When my dad was not much more than a boy, he had an apprenticeship at a local engineering place, of course, back in those days an apprenticeship was something you (or your parents) paid your employer for, and you got no wages the first two years…
After a time, he got good enough to do his own work, and at that time there were a lot of Bedford lorries around, and of course a lot of them were ex war department stuff.
One of the jobs that needed doing with some regularity was setting up the back axle and diff, and as it turned out Dad was good at this, so good he got the time to do each one down to under an hour.
Of course, what happened then was every time one of these jobs came in, he got it, and he only managed to get off that mandatory assignment by progressively slowing down each job, until someone else was faster.
I have been posting more lately because basically the last two weeks I have been paid to sit on my ass at home waiting for a call, a couple of days ago I was bored enough to talk to a couple of the other guys, “You busy?”
Turns out they are both working their ass off, one on his 45th different site in a specific chain, interestingly if you draw a line from his home to the site he was at yesterday it is 200 road miles long, and around the middle of it, is where I sit typing this..
So why was he sent to do the job and not me, well, the answer is two fold;
- If this week the company has 3 x 40 engineer hours available in my area, and 60 engineer hours work, it makes no odds to them how that is split up, it is no cheaper to give each engineer 20 hours work, than to have one working full time, one working half time, and me sat at home.
- He was the Bedford back axle man for this particular job, having already done 44 of the bastards.
He is, in his own words, pissed off with the employment as a whole, I, in my own words, am as happy as a pig in shit, so far in June I have had a total of 13 jobs, and usually that is an allocated 2 hour time slot for each job, plus travelling time to or from site.
Next month should be busier for me, a lot busier, there are a few major projects coming down the line, but it still isn’t WORK, so I will be a happy bunny.
Work for me was when it was 34 degrees Celsius outside in the shade, and then you went down into an engine room all day with operating machinery and did hard physical and technical labour with the sweat oozing out of every pore. That was work.
Sometimes playing with main engines, some times playing with gen sets, some times playing with pumps, some times playing with human waste (shit piss and tampons) in clogged holding tanks.
Nowadays I’m paid to drive around and effectively play text based video games (there ain’t a lot of difference between “you are in a cave, there is an angry dwarf…” and cisco config stuff… ) for an hour or two, or move some routers / switches and patch cables, now and again I will swap a mainboard, psu or hard disk.
When I finish a job I’m not smeared from head to toe with an amalgam of lube oil, diesel, grinding disk compound, welding rod spatter, lithium grease and human shit.
Yesterday, cos guys are like that, I sent a text to a mate of mine trapped in a job he wants out of, but there are no real alternative jobs in the county and anyway his house won’t sell, the text said worked two hours last tuesday, and had an attachment of the pint of beer I was sitting drinking outside a pub.
… lrfh
He sent me a text back… “Bastard”
This is the same guy who was telling me a few weeks ago that my job would never do him, it just didn’t pay enough money, after I had explained it paid ENOUGH money in exchange for bugger all work and zero personal responsibility….
So after the beer I meet some old skank, take her back to mine, dump two loads of cum into her and then she is off, back to her latest boyfriend… it’s an open relationshit… apparently…
I crawl into bed and sleep the sleep of the innocent, wake up this mo’nin, hullo clouds, hullo sky, hullo coffee, it’s a hard fucking life, but someone has to do it… lrfh.
Back in the day, when I was working in ambient 40+, smeared in shit and grease, I was trying to achieve something, I was trying to be the best and what I did, I was trying to earn respect, I was trying to earn money, I was trying to “make” something of myself.
No young boy actually wanted a Lamborghini countach, you wanted a lambo to impress and pull GIRLS… that was the fucking truth… sure, it was dressed up as one-upmanship over other guys, but again, that was just to get the girls…
I spent a lot of my life either directly or indirectly trying to get a woman, or keep a woman, cos, again, it was just one of those things you did, everyone knew that… course, I never really called it that, I called it trying to earn money, trying to be ace at my trade, trying to make something of myself.
My now departed dad, well, NOW I realise there where a whole lot of things he didn’t tell me, why should he, I would either work it out for myself, or I wouldn’t, and there was no other way to that knowledge than working it out for myself.
With 20/20 hindsight, he dropped a LOT of hints, and said a lot of things that just sounded like off the cuff remarks to a blue pill me, funny as fuck.
Even funnier now, now I get the joke, and I was the joke.
Same sort of off the wall shit I am saying to my mate who I sent the beer pic to, which he don’t really get, yet, one day he will.
My mate, like the guy on his 45th install, ain’t happy in his job, which is crazy, because they both have great fucking jobs that they could do in their sleep, but unfortunately they give a shit, and are trying to get ahead, and MAKE SOMETHING OF THEMSELVES.
Thing is, you can’t make something out of yourself when a big part of what you call yourself isn’t you, but just a load of shit you’ve picked up along the way.
When I was 20 I read a quote, it said; “Death is not the end of life, character is the end of life.”
Like a lot of the off the wall stuff my dad used to say to me, it made me laugh and I thought it funny enough to remember and quote again, but, I didn’t fucking GET it.
Character is, of course, me + all that shit that goes to make up “trying to make something of myself”
Take away all that shit that goes to make up “trying to make something of myself” and what is left is ME, and suddenly life is no longer over.
You know, I don’t even regret the 50 years of my life that have gone by, before I started to really get all this shit, because the fact is that much time and experience pretty much HAD to go by, before I could get this shit…. you can’t make a 40 year old VSOP Cognac in less than 40 years.
Take at look at this sad cunt http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2347887/Money-doesnt-buy-happiness-says-Bernie-Ecclestone.html
The guy is worth 3 billion Pounds, and says ‘I am not sure what happiness is’
Well Bernie, I am worth about 3 thousand Pounds, and I dunno what love is, but I am happy.
But then look what Bernie did with his life, worked like a cunt trying to “make something of himself”, got married (and divorced) three fucking times, had two daughters who are loyal to their mum, not to him… see a pattern here..?
Of COURSE the cunt is miserable…
He should have quit when he was 50, in 1980 when he was only worth a few hundred million, and retired to a tropical island and spent the rest of his days wandering around bollock naked trying to perfect coconut wine.
As my quote above specified, Bernie died fucking decades ago, so did everyone else you can shake a stick at.
My employer doesn’t get it, all they can think of is fucking “career advancement” CCNA > CCDA > CCNP CCIP CCDP CCVP, cos you will earn lot’s more munnay.
Dude, I am in my fucking fifties, I already have all the qualifications I want, if I was CCn/i/d/vP I’d be expected to work my fucking ass off, pressure, responsibility, yadda yadda yadda, what the fuck.
Back in the day, when you retired from a company after many years of service, they gave you a fucking gold watch, which was symbolic of the fucking company giving YOU back YOUR time, to do with as you wish (remember, public timekeeping was used so workers could get to work on time).. well thanks for fucking nothing.
Back in the day, I had CHARACTER, now, I have ME.
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