I was 19 in 1976, and sometime during that year, I decided it
was time to leave my manufacturing job and try to get something
more permanent. The details are pretty fuzzy, because we are
talking around 34 years ago, and frankly, the succession of my
jobs over my life is a blur.
But somehow, I was able to land a job with Rockwell, which if I
had stuck with, could have ended up for me a real career!
I seem to recall that I was on some sort of assembly line,
soldering parts for circuit boards. I had never done this sort of
work before, but with a little training it was not hard to
master it.
I am just realizing at this moment that this is the first time I
have even thought about this job in more years than I can
remember...so I am trying to recall the specifics...so many
decades ago, it is hard. Thank you Blogspot for making me do
this, another great reason to blog, whether I get any readers or
comments or not!
So, here are my thoughts on this job:
1. I remember it was boring, and I did not like doing it.
2. I don't recall how long I had this job, but it was not very
long, no more than a few months at the most.
3. I also don't recall if I quit, or was fired due to any
performance issues.
The more I think about this, the more I can kick myself...here I
was, a young kid not quite 20 years old, getting into a solid
company on the ground floor. I now realize that whatever this
boring assembly job was, I could have applied myself, gotten
some kind of education related to that field, and probably would
have moved up pretty quickly. This memory, and what could
have been is quite painful to me now!
Wait till you see Part Five, and the downturn my working life
took as a result of me somehow throwing away this great
opportunity!
The expression 'If I had known then what I know now' has never
applied to anyone more than it does to me right now.
And you know, I try to tell this to The Daughter...just like my
dad tried to tell me when I was a kid. And I just didn't listen.
The Daughter doesn't listen either, nor can I expect her to.
It just pains me that that if I can't get through to her, and
she ends up with a miserable working life, there is nothing I
can do about it.
Now, being born in 1956, I had just barely missed the draft, but
I did almost enlist in the Navy several times. Perhaps that is
something I should have done, who knows where that may have
led me?
Peace be with you.
When I tried to stress important things to my kids, one of them told me... "Mom, you've got to let us fall on our own A**!" Yep, they've all taken some nasty falls. Lord knows, I tried.
ReplyDeleteI think we all have those "What if" moments we look back on....
ReplyDeletei liked the bit about your daughter not understanding/caring.
ReplyDeletemade me think about how i treat my dad.
Joe, I wish I had listened to my dad regarding so many different things. Most importantly getting out of debt before moving out of mom's house. Because of those college credit cards, I will never own a home... I guess life lessons can only be learned by actually living it :( Thanks for this post.
ReplyDeleteJoe...we are all gonna have our "Jesus" moment when we realize that we need to do something that we shoulda done a long time ago, or sometimes not do what we were thinking of doing....Growing pains suck, but you can at least put your mind around it and not fault your daughter for not listening to ya... (I wish I woulda took a nickle's worth of advice from my dad).
ReplyDeleteJoe, I'm sure your message of education being important and having a job you like is making its way even though she doesn't look really responsive..! She looks like a great kid with an awesome dad who has her best interests to heart and I'm sure she listens more than you think she does!;)
ReplyDeleteThey say hindsight is 20 20 and looking back we all have shoulda, coulda, woulda's.
ReplyDeleteIf we shoulda taken a different path then coulda we have done any better than we actually did and woulda we have the loving family we do now because we took that different path.
Our kids are just like we were as you pointed out when it comes to listening, all we can do is give the advise it is their job to either take it or not.