Sunday, February 14, 2016

Chapter 29: Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Chapter 29: Breaking Up Is Hard To Do



Jobs 83-84

2010

Job  #83: Intern, Geographical Information Center

When I started the Geospatial Workforce Training Program (GWTP), I was nervous that I would again experience the sort of difficulties with the computer software which had plagued me during my time in college. To my delight, I thrived in it. I knew I just needed a second chance in order to master it. The only part that gave me trouble was our final project, in which we needed to show that we knew how to use the software in order to solve real-world problems. The project was approximately equivalent to a senior thesis for a bachelor’s degree, but geared toward vocational students who perhaps hadn’t had any previous college education. The idea was that we were to partner with a local business or organization which could use some GIS-based solutions to specific issues (even if they weren’t aware they had a problem).

I’ve always hit a wall when it comes to projects of this sort. I don’t mind doing research, and I’m okay at writing papers, but when it comes to thinking up some new and original idea to try to convince someone that I actually know what I’m doing, I blank out. The other students in the GWTP were coming up with some really interesting-sounding and practical ideas for projects, but I was floundering about, trying to think of something, anything.

My instructor, Chris, suggested a possible project. The GWTP shared a building with an electrical lineman college, and they needed some help with something. The facility was located next to the O-Town airport, and so they had to report the height of their practice poles to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA has a handy webpage which allows users to enter data about the structures they’re reporting, then the FAA’s software generates a map showing the location of the structure in relation to the airport. The problem the lineman college was having was that their FAA-generated maps were showing their poles as being almost a mile from the airport, rather than a few yards.

The answer to their problem was actually quite simple. It’s been long enough ago that I can’t remember the exact details, and they would probably bore you anyway. Basically, there are various methods in which to record one’s position on the earth’s surface, such as Digital Degrees and Degrees Minutes Seconds. The FAA’s web page only allowed the data to be submitted in one of the methods, but the GPS (Global Positioning System) device the lineman college was using was set to a different method.

The campus director for the lineman college was actually a former classmate of mine from my college geography courses, named Jennifer. Her job at the lineman college didn’t really have anything to do with geography, and it was really just a funny coincidence that it was her responsibility as director to submit the GPS data to the FAA. She didn’t know about the difference in the versions of the GPS data, and the FAA’s website was not particularly informative that the data could only be in the one format. When my former classmate entered her numbers, the FAA’s webpage was truncating the last few characters, resulting in the grossly inaccurate maps it was generating. It was an easy matter to set the lineman college’s GPS unit to the FAA’s required method, and the data that was already recorded was automatically converted.

Jennifer was pleased to have that issue resolved, but that didn’t constitute enough of a “real world” solution for my final project. I decided to provide them with a GIS map of all their poles, with the heights of each one recorded along with their GPS coordinates. Of course, they already knew where their poles were, and how tall they were. But every time they replaced a pole, even if it was in the same place and the same height as its predecessor, they had to submit a new report to the FAA. I figured my map would facilitate this process.

I painstakingly gathered the GPS coordinates for each pole. I often had to work around the student linemen as they were practicing their new trade. Working near all those utility poles and the rough men who serviced them sometimes gave me flashbacks to the bad old Osmosis days, but it pleased me to reflect upon how two past experiences – one good but under-utilized (geography major) and one bad (utility pole inspector) – were coming together at that particular point in time. I felt like I was on the right path to something better.

Unfortunately, a map of some utility poles – while useful to my “client” – still did not satisfy the criteria of the project, which had to involve some actual analysis. I had already spent the majority of my time creating the map, and had to scramble to come up with some way to use the data in a meaningful manner. With Chris’s help I was able to come up with a hypothetical utility company and demonstrate how GIS could be used to calculate maintenance costs based upon the location of different parcels of land.

My project passed the requirements to graduate from the GWTP, but I was not very proud of it. All the other students had come up with actual problem-solving projects for actual businesses and groups. I felt like mine was weak by comparison. Even at that, it did attract the attention of a real business owner with a real problem that needed fixing, which actually lead to a real job…sort of.

We presented our final projects to our clients and pretty much anyone else who was interested. Among the attendees was the owner of the businesses which rented a space in the converted factory where the GWTP was held. This nice lady, whom I shall call Susan, in partnership with her father and brother, was trying to develop a radical new form of clean energy production called flying electric generators (FEGs). They are sort of like little helicopters which are tethered to the ground. They fly to a certain height under battery power. Then high-altitude winds keep them aloft while at the same time generating power by turning their turbines. The electricity is then transmitted to the ground via a cable attached to the tether.

Of course, these high-flying, stationery wind turbines and their tethers present a hazard to aircraft, so they can’t be flown just anywhere. Susan had settled upon Minnesota as the being the best place in the United States for a steady source of high-altitude winds. Now she needed to know just where all the airports were in Minnesota, and other airspace restrictions. She was interested to note that my project had made me familiar with the FAA. There was another student by the name of Dave. I forget what his project was about, but it also attracted Susan’s attention as being relevant to her needs. It probably also didn’t hurt that Dave was from Minnesota.

Susan approached our instructor Chris about the possibility of recruiting my and Dave’s help with her project. Part of the GWTP included a paid internship at College Town University’s Geographical Information Center. The GIC was an off-shoot of the university, but it sold its services to clients in the real world. Our internship was carefully crafted to provide us with actual paid work experience while not violating our unemployment insurance benefits. We had to submit the hours worked each week to the California Employment Development Department, who then adjusted our benefits accordingly.

Generally, the internships ended when students graduated from the GWTP. Special dispensation was made for Dave and me so that we could work with Susan. Susan became a client of the GIC, and my and Dave’s internships were extended so that we could work for our client. We divided up the work. I gathered data and put it into a usable GIS format. Dave was responsible for creating the actual maps. This arrangement suited me just fine. I love finding and collecting data, but my cartographic skills have never been particularly strong. Dave was less keen on data, but he had a real talent for creating attractive looking maps.

In a short amount of time I had to become something of an expert on our nation’s airspace, which is rather complicated. I also had to find data on every airport in Minnesota, and I mean EVERY airport, no matter how small. I actually found one small airport which, when displayed in our GIS, didn’t match the description of its coordinates. In fact, this Minnesota airport was displaying as being in a completely different state when plugged into our GIS software. I discovered that its coordinates had been erroneously entered, much like Jennifer’s poles. I informed the good people responsible for such things back in Minnesota of the discrepancy, and they were very grateful.

I also found two more anomalous airports which at first I thought were mistakes. The first one appeared to be in the middle of a lake, but it turned out to be a sea plane base. The runway of another one appeared to cross the border with Canada, which didn’t seem right. Upon investigation, this tiny airport really does span both countries. You start your take-off or landing in one nation, and end it in the other one. I don’t know how this came about, but it’s the only one of its kind.

All in all, Susan was very pleased with our results. She wrote me a very nice letter of recommendation, which I still have. So now I had a brand-new certificate in GIS to update the one I had received from College Town University and a new-found confidence in my ability to parley my training into a lucrative career, which is something I had not gleaned from my earlier education. We were in a fortunate position at the time wherein we would have been able to relocate if needed, so I began to apply every place I could think of.

Some organizations often offered different positions for which I was felt I was qualified. It started to become difficult to remember just which ones I had already applied for, so in order to avoid repeating myself, I started keeping a very thorough log of the exact details of each position I applied to with the date and other relevant information. Chris had said that on average a person had to apply one hundred times before finally landing a job. By the time I reached about 80 applications in my log book, I figured I must be getting close. Out of those 80, I only got three interviews (all by phone because of distance), but they did not result in an offer of employment. I used to think that I was pretty good at getting jobs. After all, I’d had over 80 of them by that point. Of course, there had been more jobs that I tried to get, but hadn’t, and apparently I’m not so good at getting a very specific job.  It seems rather ironic that the guy who’d had over 80 jobs couldn’t get one job out of over 80 applied for.

Under Obama’s various programs to stimulate the economy, I kept getting extensions on my unemployment insurance benefits, but that was about to end, and I was getting desperate to find a job. This desperation led me to make a very tragic mistake. One of the few jobs which I came close to landing was with Davey Tree, which has a GIS division which gathers data on former trees, A.K.A: utility poles. I was very careful that the job wouldn’t be like Osmosis, and by all appearances it only involved tramping about the quiet countryside with a GPS device. I ended speaking by phone with a (seemingly) nice man who was fairly high up in the management structure of Davey. He advised me that all their data collection positions were on the east coast, and the pay wasn’t high enough to justify me relocating. Despite our previously mentioned fortunate situation, I had to admit the wisdom of his advice. He said he was willing to help me, and he knew someone in my area who might be interested.

Job #84: Utility Pole Inspection and Treatment (again!)

That someone was a woman (whom we shall call Molly) who had been a manager at Davey, and had started her own pole inspection and treatment business. Davey also inspects and treats utility poles, and Molly sub-contracted with her former employers to provide this service for utility companies.
This woman, whom we shall call Molly, upon the suggestion of the (seemingly) nice man from Davey, had one of her foremen contact me. When he told me the nature of the job, I was very apprehensive after my traumatic experience with Osmosis. I asked a lot of questions to make sure this would be different. Molly’s company wasn’t big enough to have recruiters, so I felt confident that I wasn’t being lied to. I eventually agreed to sign on with this small company. I knew the work would be hard, but I wasn’t afraid of hard work. I just didn’t want to kill myself while constantly being told I wasn’t meeting some unrealistic production quota. I was also giving in to my old habit of trying to correct a mistake from the past. I thought if I could do well at Osmosis-type work in a non-Osmosis-type environment, I would redeem myself for the mistakes I had made at Osmosis.

Well, it turns out I had been lied to. Molly’s was just like Osmosis. If anything, Molly’s was worse because they were less well-funded than Osmosis. I reported for my first day of foreman training in Orland. I had been told that if I was working out of town, my accommodations would be paid for. This was in September, and it was still brutally hot in the Sacramento Valley. After that first 10-hour day, I showed up at the local motel where the rest of the crews were staying. When I gave my name at the front desk, I was told there was no reservation for me. I called the foreman (whose name I can’t recall, but he was such a carbon copy of Osmosis’s Rick that I shall call him Rick 2) to find out what was up. Rick 2 informed me that in actuality they only paid for a room if the work was more than an hour from my hometown, and Orland was “only” 45 minutes away. The other crew members were from further away than me, so they got a room. This was bullshit. Now I was faced with a 90 minute round-trip commute in addition to 10 hour days. I should have quit right then, but I had already made an investment in boots and other gear, and I needed work badly, so I grimly determined to stick it out in the hopes that things would be better when I became a foreman again and got my own truck and crew.

I had one near-death experience with Molly’s which topped anything Osmosis had thrown at me. I was drilling into a ridiculously small-diameter pole which supported the cable and fuse-box going to a massive pump on a farm. At Osmosis we had never drilled into poles that small, and also never on privately-owned poles like this one. I had accidentally drilled all the way through larger poles with Osmosis, and now I was a few years’ out of practice, and working on a much smaller pole than previously encountered. I went right through that sucker in no time flat. Oh, well, I figured – it happens sometimes. Then the foreman I was training with pointed at something on the back side of the pole. The 400 volt cable ran down the back of the pole, and my drill bit had come within less than an 8th of an inch of nicking the insulation of the cable. If I had nicked it, the rubber soles of my boots probably wouldn’t have been thick enough to prevent all 400 volts from going to ground right through me. At least I probably would have been dead before the gas in the drill’s tank could have exploded.

Also the intervening years as a vendor and a GIS intern had done nothing to prepare my body for jumping back into the rigors of pole inspection and treatment. Every joint and muscle in my body was screaming. And apparently I had not invested enough in those boots, for they soon started to wear away at the backs of my heels. I tried applying moleskin and an extra layer of socks, but it kept getting worse. One day I couldn’t walk anymore because the pain was so intense.  I had go sit in the truck with my boots and socks off until the crew could take a break and drive me to my Blazer (which was parked at the motel I couldn’t use). When the other guys on the crew saw the hideous half-dollar sized holes on the backs of my heels, they knew I wasn’t just being a wimp. They couldn’t believe I had lasted as long as I did. I then drove home barefooted while trying to keep my raw wounds off the dirt on the floor of the Blazer.

So I had some time off. I had to apply for Worker’s Compensation and Disability. The thing with Worker’s Compensation is that it is paid for by your employer’s insurance company, so trying to get money out of them is no easy task. The investigators I spoke to on the phone were incredibly sympathetic when they saw the photos of my heels, but that didn’t stop them from ruling that Molly’s was not responsible for my injuries. I wasn’t surprised. Disability insurance, on the other hand, is a state- run program paid for by you, the employee. They are usually much more relaxed about paying you if you are injured and can’t work, even if it’s your fault.  So at least I got some disability payments for the few weeks that it took my heels to…heal.

I put my time off to good use. I kept searching for GIS jobs to apply for. I approached Jesse, the head of the GIS department of O-Town city government, and volunteered my time just so I could keep up on my skills and to gain more work experience that I could put on a resume. Actually the GIS department at O-Town city hall was so small that Jesse was not only the head, he was pretty much the entire department. I met him when he came to the GWTP along with some other local GIS employers to tell us about employment opportunities in the area. He was a fairly recent graduate of the geography College Town University, and he had lucked into this real government GIS job because he had gone to school with the person who was leaving the position.

Anyone loves free help, so Jesse took me on. I feel like I did some good work for him during the short time I was there, and I increased my understanding of GIS in the process. Unfortunately, my feet had healed sufficiently to allow me to return to Molly’s. I desperately needed to extricate myself from that awful situation. I had even sent an email to the (seemingly) nice man at Davey, explaining my unfortunate injury at Molly’s, but reiterating my interest in data collection, despite the distance of the jobs from my home. I told him that as long as I was careful and had good boots, I felt I could handle a bunch of hiking. I followed up a couple of days later with a phone call. The (seemingly) nice man must have talked to Molly, because he suddenly wasn’t so nice anymore. In as many words, he said he wasn’t interested and hung up with a bang.

When it came time for me to make my reluctant return to Molly’s, I bought a different pair of boots – ones which seemed like they wouldn’t hurt my heels. When I tried them on, my wounds were still too recent, and the pain was too much. I had to call Molly’s and beg for more time off. I was hoping they would fire me, because I was no longer technically on disability, but employers are reluctant to fire an injured employee under any circumstances for fear of lawsuits.

I was once again in the awful situation of needing to get out of a job, but unable to quit with nothing to fall back on. When I could no longer claim that my feet were preventing me from working, I pretended to have car trouble. I ended up talking to Molly herself for the first time. She asked why I couldn’t take Greyhound to work, which was now located in Redding, more than an hour’s drive from O-Town, so at least my accommodations would be paid for. I tried to be as difficult as possible without actually being defiant in the hopes that she would decide I was too much trouble and fire me, but to no avail. Eventually I had to say I’d figure something out about my car (which was fine except for an unfortunately quart-a-day oil habit), and a couple of days later I  drove myself to Redding the night as if driving to my own execution. I stayed in the motel, but I didn't sleep well because I had tremendous anxiety about what lay ahead of me.

Those first few days back were awful. The crew I had been working with in Orland were there, and they were genuinely concerned about the welfare of my feet. I was going to be working with a different crew, however for which I was glad. I was definitely not planning on being a good employee, and I didn’t want to subject them to that, because they had been decent to me. I had worked with the other foreman a couple of times in Orland, and he had been nice then, but by now I had gained a (well-earned) reputation as a difficult trainee. He was none too pleased to be stuck with me, so that made for a pleasant couple of days.

My new boots protected my feet just fine, but the rest of me was a wreck, emotionally and physically. October in the North Valley is usually still hot, and Redding is notorious for being one of the absolutely hottest places in California. And the soil there is nothing but hard-packed red clay and rocks. One day I had to make a full excavation around a large-circumference pole. The dirt was so hard it was like hacking through concrete. The foreman I was working with kept coming around to check on my progress and couldn’t believe how little of it there was. I didn’t care – I was trying to get fired, after all. In reality, I don’t think I could have done much better if I had cared to. That Redding soil is ridiculous.

An eight-hour day under such conditions would be bad enough, but 10 hours is like a never-ending trip through hell. After 9 hours I couldn’t take any more. I went to the poor foreman who was saddled with me and said I had to go back to the motel because I was sick. He didn’t want to take the time to drive me, so hecalled me a cab, which took a big chunk out of my expenses budget for the week, because we were working some distance from beautiful downtown Redding. I got back to the motel and took a shower. IRick 2 called me and said I was suspended for three days for leaving work early. I thought, “Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s not fired, but it’s a start".

I began packing up my stuff for the drive back to O-Town. I took my time because it was past check-out time on the room. I was even wondering if I could sleep there and leave in the morning. That question was soon answered when Rick 2 called me back and said that I’d better not be thinking about trying to sleep at the motel because they weren’t going to pay for it if I was suspended. I didn't bother to remind him that the room was already paid for.

So I got another nice little reprieve from that awful job, albeit unpaid. Sadly, the three days came to an end and once again I was forced with having to go back to Redding - and on my 51st birthday, too – but I had hatched a new plan. I didn’t tell Mrs. Rimpington my plan, because she was convinced that nothing I could do would get me fired free and clear, and she wouldn’t have approved of this plan, but I was confident it would work.

I would have preferred to drive up the night before work and stayed in the motel so I could be fresh for work the next morning. Molly’s, however, was not going to pay for a room for me on the last night of my three-day suspension, so I had no choice but to get up extra early (much too early for our family tradition of birthday breakfast in bed) and drive for 90 minutes to report for my 10-hour day. If my plan didn’t work, I’d be in for one fuck of a miserable day.

I left an hour earlier than I needed to, which was actually all part of my plot. About 10 miles north of College Town, I pulled over and took a nap. I figured I could explain later that I had left so early because I wasn’t sure how long the drive would take, but when I realized I was ahead of schedule, I decided to take a nap. You know, out of concern for safety and being a productive employee.

 I actually did sleep a bit, but instead of setting the alarm on my cell phone to allow me enough time to finish my drive in time for work, I set it so that I would be late. When I awoke, I made a “panicked” call to Rick 2 explaining that I had over-slept – I dunno, I guess my alarm didn’t work, or I hadn’t heard it. I told him I was on my way and gave him an estimated time of arrival. He told me to forget it, I was done. I wanted to make absolutely certain I understood him, so I asked him to clarify. He said I was fired –terminated -discharged. Such magical words to my ears! But I had to play along. I said, “Are you sure?” I didn’t want to protest or beg too much in case I accidentally stimulated some long-dead sympathy nerve in him and he changed his mind. He confirmed that they had given me all the chances they could and “sayonara”.  I muttered, “Oh, okay” and hung up and then did a happy jig alongside the Golden State Highway.

I drove back to O-Town with a lighter heart. When I walked into the house, Mrs. R couldn’t believe it when I said I had actually gotten fired. I then explained my brilliant scheme, and she had to admit the sagacity of it. I then sat on the bed and asked Grandrimpy to bring me two slices of left-over pizza on a plate. Those in attendance sang “Happy Birthday” and I had my breakfast in bed, after all. It was one of the best birthdays ever.

So, okay, I committed fraud. I admit. But it wasn’t for long. Barely two months later I got hired at Job #85 (bus driver). I didn’t even put Molly’s down as a previous employer on my application. I knew I wouldn’t get a good reference, and my total time with them hadn’t been long enough to constitute a significant gap in employment.

I’ve been at my bus job for over five years now.  However, I don’t plan on being with them until I retire. Plans are underway for a major relocation and a similar job for a different employer, but that won’t be for a couple more years. I will be very careful to never get myself into a situation where I need to get fired from a job, for any reason. I’m too now old for such shenanigans.

In the next (and hopefully final) chapter I’ll talk about my current job, and we’ll see if I’ve learned anything. I think I have. Ta!
The end.






Sunday, February 7, 2016

Chapter 28: Best Job Ever

This chapter is dedicated to Tim “Casher O’Neill” Pouncey, one of the best friends and without a doubt the best writer anyone could hope to meet, in “real” life or on-line.

Chapter 28: Best Job Ever



2006 -2009

Job #82:  Vendor

I seem to operate opposite of the old wisdom “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I’m finding it difficult to think of anything to say about this employer (whom we shall call “Intersection”), because I have nothing negative to say about them. This was – hands-down –  my favorite job (so far). I’d probably still be working there if fate – in the form of economic forces and consequent corporate decisions – hadn’t intervened.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Intersection provided what’s known as in-store services to a popular chain of home improvement stores, whom we shall henceforth call Home Improvo. “In-store service provider” is a bit of a mouthful (that’s what she said), so we answered to various titles, usually “merchandiser” or – most often – “vendor”, although vendors usually represent a particular manufacturer. Intersection didn’t do that, instead providing general merchandising services for all the products in the electrical department at Home Improvo.

The job was so simple that I almost felt guilty for making 15 dollars an hour doing it. It really required no special skills or even any knowledge of electricity or electrical products. The going rate for new hires was nine dollars an hour, and 14 for more senior employees, but it tended to vary on a case by case basis. Pete talked his regional manager, Nan, into offering me 15 an hour because he knew I was a good worker and had supervisorial experience, and that they had to make it lucrative enough to lure me away from my higher wage at Osmosis. Actually, I was so grateful for any reason to flee Osmosis that I would have done it for peanuts. Later Intersection officially set the top wage at 14 an hour, but they continued to honor my wage, so I was actually making more than other people who had been there longer than me. I kept that a secret from my co-workers to avoid engendering resentment.

It wasn’t a hard secret to keep, because I rarely saw any of my co-workers. We usually worked alone, which suited me fine. If there was a big project, such as a “reset” of several “bays” (the shelves between the upright supports) of a major group of products, some other vendors would come in to help. I never traveled, because I still had transportation limitations, in the form one crappy automobile which I couldn’t deprive my family of. I spent two days a week in the O-Town store, and three days a week in the College Town store. On O-Town days, Mrs. R or Step-Rimpyette would drop me off and pick me up, and on College Town days I would take the bus.

The co-worker I saw the most often was my supervisor, Pete, at first. He would stop by about once a week to see how I was doing, and to give me any supplies I might need to do my job. Pete soon left for a different job, and he was briefly replaced by another young man whose name I can’t recall. When he departed, another former co-worker was my supervisor for a time, and then my former peer Lisa took over the position, and she remained in that post until shortly before I left Intersection.

My life soon settled into a rhythm of contentedly working at Home Improvo, without actually working for Home Improvo, if you take my meaning. Of course, my company worked for Home Improvo, so I guess the case could be made that I did, in fact, work for HI, although we once worked in an Orchard Supply Hardware Store. For all intents and purposes, HI was basically Intersection’s only client. It didn’t seem particularly wise to me to put all their eggs in one basket like that. What if HI changed their minds? We’ll find out.

It seems like it was almost no time at all before I had passed that mythical two year mark which always seemed to be the death knell for any job I had. I did indeed start to experience that familiar sense of ennui after having done one job for too long. But rather than doing something stupid like quitting, I just kept plugging away, and eventually the feeling passed, and before I knew it I had breezed past the three year mark, which left my previous longevity record at Lear Memorial Chapel in the dust. All told, I was with Intersection for about three years and two months.

Despite the generally non-strenuous nature of the work, I managed to injure myself rather grievously a couple of times on that job. One time, I was resetting a bay, which involved removing the shelf beams from their slots in the upright supports. This usually involved smacking upward on the underside of one end of the steel beams with a small sledge hammer until it popped loose, then repeating the process on the other end. It was usually tricky trying to find a balance between hitting the beam hard enough to dislodge it, and not hitting so hard that you sent it crashing to the floor. Sometimes the end you had loosened first would work itself firmly back into its slot while you were smacking away at the other end, so you’d have to wang away at that end a second time. If you were doing this while standing on the floor, you could support the middle of the beam with one hand while flailing away with the hammer on the end.  I could have recruited the help of one of the store associates, but I tried to avoid having to bother them while they were trying to do their jobs.

One this particular day I had to move the top shelf of the bay, so I procured one of the huge rolling metal stair cases you’ve probably seen in warehouse stores. I got one end of the beam just loose enough to support itself, and then I moved the stair to the other end. From this precarious perch, I couldn’t support the middle of the beam. When the second end came loose, the beam flew out of the bay and went crashing down the stair case to the tile floor below. The noise was incredible. As it fell, the end of the beam struck me on the right shin. While the echoes of my catastrophe were still ringing throughout the store, I pulled up my pants leg to see an L-shaped wound in my leg. A split second later blood came welling out of that new hole. So…much…blood. I think that was the most I have ever bled at any one time. A store associate called out from a neighboring aisle, “Are you alright?” I quietly said, “No”, then sat down on the floor and applied pressure through my pants. The associate ran and got some gauze pads and bandages and did a good job of patching me up. I sat down in the break room with an ice pack on my elevated leg and called Lisa to tell her what happened.

I ended up finishing my shift that day with a goose egg-sized lump and a bloody bandage on my leg. My pants were black, so the blood didn’t show, so I wasn’t frightening the customers. I really should have gone ahead and gone to the hospital to be checked out, but I didn’t want to be any more trouble after my stupidity with the beam. When I got home, I showed Rimpy Jr. my pants leg and said, “You see this dark stain here?” He said he did, and I said, “I’m sorry, son, but that’s blood”, then I showed him my gory bandage and formerly white sock. He said, “That’s terrible, but why are you sorry?” to which I replied, “These are your pants.” I had unintentionally grabbed his pants out of the dryer.

I think Intersection told me to take a couple of days off, which I gladly did. The next day, my lower leg was turning some interesting colors, which concerned me, so went to the hospital after all. I’m a bit of an idiot when it comes to work-place injuries, and the whole miasma of rules and regulations surrounding Disability Insurance and Worker’s Compensation. When I innocently told the doctor I had hurt my leg at work, he had to call my employer. Lisa had to bring me yet another form to fill out. I had already filled one out the day before so that Home Improvo could be exonerated from any blame. She was a little peeved that I hadn’t informed Intersection before I went to the doctor, but I didn’t know I was supposed to. My leg was okay, but it took a while to heal. I still have an ugly mark from that beam. After that I got smarter about how I moved beams. I got a couple of bungy cords and used them to support the beams at both ends while I smacked them loose. I wish I had thought of that earlier, rather than inviting injury, embarrassment and inconvenience.

My other on-the-job injuries were less dramatic, being of the repetitive-stress kind. One of my duties was the care of the “light cloud”, that section of the store with working models of ceiling fans and wall and ceiling lights. The hardest part of that job was hefting heavy chandeliers and other hanging lights up a ladder and into place in the overhead rails.

One day I began to notice discomfort in my shoulders while doing this. I figured it was just muscle soreness and took ibuprofen. When that didn’t help, and the pain worsened, I decided it was time to seek help. I had learned my lesson from the incident with the beam, so I called Lisa to inform her of the problem.

Intersection sent me to a doctor, where I was x-rayed and diagnosed with bursitis in my rotator cuff. All that extending my arms over my head to install heavy fixtures had taken its toll. I had never been at a job long enough to acquire a slow-to-develop injury like that. Intersection’s insurance offered to pay for some physical therapy, but I couldn’t get to it with my schedule, so I let it go. I just made sure to be extra careful when hanging fixtures, but the pain didn’t completely go away until long after I left Intersection. To this day I still have twinges of pain when I reach over my head.

This was in the late summer or early fall. About this time a lot of things were happening at once regarding my future. Because of the great economic downturn which occurred in 2008, Home Improvo decided that they could save money by forming their own teams of associates to handle the merchandising services which they had been paying contractors like Intersection to provide. Now that “all the eggs in one basket” business model I mentioned earlier was biting my employers in the butt. They were scrambling to find ways to survive the loss of their biggest and practically only client. Finally it was announced that almost all of us would be laid off at the end of September

I applied to be one of Home Improvo’s in-store services team members. They had seen my work for over three years, and I was well-liked by the staff of the stores I worked in, so I had no trouble being offered the position. Before I could accept, though, a much more attractive opportunity presented itself.

Among president Obama’s many programs to stimulate the economy was a series of courses to train displaced workers for new careers. In my area, a geography professor at College Town University had put together something with the weighty title of “Geospatial Workforce Training Program”. Essentially this course would train people with no prior experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to find work in that field. It was just a stroke of luck that I found out about the program, and just in time to apply and be approved. The best part of the program was that participants could collect Unemployment Insurance payments. Normally UI won’t allow you to receive benefits if you’re in school.

The fact that I had prior training in GIS was not a bar to qualification. One problem was I needed to actually be a displaced worker. It was true that I had been downsized from Intersection, but I had an offer from HI. If I accepted the new job, I couldn’t take the course. So I had a choice: work for HI at about my same pay, or subsist on unemployment for a year or so while getting re-trained for a more lucrative career. I chose the latter. I thanked HI for the offer, but politely declined.

Another problem was that the geospatial program was going to start before my last day at Intersection. I couldn’t leave Intersection early without disqualifying myself from the program. Fate intervened once again on my behalf, albeit in a rather painful manner.

My final on-the-job injury couldn’t have had better timing. Vendors spend a lot of time on their knees, in order to service the lowest shelves. After a bit, my knees were getting a bit sore from this, so I started wearing knee pads, which helped. Toward the end of time at Intersection, and despite the use of the pads, a large lump appeared below the cap of one of my knees, accompanied by discomfort. I dutifully informed my employers, who once again sent me to a doctor. It was my old nemesis bursitis. I had to take a couple of weeks off from work, which meant I missed my last official day there, but I was still a displaced worker, so I was able to start the geospatial course on time.

The other interesting thing that happened near the end of my time at Intersection was that my supervisor Lisa suddenly departed shortly after the announcement of the lay-offs. Intersection needed somebody to fill her position, but apparently there were no qualified people in-house, and they didn’t want to hire someone for a job that was only going to last a few more weeks. I called our regional supervisor, Nan, and offered myself for the job. She said she was very glad to hear me say that and the job was mine if I wanted it, which pleased me greatly (although I wondered why she hadn’t asked me) Actually, I hadn’t properly thought through the realities of the position. I was still transportationally-impaired with the one oil-hemorrhaging Chevy Blazer we owned. I couldn’t go ver well go gallivanting all around the region, checking up on vendors and visiting the company headquarters in the Bay Area (which I never once saw the whole time I worked there). I think I knew these things in the back of my mind when I called Nan, but I really wanted to see whether she would accept me or not. It was an ego thing. So I had to embarrass myself a little by calling her back the next day and admitting that I had made the offer in haste. If I’d had a dependable second car, I probably would have tried my hand at being a supervisor. I hadn’t enjoyed being a foreman at Osmosis, but I think I could have made a go of it at Intersection.

Intersection almost went under after they lost Home Improvo. They went through some serious restructuring and even changed their name. A year or so after I left I visited their website, just to see how they were doing. The employee portal, where we kept track of our current and up-coming projects, had not been updated since that fateful September of 2009 when we were all laid off. It was a little eerie – like a cyber ghost town.

I just checked again to see if I could safely use their real name in this chapter. They’re again using the original name and talking about their glorious history with Home Improvo. I'm glad to see they survived all the economic turmoil.

I was in College Town’s Home Improvo store with the family just before Christmas when we were shopping for a tree. I paid a nostalgic visit to the electrical department. In the bay with demo models of work lamps, I saw that my handwritten “TRY ME” in Sharpie was still visible on the switch box. It made me wish I was still working there, but I’ve been driving the bus for so long that I’m finally making more than did with Intersection. And oddly enough, I don’t hate bus driving so much that I’d be willing to take a cut in pay to get out of it. Funny how life goes, isn’t it?

But getting back to the narrative, I had left job number 82 – the best job ever – and was about to embark upon a new journey with the Geospatial Workforce Training Program, but we’ll save that for the next chapter.

The end.