Electric Job Experience

This previous summer, an opportunity to work for my father’s electric company arose. The job entailed driving a thirteen-foot tall box truck with a coworker to Umpqua banks in Oregon and Washington that had relocated or closed down and “decommissioning” them by removing all technology equipment. That includes: computers, cash counters, printers, telephones, and anything that uses electricity. We would take every piece of technology and catalog them into an excel sheet with their serial and model numbers. Most the trips we went on to decommission the banks would entail us having to spend the night in hotels. I made $12.50 per hour, a generous raise from making minimum wage at my previous jobs. The first trip started with meeting Jon, a heavyset …show more content…
He debriefed me on a job in Prineville, Oregon where Facebook started constructing a new data center to store user information. The job would entail me driving a truck between the construction site and Facebook’s warehouse about two-miles down the road. The goal being to supply the electricians with the materials they needed to keep them busy. I certainly didn’t want this job, until my dad hit me with the catch. I would make $20 per hour. I knew that none of my friends got paid that much. I ogled over my calculations of how much I would make. Focused on the money, I told him I’d do it. I received a hard hat, bought my steel-toed-boots, and on Sunday night I drove to Prineville. Monday morning, I arrived in the job trailer parking lot for “new hire orientation”. I noticed a circle of twelve guys, one wearing a company shirt. Overriding my body’s introvert instincts, I approached them. I remember my first words, “Are you guys here for new hire orientation?” A couple groans that qualified as yeses responded. Jim, who I would later learn was my foreman, spoke first. “I guess I need to make some new friends.” He quietly grunted. Jim wore dark green overalls, had a scraggly white beard, and smoked a cigar. Being the boss’ son, I immediately felt resistance from everybody. After the orientation, we got to work. Jim and I drove to the warehouse. Inside the warehouse were rows upon rows of 7’x3’x2’ brown boxes, full of mostly metal cable racks, that weighed about 120lbs each. The warehouse lacked a loading dock, each box had to be hoisted into the back of the truck. The staples in the boxes scratched my arms until they looked like a cat’s scratch post. We loaded the box truck with twenty boxes, drove back, and unloaded them at the construction site. We repeated that process around ten times per day. My muscles shut down. I questioned if I could do this for the next