loading ...watch your language, folks! i’m a recovering workaholic. i love lay – offs!
years ago, following a mid-life crisis (divorce at age 30 etc) i was visiting my home town, and i ran into my old scoutmaster. he suggested that rather than looking for professional work, i might learn a trade. he helped me get hired with the pipefitters at the shipyard in tampa. long story short, i ended up as a union instrument technician. most folks don’t know much about instrumentation, but it’s industrial controls. kinda like the dashboard for a factory, or a power house, or a mine… etc. lots of it is done by pneumatics, and thus it is a specialty of pipefitting. it was a wonderful change from anything i had ever done with my liberal arts degree.
most industrial construction projects come to an end, and everybody gets laid off. to many a lay-off is a bad thing. i came to cherish them. the controls usually go on in the latter portion of a project. projects are almost always behind schedule by then, and project managers deal with being behind schedule by putting on as much overtime as the law allows. this led to the following situation:
i would get sent to a project (journeyman=you go to the job) where i would work seven days a week, twelve hours a day for two or three months straight. with union wages and all that overtime, the paychecks are ASTOUNDING. suddenly, when it all came together, and they started the puppy up, we were all laid off. there i was with a basketfull of money (no opportunity to spend anything for months) and time on my hands. time to go home and spend a few weeks (or months) catching up on my fishing before going down to the union hall to find out where i was going next. a rough life? puleeeze don’t throw me in that briar patch.
another benefit: since everybody understood we were temporary, loyalty to any employer wasn’t expected. i could “drag up” (quit) anytime i wanted time off. during the period my kids were little, i had them for six weeks every summer. we formed a habit of long, rambling roadtrips – usually camping trips. we did the rockies and the west several times, the canadian maritimes once, and europe twice. try taking off six weeks at a time from a white collar professional job.