A Story
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
Now is a good time to go back and read my July 17th post because this relates to it.
When I was about 19 I decided to go on Dave’s big adventure. I left my little town in the hills of Vermont, drove to the big city of Hartford, Connecticut and got a job with a large company that made helicopters, jet engines, parts for spaceships and lots of other cool stuff.
I settled in to take my place in the great American work force. Things went pretty well for a year or so until I got “laid off.” It was not my fault. The union in another part of the factory went on strike for longer coffee breaks or something, leaving my part of the factory without work. My whole existence was supported by money from that job and the prospect of having none for awhile was a shock.
During my time off I had reason to examine what having a job for money was costing me. First was the time. I worked eight hours. I had a half hour lunch break and it took an hour and a half, round trip, to commute when the traffic was reasonable. That was ten hours a day, often six days a week because the factory was doing well.
I drove my car over 200 miles per week just to go to work and back. It was a nice new Pontiac. I bought it with economy in mind. The brochure said the engine, with a two-barrel carburetor, would get 15 miles per gallon so I got the GTO option with THREE two-barrel carburetors, expecting to get 45 miles per gallon. For some reason that never worked out. Nice car though.
To have this job required that I pay for work uniforms and a laundering service supplied by a vendor company. I had to buy special safety glasses and expensive shoes with steel toes. They did let me use a safety helmet for free when one was needed. Wearing socks and underwear was my choice.
Then there was the apartment. I rented a couple of rooms in an old farmhouse in the country and it was really nice. The landlady was like a grandmother to me, but it was costing me nearly a quarter of my take-home pay and I hardly did anything there but sleep.
Speaking of pay, there was a serious difference between what the company paid me and what I took home. There were these things called payroll deductions that sucked up about a third of my money. Taxes, work services, union dues, charity donations and other niggling little things I can’t remember. Then there were car payments, utilities, insurance premiums, fuel for the car and food for me.
During my forced time off I came to realize all the parasitic expenses I had overlooked in order to have a job. When money is coming in regularly that is easy to do. Now, in my defense, I was young, healthy and seriously distracted by the number of lovely young city ladies who needed me for their social entertainment. However, it was during that “laid off” time that I began to form a philosophy which led me to where I am now. I will share that with you next time.
